Eastwood Symphonic

Album review

Since the release of his first record as a lead in 1998 (From Here to There), but above all since 2011, with the formation of a very efficient quintet of young and brilliant English musicians centred around his bass, Kyle Eastwood has humbly imposed his talents as an instrumentalist and leader with a series of lyric albums generously anchored in contemporary post-bop (The View from Here, Time Pieces). Even if this was an effort to have his name forgotten, he has nevertheless never totally hidden his prestigious pedigree or the close connections he has cultivated with the cinematic work of his father. His numerous contributions as a composer on the soundtracks of some of Clint’s most prestigious films in the past few years attest to this, as well as his latest record Cinematic, a quintet exploring, amongst other masterpieces of the genre, a handful of recurring themes, emblematic of his filmmaking.

No need then for a “coming out” in Eastwood Symphonic, but rather a simultaneously flamboyant and thoroughly mature way of fully owning up to this inheritance and paying homage to the affection that Clint has for music, which he has reaffirmed this time and again, by revisiting in cinemascope a selection of music from films that have marked his career as an actor and director alike. At the head of his usual quintet (where saxophonist Brandon Allen, as a soloist, and trumpet player Quentin Collins shine again and again), and accompanied by the Czech National Symphony Orchestra of Prague, under the direction of Gast Waltzing (who also arranged the session with Jean-Jacques Maillet), Kyle dives in with delight. He demonstrates a very secure know-how in the seductions and timeless melodies created by some of the genre’s greatest masters, notably John Williams (La Sanction), Ennio Morricone (A Fistful of Dollars, The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly), Lalo Schifrin (Inspector Harry, Magnum Force) and Lennie Niehaud (Unforgiven)...Wholeheartedly playing with the spectacular abilities of the symphonic orchestra without letting his jazz education drown in its rolling drapery, or be artificially pasted onto the arrangements, the American avoids all the potential pitfalls of this endeavour and creates a record that is quite intimate behind its apparent splendour. © Stéphane Ollivier/Qobuz