Bryan Ferry has unveiled plans to re-work segments of his own back catalogue for new album 'The Jazz Age'.
Bryan Ferry has always been linked to jazz. The singer built up his lounge lizard persona in the 70s, doffing his cap towards the standards in the process. Now the iconic songwriter has outlined plans for a new album, re-working elements of his own discography in a 1920s jazz style. Leafing through his back catalogue, Bryan Ferry worked with a group of top jazz musicians to craft new instrumental versions. Forming The Bryan Ferry Orchestra, sessions turned some of his most famous pieces on their head.
“I started my musical journey listening to a fair bit of jazz, mainly instrumental, and from diverse and contrasting periods” Ferry explained in a press statement. “I loved the way the great soloists would pick up a tune and shake it up – go somewhere completely different – and then return gracefully back to the melody, as if nothing had happened. This seemed to me to reach a sublime peak with the music of Charlie Parker, and later Ornette Colman. More recently, I have been drawn back to the roots, to the weird and wonderful music of the 1920s – the decade that became known as The Jazz Age”.
“After forty years of making records, both in and out of Roxy Music, I thought now might be an interesting moment to revisit some of these songs, and approach them as instrumentals in the style of that magical period. I would like to thank Colin Good and the other outstanding musicians featured on this record (most of who played on Ferry's earlier tribute to the 1930s, the album ‘As Time Goes By’) for bringing a new and different life to these songs – a life without words”.
Looking at the tracklisting, 'The Jazz Age' seems like a curious proposition. Seminal Roxy Music single 'Virginia Plain' saw Brian Eno make extensive use of electronics, using instruments which were simply not available in the 1920s.
Others, though – 'Love Is The Drug' or 'Avalon' for example – lend themselves more easily to a jazz re-working. We shall see, we shall we…
'The Jazz Age' will be released on November 26th.
Tracklisting:
1. Do The Strand.
2. Love Is The Drug.
3. Don’t Stop The Dance.
4. Just Like You.
5. Avalon.
6. The Bogus Man.
7. Slave To Love.
8. This Is Tomorrow.
9. The Only Face.
10. I Thought.
11. Reason Or Rhyme
12. Virginia Plain.
13. This Island Earth.
