Luminescence is an ongoing collaboration between saxophonist Tommy Smith and the Edinburgh-based visual artist Maria Rud. As Smith improvises, Rud paints, the ever-changing images projected for the audience to see. In his accompanying notes, Smith says two other factors are involved in the collaboration: the audience and the structure – specifically here, the acoustics and reverberation of Edinburgh’s medieval cathedral, St Giles’, where these recordings were made.
I was fortunate enough to see a performance of Luminescence during this year’s Edinburgh Fringe, one of four dates that make up this record. Neither the audience nor Rud’s evolving artwork come across on the recording: the audience because there was rapt silence at the unfolding music and spectacle, at least until the end of each performance; for Rud, because she was concentrating on the dialogue between Smith’s improvising and her expanding images, although her influence is felt in Smith’s playing in response to both her images and the sometimes rhythmical strokes of her painting.
While Rud’s art is an intrinsic part of the live event, Smith’s music and its relationship to the cathedral is sufficient. I initially downloaded the music to listen to the specific performance I attended; I was surprised to find myself listening to the whole album – more than three hours of music. It doesn’t drag in the slightest, even after hearing it several times.
Smith has been making solo performances for many years now. He recorded the album Into Silence in 2001, in Hamilton Mausoleum, a space renowned for its lengthy natural sustain. He has also performed improvised sets in other churches, including the Round Church in Bowmore on the Hebridean Isle of Islay, Dunfermline Abbey and Lichfield Cathedral, working with each building’s acoustics. Such performances necessarily take on a spiritual air.
The three and a half sets that make up this record are naturally similar – but each is different too, conveying a different mood: they feel quite separate. While each set is improvised, fragments of familiar melodies bubble up – a touch of Fascinating Rhythm here, The Peacocks there. Some sections are reminiscent of bluesy spirituals or Scottish folk tunes..
Smith’s relationship to melody and rhythm is strong: this is improvised music, but not free improvisation. He is following a path and taking the audience along with him, though he doesn’t know when he sets out where he’ll lead us.
The effect on the listener is quietly meditative. This is music to lose yourself in.
Patrick Hadfield lives in Edinburgh, occasionally takes photographs, and sometimes blogs at On the Beat. He is @patrickhadfield@mastodon.scot on Mastodon.
