BYRON WALLEN is a UK jazz trumpeter and he is simply launched his fifth solo album – his first for a really lengthy 13 years! The brand new 12 tracker is ‘Portrait’ and Byron explains: “In ‘Portrait’ I’m meditating on id, tradition and what it means to belong…the album pays tribute to the center, soul and vibrant provenance of the neighborhood I name residence”.
I am guessing that a part of that neighborhood is Plumcroft Main Faculty. The varsity’s choir helps out on three of the tracks – ‘Spirit Of The Ancestors’, ‘Voice Of The Ancestors’ and ‘Banana Man’. Elsewhere the band is Rob Luft (guitar), Paul Michael (bass) and Rod Younger (drums). Undecided although whether or not it is Younger or Wallen on the drum solo monitor that’s ‘Warren To Arsenal’. The album credit inform us that the trumpeter/chief additionally gives percussion (in addition to shells and piano) whereas the Arsenal reference is one other nod to neighborhood. Byron, you see, has lived in and round Woolwich for a while and the connection is even within the album artwork work –the duvet image was conceived by Woolwich-based artist Marc Drostle.