Album Review: Julian Siegel – Tales from the Jacquard

Julian Siegel – Tales from the Jacquard

Inspiration for the latest album from sax player and composer Julian Siegel comes from a highly personal source – the Jacquard cards used in lace making similar to those from the musician’s own family of lacemakers.

Siegel says: “I have clear memories of trips to the lace factory with my Dad in the 1970’s and hearing the sound of the machines – he wanted to conduct them! My Dad always had a great love for music and after work at home in Nottingham, Ellington, Basie, Sarah Vaughan, Lockjaw Davis, Paul Gonsalves and Ben Webster would be on the turntable as well as a lot of classical music. It seemed like a natural thing to try and explore the lace making process and use this research to inspire new music.”

And what new music it is!

Highly creative and evocative, there’s exploration of sound that encompasses every part of this he and hugely talented ensemble. The names on the personnel list are a catalogue of Britain’s finest musicians alongside the talented Mr Siegel. There are solos and features for Stan Sulzmann and Mark Nightingale, as well as German trumpeter Claus Stötter. But snatches of others emerge from the colossal highs of the ensemble playing, with freedom built in by Siegel’s composition and direction. All in all, this is jazz and improvisation at its height.

What’s more, Siegel is embarking on a tour so you don’t have to take my word for the quality of his playing and this music. Check out the dates here.

Siegel himself has played and performed with everyone from Mike Gibbs and Kenny Wheeler to Django Bates and NDR Big Band and with Tales from the Jacquard he’s proving himself as composer and band leader.

Back to the inspiration and experimentation with Jacquard cards that form the basis for this music. Siegel was taken back to his father’s lace factory in the Midlands: “At the factory I saw the Jacquard machines with their sheets of punched cards transmitting the pattern to the lace machines. With more research, I was delighted to find musical possibilities within that card. The fact that each card contains numbers as well as rhythms gave me lots of musical ideas.”

The three-part Tales from the Jacquard is followed on the album by four more Siegel compositions: Blues, Song, The Missing Link, Goose and Fantasy in D – the latter a Cedar Walton standard.

Jacquard inspiration infuses this album in Siegel’s writing and playing but also in the creation by every member of this accomplished ensemble. So, the Jacquard cards and concepts have inspired melody, rhythm, orchestration and harmony where they used to create lace.