Whygold’s Weekend

… under this motto I present you my music tip for the weekend.

Maybe one or the other discovers something new.

Consciously listening to music is, in my opinion, as important as reading a good book.

Today: Jon Lord – Durham Concerto

https://music.youtube.com/playlist?list=OLAK5uy_k51_hISjjBLFF2Ttp0FJ20hQhDAUmPbIY

John Douglas “Jon” Lord^[1] (born June 9, 1941 in Leicester, England; † July 16, 2012 in London) was a British musician. He became known primarily as a founding member of the hard rock band Deep Purple. Lord is considered one of the pioneers of combining rock with classical music.

Both his father and aunt were performance artists who brought their talents to perform as a duo with a local dance group. Lord developed his first musical activities at the family piano, where he received classical lessons from the age of five. As a teenager, he was impressed by the musical performance of jazzorganists like Jimmy Smith, and that of pioneers of rock ‘n’ roll piano like Jerry Lee Lewis.

In 1960, at the age of nineteen, Lord moved to London, where he studied acting at the Central School of Speech and Drama. When the Drama Centre London split off from it in 1963, Lord moved there with other teachers and students and graduated in 1964. Drawn to the music of Swinging London, Lord began playing in various jazz and rhythm-and-blues combos, performing mostly in smaller pubs and as club gigs in the London area.

He enjoyed his first successes with the Bill Ashton Combo, a jazz group named after the saxophone player. In 1963, Lord joined the band Red Blood and his Bluesicians, led by Derek Griffiths, which allowed him to get his first electric organ. By his own admission, he is in the recording of the Kinks hit
You Really Got Me
as the pianist.^[2]

Over the next few years, Lord earned the skills to become a professional musician. He joined the bluesier, rockier Artwoods as organist, whose bandleader was Art Wood, the older brother of future Rolling Stone Ron Wood. The Artwoods released several singles and EPs, including a collector’s item today, Art Gallery, appeared on television and radio shows and had many concerts, but did not manage a chart placement, so they soon disbanded after their last attempt to reach the charts under the pseudonym St. Valentine’s Day Massacre also failed. Ron Wood later recorded three instrumental numbers with Lord under the name Santa Barbara Machine Head.

…

In 2003, having just spent a few months in Australia performing tracks from his penultimate solo album Pictured Within, Lord joined local blues band The Hoochie Coochie Men for a concert at the Sydney Opera House, which was later released on CD as well as DVD.

His 2005 album Beyond the Notes consists of genre-bending idiosyncratic compositions. It also features the track The Sun Will Shine Again, which Lord wrote for former ABBA singer Anni-Frid Lyngstad and with which the Swedish singer showed herself live for the first time in eight years.

Most recently, Lord composed two other classical works: the Durham Concerto, which he performed with the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra at Durham Cathedral in 2007, was commissioned to celebrate the 175th anniversary of the University of Durham.^[3] Boom of the Tingling Strings was premiered with the Queensland Orchestra in Queensland in 2008.

On August 9, 2011 – he was touring with the Jon Lord Blues Project – Lord told the public that he was suffering from pancreatic cancer. He canceled all concerts for the following year. On July 16, 2012, after receiving treatments in England and Israel, Jon Lord died of complications and a pulmonary embolism in a London hospital at the age of 71.^[4][5] Until the end he had worked in the studio on his last album and also attended the mixing. The project was completed only a few days before his death.

(Source: Wikipedia)

Jon Lord has been an idol, role model, exceptional musician, pioneer for me since my childhood.

Listening to the Durham Concerto while closing one’s eyes, one can wonderfully visualize the different moods at the respective time of day.

Have fun listening to this album !

Your Chris Weigold

P.S.: Maybe you enjoy the listening pleasure together with a Glass of wine from our “Orchestra of Cultures Edition”.