This new album, recorded at Abbey Road Studios in the summer of 2024, celebrates the legacy of one of the great original voices in contemporary jazz. It is the culmination of a project which saw Academy students collaborate with the University of Miami’s Frost School of Music and legends of the UK Jazz scene.
The idea to record these works in collaboration with the Frost School of Music emerged after a student exchange programme between the Academy’s and Frost’s Jazz Departments established a connection between the two institutions. Nick Smart, the Academy’s Head of Jazz, and Frost School jazz professor John Daversa met in 2018 when performing some of Wheeler’s works at the University of Miami. They discussed and planned a Kenny Wheeler recording project with students from both departments, originally scheduled for June 2020.
Following the postponement caused by the disruption of the pandemic, in June 2024 the two departments finally combined to realise the project, rehearsing the music of Wheeler’s lost scores at the Academy, before performing the works in a concert at London’s Vortex Jazz Club. They then went on to record at the iconic Abbey Road Studios alongside saxophonist Evan Parker, jazz vocalist Norma Winstone and many other eminent jazz musicians. This project is testimony to the regular opportunities for Academy students to collaborate on an international level, take part in artistic partnerships of the highest standard and work alongside renowned musical artists.
Most of Wheeler’s early works on this recording have not been heard since they were originally aired as part of the BBC sessions in the early 1970s. Nick Smart helped to acquire the Kenny Wheeler archive into the Academy’s Collections in 2012 and unearthed, archived and catalogued many of the scores for these early works.
Some Days Are Better: The Lost Scores trailer
Kenny Wheeler is considered one of the most influential figures in contemporary jazz. Born in Toronto in 1930, Wheeler moved to the UK in 1952 and by the 1960s had become highly regarded in the London scene, performing alongside improvisers such as John Stevens, Evan Parker, Dave Holland and Derek Bailey. Nick Smart, who was a close friend of Wheeler’s during the later stage of his life, writes that: ‘Kenny was very shy, full of self-doubt and self-deprecating. But paradoxically, he also had this kind of inner strength that can’t come from a place of reticence, but the humility bordering on self-doubt was absolutely real for him.
‘The relationship between Kenny’s life story and the development of his artistic voice is in many respects the central thread of his legacy. Kenny’s choices and decisions were repeatedly formed as much by how he felt about the people he was playing with as the music he was playing.’
On the significance of reviving and recording the lost scores heard on this album, Nick Smart explains: ‘Kenny frequently cited the importance of his first BBC broadcasts as a bandleader in providing an outlet for his own music. A lot of the music from these sessions has not been heard since, but it clearly reveals the story of his evolution as a composer.’
The release of this album coincides with the publication of Song for Someone: The Musical Life of Kenny Wheeler, a biography co-authored by Nick Smart and Brian Shaw that will be published on 14 February – find out more here. An event to celebrate the launch of both the album and biography will be held at the Academy on Thursday 6 March, where works from the album will be performed by Academy students and special guests – book tickets here.
Images taken at the recording sessions at Abbey Road Studios, June 2024