Page 47 - Alison Balsom Quiet City FULL BOOK

I felt like I was in that place that trumpet players often find themselves
in, where they often wonder if they are falling between two stools;

classical trumpet and jazz trumpet. There is this place in the middle

where you don’t want to get it wrong, and you don’t want to be a bit of
either. I was really intrigued by that. I felt like I had done enough

recordings to just take a risk and explore that gap in the middle

between the two genres, and whether you can just say, “I am

justifying this because I feel I’ve got something to say about it.” Let’s

take the labels away from jazz and classical and just see if there is a
place where the trumpet (or how one sees the trumpet) can sit

comfortably in the middle. And, of course, one of the biggest

conceptual challenges for me on this album was playing music that
was conceived by Miles Davis and playing his conception of the piece.

I used Gil Evans’ notes and then brought in my own written

interpretation.

I feel that we all know that Miles Davis was such a legend and iconic

musician who almost found another side and character to the trumpet.

I felt that it deserved exploring as though he were the composer. I was
looking for ways to bring those two worlds together.

I have this tendency when recording. I’m so busy trying to prove to the

world that the trumpet can do so much more than people think; to try
and cover too many themes. If we’re talking about America, should we

talk about jazz, soul, blues, musical theatre, film, or twentieth-century

greats?

And I had to say to myself, “Hang on a minute, this isn’t a lecture
recital; it’s just an album! It doesn’t have to be about how varied we

can be! It can just be about the music I love without it having too wide

of a theme.” I have done that in the past where you feel slightly

seasick from all the different directions you’ve been taken in by my
albums, so I was trying to calm down in this album, basically.