INTERVIEW: Huw Warren

Huw Warren. Photo credit: Ian Mackenzie-Thurley

Pianist/composer Huw Warren lives in North Wales, and mostly teaches at the RWCMD in Cardiff. On May 27th he comes to London, bringing not one but two new/current projects to the Vortex. Sebastian interviewed him by email to find out more: 
LondonJazz News: What are the stories here? First there's a not-yet-released solo piano CD...? 

Huw Warren: I actually recorded a solo concert about a year ago. It was at Cardiff University and part of a Bach Festival, so I played some arrangements of Bach keyboard music (preludes from the  Well-Tempered Clavier) along with my own compositions and my usual eclectic mix of Brazilian tunes, John Dowland and free impro! When I heard the recordings back, they sounded like a very good documentation of the concert but not exactly the album I was hearing in my head. Having said that, it made me quite enthusiastic about working on a solo release. My last solo record was Infinite Riches in a Little Room in 2002 on Babel; and I think for most instrumentalists a solo recording is the most personal musical statement one can make. For me, that personal angle is based on a wide range of material, and trying to find a language that dosen't necessarily sound like Jazz or Classical music.

LJN: Where did you record the album?

HW: I was lucky and managed to book some time in the same hall (The concert hall in Cardiff University, with a spectacularly good steinway!) and over 2 sessions managed to capture the recordings that make up the album. It was great to work with a young Cardiff based engineer Sam Barnes, then take the tracks to London to mix with Gerry O'Riordan. Gerry had worked previously with me on Infinite Riches, Barrel Organ, 100's of Things a Boy Can Make, Duw a Wyr and several Perfect Houseplants recordings, so he definitely knows how I like the piano to sound.

LJN: You are known for the wide range you cover stylistically. What have you chosen for this solo CD?

HW: The Album opens with a Brazilian Tune (Hermeto Pascoal's O Farol que Nos Guia) and ends with a beautiful tune by another brazilian, the briliant guitarist and song wrieter Guinga. In between are several new compositions of mine, a revisiting of the Houseplants tune EE, a composition from my Dylan Thomas centenary comission of 2015, and two pieces based on the JS Bach preludes.

LJN: When is the CD being released ? 

HW: The album will be officially released in the Autumn but will be available to preorder from my website (link below) in the next month or so.

read more at: http://www.londonjazznews.com/2016/05/interview-huw-warren-preview-of-new.html

June Tabor / Iain Ballamy / Huw Warren: Quercus

By JOHN KELMAN, Published: May 28, 2013

Awaiting release for more than seven years, Quercus is not the first time ECM has branched into the realm of traditional British music combined with jazz improvisation. Unlike the rawer and more unfettered freedom of producer Steve Lake's inspired pairing of singer Robin Williamson with improvisers including violist Mat Maneri, bassist Barre Phillips and Swedish traditionalist Ale Möller on recordings like The Iron Stone (2007), however, Quercus is a more refined, elegant and dark live recording that pairs renowned British singer June Tabor with saxophonist Iain Ballamy—already known to ECM audiences for his electro-centric collaboration with Norwegian percussionist Thomas Strønen in Food, last heard on Mercurial Balm (2012)—and pianist Huw Warren, who like Tabor is making his first ECM appearance here.

This live recording from March, 2006 may be long overdue, but this is not something for which ECM is to blame. As far back as the trio's sublime performance at the 2007 Punkt Festival, in Kristiansand, Norway, Ballamy and Warren were talking about a recording looking for a label. When ECM came into the picture is unclear, but it's fortuitous—as much for its intended audience as the musicians that made the record—that it did.

Tabor, Ballamy and Warren have intersected before. Ballamy first guested in 2005 on Tabor's At the Wood's Heart (Topic), which, also featuring Warren, who'd been playing with the singer for nearly 20 years, debuting on Aqaba (Topic, 1988). At the Woods's Heart featured other musicians, including longtime Tabor accompanist, guitarist Martin Simpson, who'd made herAbyssinians (Shanachie, 1983) a classic of dark, often depressing but still thoroughly compelling traditional fare, but it was clearly where the idea of Quercus—both the name of the trio and its debut recording—first germinated.

Tabor's reputation as a serious singer who'll not take on a song unless it completely resonates with her on some level means that the song selection which has been key to her success since emerging in the mid-'70s with Steeleye Span's Maddy Prior in Silly Sisters—a perfect pairing if ever there was one—is just as essential to Quercus' achievements. The opening "Lassie Lie Near Me," a traditional tune with lyrics from the pen of poet Robert Burns, may be, at its core, a love song, but its minor-keyed structure and Tabor's delivery ensure its painful longing remains intact. Tabor is not a singer to take great liberties with a melody; instead, her interpretive skills are far subtler—the slightest inflection or barest turn of phrase carrying great weight, even when delivered at a near-whisper, and her earthen, low-register range adding even further to its gravitas.

Read more: http://www.allaboutjazz.com/php/article.php?id=44568#.UaSJPZXhEhQ