I have this habit where I feel I have to prove to the world what the trumpet is capable of... And I end up with a three-hour long list of music that I want to play in every album." The Rodrigo adaptation is, perhaps not surprisingly, infused throughout with the spirit of smooth jazz – near-constant drum brushes to begin with, and a string bass underpinning the texture – and in places diverges dramatically from the original. Despite Balsom not having focused on jazz to any great extent in her discography to date, it’s clearly something she has a natural affinity for, with a particularly appealing and at times breathy flugel-like tone in the lower register. Use of the IJM content by those entitled to access by their relationship with a participating institution should read the terms of use for individuals.

That line that Miles Davis played at the time — he had worked this out; he wasn’t just improvising throughout. What he actually did on that final recording was transcribed. He was very deliberate on what ended up on that album, and it wasn’t an accident or a decision to just use the best take. So that got transcribed, and that’s what I recorded and played, in homage to Miles Davis as the composer of the trumpet line of that piece. There were one or two moments which I knew were written down for Miles Davis that he chose not to do, but I did do; certain notes here and there. I think that was because I just liked what Gil Evans had written there, and Miles did his own thing, but I wanted to do what Gil had written. But there are very few of those moments. That’s the exception to the rule. I just wanted to soak up what it was that he was bringing to the trumpet and the repertoire. I wouldn’t describe myself as a jazz musician, so there was no way I was going to make a trumpet line over the top of what Gil Evans had written that was going to be anything like what he did! So why would you ignore that? It was out of my love and respect for him that I recreated that. It’s a risky thing because you could say that it’s just copying, but I see what he wrote as composition. So I don’t see what I’ve done as copying; I see it as reperforming his ideas like you would with any composition.Alison Balsom commented, “This album has been an utter joy to make. I loved every minute of the sessions with the brilliant Britten Sinfonia, conductor Scott Stroman, oboist and cor anglais player Nicholas Daniel and my great friend and collaborator pianist Tom Poster. The concept of this project began decades ago, when I decided that Copland’s Quiet City was a work that everyone needed to hear – especially so as Copland reveals the scene so brilliantly via the solo trumpet and cor. There is a true melancholy in this work that only a certain type of trumpet playing can achieve, and across the collection on the album I’ve tried to show that through the unique lens of the trumpet, the wonderful bridge and mutual respect between the classical composers and arrangers, and the jazz greats can be seen. For many of us, the sentiment behind Quiet Cityis pertinent at the moment, as we emerge from the loneliness of the pandemic and into another chapter of darkness in today’ s turbulent world. Not here. Simon Wright’s arrangement of Gershwin’s much-loved groundbreaker is the centrepiece of this Stateside collection and, you guessed it, it is Balsom who invites us in with that insane glissando. Risky. The clarinet is iconic in this piece, as is the now flashy, now ruminating piano part, which Tom Poster here finds himself sharing with the star of this show. Indeed, there are moments when I swear I can hear Poster’s inner voice muttering ‘move over, Alison, and leave it to me’, because as smart and quirky as Wright’s arrangement is, I did find myself thrown by the split focus between its two principal voices, especially where they are sharing or vying for attention. Generally the mix of colours and timbres feels slightly confusing, over-complicated. You mess with a classic (and one with such a distinct sound world) at your peril, though I would say that the blue tune’s sepia quality is none the worse for being trumpet-toned.

Balsom’s agility in the Rhapsody is remarkable – not just in fast passagework but in huge leaps across the instrument’s range. The price of adapting piano writing for the trumpet! No less beguiling, though, is her expressive, at times weightless, tone in the opening piece – Copland’s magical, atmospheric Quiet City. Its sheer meditative stillness perhaps makes it a more challenging piece to communicate effectively, but between them Balsom, Stroman and cor anglais Nicholas Daniel create something profound. You just signed a five-album deal with Warner. The first one, Quiet City, explores American music from the 20th century and will be released on August 26th. You recorded Copland’s Quiet City, a newly edited version of Bernstein’s Lonely Town from On the Town, Ives’s Unanswered Question, a brand-new orchestral arrangement from Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue, and two works by the iconic Miles Davis/Gil Evans partnership, Concierto de Aranjuez and My Ship. I don’t think of the Bernstein as an arrangement, really. It has a hauntingly beautiful melody with a little trumpet solo at the beginning, but it also has a cor anglais solo. And I thought that the cor anglais solo would work on the trumpet, so I basically just edited it and put the cor anglais bit on the trumpet as well. It wasn’t really that much of a change; the orchestra stayed the same. On the rest of the album, I’m using my Bach C trumpet, which I love, and it was just very straightforward. Especially for the Gershwin, I find it a really virtuosic, peaceful instrument that I love. It just works for me, and it’s a great tool. But I did use thousands of mutes!There’s something intensely evocative about the solo trumpet – a plaintive, plangent, melancholic sound that speaks just as eloquently of the great outdoors as it does of the inner city. Of course, the jazz connotations are inescapable when the hour is late and the mood is blue; and if ever a piece were to be the envy of a player such as Alison Balsom then it would surely be Gershwin’s small but mighty exercise in fusion, Rhapsody in Blue. But it’s Gershwin’s hands on those piano keys and the Paul Whiteman Band’s principal clarinettist turning a tremulous run into an oily glissando that defines it from bar one.