Album Notes

Over the past twenty five years I have developed a great love of the county of Cornwall and Jazz music in many forms, either as a soloist or part of an ensemble. Hopefully this recording will provide you with new memories of both these things.
These twelve Cornish Preludes are personal reflections of events and places that have influenced me during my past twenty five years in Cornwall.
I have been very fortunate to collaborate with some excellent musicians here and thank them all for their enthusiasm and input into what has become a highly personal project for me.
A prelude was originally a piece from as early as the 1400's, often improvisatory, where Lutenists and early Keyboard players would check their tuning before performance. Following many years of teaching the history of preludes, I thought I would produce my own set of twelve. It was J.S Bach who is most famous for this tradition writing two books in all keys, twelve major and twelve minor. (Hence the famous 48!). Other sets by the likes of Chopin and Debussy followed in groups of twelve or twenty four.
The Cornish Preludes, rather like those written by Debussy in 1910, are not linked by key.
However, they do contain many of the musical features associated with this style of composition.
Throughout these pieces a musical ear may spot ostinati, pedal notes, modes, whole tone scales, augmented and diminished chords, performed with a fair sprinkling of improvisation.