Neil Ardley

Kaleidoscope of Rainbows ...

British jazz fusion of the 70s in all it's glory ...Theme and variations, all based on a Balinese pentatonic scale...  

Neil Ardley (director, synthesizer) : Ian Carr (trumpet, flugelhorn) : Barbara Thompson, Tony Coe, Brian Smith, Bob Bertles (saxophone, woodwind) : Paul Buckmaster (cello) : Ken Shaw (guitar) : Geoff Castle, Dave McRae or John Taylor (electric piano, synthesizer) : Roger Sutton (bass guitar) : Roger Sellers (drums) : Trevor Tomkins (percussion)

Prologue and Rainbows 1 to 4 ... 

2004 Re-issue marking death of Neil Ardley ...

"For Rainbows Ardley nodded back to Greek Variations, this time developing the suite from the basic five note pelog scale used in Balinese music. It was also the album in which he first explored proto-electronic music—there are three, count 'em, synthesisists here—which became a key interest of his in the late '70s/early '80s.

The suite's seven movements, ranging in mood from the gentle and pastoral to the fiery and urgent, are seriously enjoyable through-compositions in their own right, and also the settings for a series of glistening solos from Ian Carr, Brian Smith, Dave Macrae, Geoff Castle, Paul Buckmaster, Barbara Thompson, Tony Coe, Ken Shaw, and Bob Bertles—with Buckmaster's electric cello on "Rainbow Three," Thompson's soprano on "Four," and Coe's clarinet on "Five" approaching the sublime." ...www.allaboutjazz.com ...