The Folks Who Live on the Hill
This was the first arrangement I wrote for the BBC Radio Orchestra, and served as my introduction to conductor and arranger Neil Richardson, and composer Richard Rodney Bennett who at the time was contributing a number of outstanding scores to the orchestra’s library.
Sadly this music has become highly unfashionable, and there are now very few opportunities to hear it, let alone for arrangers to write for such large forces, especially so early in their career.
WHEN IN ROME...
I had been writing for Norma Winstone and the BBC Radio Big Band for some time, but this was one of a number of scores I did for her using the larger Radio Orchestra. Norma is best known as the UK’s leading jazz singer, and can be heard on a lot of jazz recordings, (including my own Secret Moves), but it’s occasionally good to remind oneself that she has a broader palette and sings standards in a more conventional setting as well as anyone, and better than most. Actually that’s a bit of an understatement.