Summarize this content to 2000 words in 6 paragraphs in Arabic Unlock the Editor’s Digest for freeRoula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.Toronto-born trumpeter Kenny Wheeler, who died in 2014 aged 84, remains an influential figure in British jazz both as an instrumental stylist and a composer. He moved to the UK in 1952 aged 22 and was soon at the centre of London’s modern jazz scene. He spent six years with Johnny Dankworth’s big band, studied composition with Richard Rodney Bennett and was involved in the first flowering of free jazz. The affectionate tribute Some Days are Better: the Lost Scores captures Wheeler pulling those diverse experiences into coherence and laying the foundations for his long international recording career. The album is based on big-band scores written in the early 1970s for his broadcasts for the BBC — the manuscripts were presumed lost but were recently unearthed in boxes from the attic of the Wheeler family home.Recorded at Abbey Road Studios, it combines the orchestral riches of the Royal Academy of Music Jazz Orchestra and the Miami-based Frost Jazz Orchestra with colleagues and admirers from the trumpeter’s past. Guests include saxophonist Evan Parker and vocalist Norma Winstone, founding figures of British free jazz, as well as contemporary US heavyweights Chris Potter and Brian Lynch on saxophone and trumpet respectively. Inspired playing from soloists brings Wheeler’s compositions to life. Moods shift on every track and surges of jaunty swing break into balladry, abstraction or an unaccompanied voice. “Smatta” opens the set and immediately grips with plaintive trumpet supported by panoramic brass. Parker surges into abstraction on the title track, Winstone and Potter deliver dynamic contrasts on “Sweet Yakity Waltz”, and rising-star Emma Rawicz shines on “Some Doors Are Better Open”.Until now, these 11 compositions only existed as one-off broadcasts. Fifty years on, they remain fresh.★★★★☆‘Some Days are Better: the Lost Scores’ is released by Greenleaf Music
