Do you know Jon Lord? Who's he? Right, he's the keyboard-man
of Deep Purple. He's even the man who established Deep Purple, but was "the
Grey Cardinal" there. He never was the central person on scene and never made
very long solos as Blackmore and Paice did. But realty he was "the brain" of
Deep Purple, their Inner Leader.
I must say that Lord's solo carrier is more interesting than his personal carrier
in the band. He showed his real abilities just in his solo projects (being almost
always only the shade of Blackmore, Gillan or Coverdale in Deep Purple records).
Unfortunately, but I have only one Lord's album and also the compilation of
his compositions. But it?s enough to me to say that Jon's solo carrier is great.
This great album is absolutely instrumental, based on piano and other keyboards and orchestra. I can call it as Modern Classical Music. Really, the album consists of 8 classical suites (composed by John Lord, of course!) with modern arrangements and some rock and jazzy influences. No doubt, SARABANDE is very clever and serious work with wonderful images and deep images. Album begins by overture named FANTASIA. It?s very suitable as intro, but the basic material is determined by the next 6 compositions. And the last composition is a logical coda. The 2nd song named SARABANDE is mid-tempered orchestral piece with a little smell of latino influence. It has no memorable melody but it's very bright piece. The next suite ARIA is my favorite on album. No doubt, it's the most beautiful moment on album. ARIA is produced by minimum of instruments: piano + back-view of acoustic guitar and light keyboards; very gentle and sad composition. I?m sure that a lot of listeners know this melody rearranged by some well-known musicians and orchestras. The 4th suite GIGUE is maybe the central moment on the album, it's the most impressive piece on it. I can call GIGUE as powerful, almost hard-rock number with great orchestral passages sounding as big-fires or huge lightening falling onto earth. Sometimes such music reminds me the falling of Pompeii or the death of Titanic; GIGUE sounds as a huge catastrophe really. The next composition BOUREE is another memorable moment on album. It's the mixture of Turkish dancing, orchestral jazz and guitar-rock. It has a simple catchy melody but grand arrangement. Sometimes it seems that John Lord plays with Asian jazz-band and Ritchie Blackmore (in moments the guitarist sounds as Blackmore, but it's not Ritchie). Then slow-tempered PAVANE follows, the sad composition full of rainy melancholy of autumn evening. It sounds as modern, typically European music for film, maybe it even can remind you Phillip Glass, Ennio Marricone or Jean-Luc Ponty. It also has wonderful classical Italian acoustic guitar-parties and gentle jazzy piano passages. Great song, very nice melody! The 7th suite CAPRICE is almost antithesis to PAVANE. It's fast-tempered gay piece influenced with music of Elizabethian England in one hand and Rock-Music of 70s in other hand. Then CAPRICE transforms as non-stop into FINALE. FINALE is the medley of previous 7 songs. It's rather short and is the most suitable coda for such album. If you've never heard this record you can lose a lot. Try to get it, you'll be pleasantly surprised.
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