Gerard McChrystal saxophones
Richard Shaw piano
métier mex 77122
‘Why do birds sing? – Because They Have Songs.’ Edward Cowie (b. 1943) takes that answer from an African text as the title for the fourth in his series of compositions inspired by birdsong. The first, Birds of Britain, was set for piano with violin, the second, Australian Birds, used flute, and the third, Birds of the USA, clarinets.
For Birds of Africa, with pianist Richard Shaw, he has written for Gerard McChrystal on saxophones. Following his established pattern, each of the two CDs has groups of six pieces, totalling 24, perhaps inspired by the similar sections of J. S. Bach’s Well Tempered Clavier.
Cowie and his wife, painter Heather Cowie, travelled to Botswana and surrounding areas to capture the songs of the birds living in the outback. These, with names like Hildebrandt’s Spurfowl, or the Red-crested Korhaan, were new to me, but YouTube easily provided pictures of all the birds, and their calls too.
However, what must interest us is the music itself, and its performers. Pianist Richard Shaw has taken over from Roderick Chadwick. He is equally superb. Gerard McChrystal makes his saxophones chirrup, twitter or sing smoothly, sometimes using breath sounds or chords by adding his voice to the saxophone notes.
Together, the two performers bring both the birds and their backgrounds in the African veldt brilliantly to life. As Edward Cowie writes, the piano is not an accompanying instrument. It provides a background. Sometimes, as in the opening number, the White-crested Turacos, it picks up on the saxophone’s birdsong in a kind of to and fro, call and response.
Edward Cowie’s arrangement of the different pieces in his groups of six create a larger musical unit with well-spaced contrasts of sound. Some of the birdsongs are edgily disjointed, elsewhere smoothly together. The Kori Bustard starts with attractive piano chords while the saxophone makes a jazz singer of this bird. There is a sense of jazz, and possibly the ghost of Ravel in both piano and saxophone in the Southern Ground-Hornbill.
Heather Cowie’s art provides the cover of the CD. Pictures by Cowie himself are in the accompanying booklet. These CDs provide another trip into the world of Edward Cowie, composer, artist, writer and naturalist in his continuing world journey of birdsong in music.
Review by Alan Cooper