Wild Beauty

None other than the American saxophone player Joe Lovano and the Brussels Jazz Orchestra present the project Wild Beauty featuring compositions by Lovano and arrangements by Gil Goldstein (US), another big name from the jazz and music world. This production is the icing on the BJO's birthday cake as it celebrates its 20th anniversary in 2013.

Wild Beauty comprises 8 compositions by Lovano, brought together in one seamless music sequence that tells the story of composer and soloist Joe Lovano. All the compositions were previously released on various CDs by Lovano, but this is the first time they are performed by a big line-up. “Wild Beauty” is a showcase of his compositions, as it were, as it presents an overview of Lovano’s work, drawing inspiration from his Italian roots. Lovano has dedicated “Wild Beauty” to his Sicilian mother Josephine (Giuseppina) Verzi Lovano, who died in May last year. Gil Goldstein rearranged Lovano’s compositions for the BJO, having been given carte blanche by Joe.

Joe Lovano and Belgium
Lovano has close ties with Belgium. Even before his international breakthrough, he recorded in 1986 with some of the greatest Belgian jazz musicians: Dré Pallemaerts, Bert Joris and Michel Herr. In 1987 Lovano was a guest musician on the album Extremes by Act Big Band & Guests. BJO’s saxophone players Frank Vaganée, Kurt Van Herck, Bart Defoort and Bo Van der Werf all attended workshops with Lovano in the eighties in Belgium. Whenever the BJO performs in New York, Lovano invariably visits a concert.

But Joe Lovano's connection with Belgium goes further back than that. For decades now, Lovano has been the living advertisement for the groundbreaking saxophone mouthpieces of Belgian François Louis. Lovano has also regularly played on the revolutionary Aulochrome, an instrument related to the saxophone and invented by Louis.

Joe Lovano is the most trendsetting saxophonist of the last 20 years, with a recognisable sound and a deep respect for the jazz tradition. In recent years Lovano has played with, amongst others, the Dave Douglas Quintet, Saxophone Summit (with Dave Liebman and the late Michael  Brecker) and coming lady Esperanza Spalding.

Arrangements by Gil Goldstein
The list of artists for whom Goldstein has arranged is as long as it is impressive: David Sanborn, Bobby McFerrin, James Moody, Elton John, Richard Bona, Sting, Randy Brecker, Manhattan Transfer, Al Jarreau and many more. He reworked orchestrations for Miles Davis' "Miles Davis and Quincy Jones play the music of Gil Evans", for which he won a Grammy Award in 1993. Moreover, he produced and arranged Michael Brecker's last two albums, Wide Angles (2003) and Pilgrimage (2007), both of which were awarded Grammys.