'Unweaving The Rainbow' was the winning composition by Matt Roberts in the big band category of the Dankworth Prize for Jazz Composition 2010, sponsored by the Wavendon Foundation, the Worshipful Company of Musicians and Jazzorg.   This was Matt’s second winning foray for the prize, having won the small group category the previous year.   Composer and Trumpeter Matt Roberts comes from Darlington, where he started playing jazz with the Durham County Youth Big Band followed by a BA in Jazz Studies at Leeds College of Music.   He graduated and was awarded the University of Leeds Armes Prize together with prizes for composition, brass performance and academic achievement.   During his undergraduate period he worked and played with a fabulous team of mentors including Kenny Wheeler, Norma Winston and Sir John Dankworth.   Matt also played with the Conservatoires UK Big Band and the Voice of the North Jazz Orchestra and currently is also an active trumpeter in the jazz and pop fields.   He has performed headline slots at major festivals over Europe including Glastonbury, Electric Picnic and Latitude Festival.   He is currently studying for a MMus in composition at Trinity College of Music.   You can stay up to date with what Matt is doing by visiting his myspace page [here]

The title of Matt’s composition originally comes from Keats, whose complaint was that analytical knowledge renders a beautiful thing commonplace and, therefore, robs it of its beauty. (For example, that a rainbow is spoiled by knowing that it is ‘merely’ white light diffracted according to wavelength, as in Newton’s prism - if you’re a poetry buff, check out Keats's view at his Lamia Book 2 [here])

The antithesis was taken up by, who else, Richard Dawkins to argue, amongst other things, that underlying knowledge doesn’t preclude the perception of beauty.   So Matt’s piece is named after Dawkin’s book and is intended, Matt says, as a ‘celebration of Science, Humanism and Free thought.’   But maybe Matt’s composition is also Newtonian, taking the aural harmonic colours, separating and fusing them into what Frank Griffith describes as a piece ‘…full of poignant melodies, rich harmonies and effective and engaging rhythmic figures’.   Tim Garland was impressed, too, describing the composition as ‘mature writing, with a sense of short and long term structure.   It abounds with melody and well-balanced harmonies which evolve within the composition.’   This is the kind of thing that might be said about Gil Evans - just beautiful jazz writing.   Listen to the audio sample or download the whole audio piece and then the manuscript; your band will love it.   There's a ballad feel to the opening part and the piece then moves into a brighter 3/4.  Note that the manuscript is 'keyless' or 'chromatic' in that is every part is 'written in C' with all deviations shown as accidentals - this technique is often used for atonal or modal music or for pieces which move through a number of key centres, arguably making them easier to read.

Matt conducted the Trinity College Jazz Ensemble rendition of his composition in front of a packed house at Ronnie Scott's in March 2010 and is pictured left receiving his prize from Dame Cleo Laine and Jacqui Dankworth.   The judges were extremely impressed by ‘Unweaving The Rainbow’ and Nikki Iles captured all their responses in observing

‘..this was very sure and mature writing, showing an excellent understanding of harmony , balance and blend.   Rather than writing within the more conventional groupings, Matt has developed lines and textures across the sections, displaying a really strong grasp of the craft of orchestration (great!)

The music is episodic and gives a sense that Matt was able to hear the big picture in terms of the overall shape and narrative of the piece and, consequently, the ideas are very musical and naturally organic.   Strong counter melodies feature throughout and there are some lovely orchestral moments with lines emerging from within the texture.   This demonstrated Matt’s ability to really hear the possibilities within the ensemble rather than merely transferring ideas directly from the piano.   Well done.

Frank’s parting shot was ‘..this piece is a fine example of embracing the past, present and future of jazz composition for large ensemble.   Write on!’, whilst Tim conferred the ultimate accolade ’.. the solo spots sit within the structure without dominating, yet lend a great deal of personality.   JD would have been very impressed...’

• Downloads
• Only 3 sample pages of Matt's composition (from the alto, trumpet and trombone parts) are displayed on your monitor and you can get a full pdf download of both sets of parts and a 'control score' by clicking [this link] and [this link]   The downloads are self-extracting zip files, which means you only have to double click the exe file after you've downloaded and the file will automatically extract into the folder in which you have downloaded the original exe file.
• A download of the full MP3 audio version of the composition, combining parts 1 and 2, is also available by clicking [this link]

Trinity Ensembles Personnel: Leaders: Malcolm Earle-Smith (tbn) and Mark Lockheart Reeds/Flutes: Ben Mallinder, Will Scott,Stephen Mathers, Leo Aarons-Richardson, Gregory Sinclair, Oliver Nezhati, Sam Evans, Max Johnson, Jonny Griffiths, Felix Cox. Trumpets/Flugels: Conor Cantrell, Jonathan Murray, Laura Jurd, Michael Soper, Ben Dawson, Nick Walters, Jack Coward, Jeff Brown. Trombones: Eleanor Smith, Chris Mackey, Adam Tyas, Natalie Witts, George Wrench. Rhythm and Percussion: Nathan Morson, Mitch Jones (pno), James Kitchman, Matt Redman (gtr), A-J Brinkman, Loz Garratt (bass), Elizabeth Exell, Douglas Marriner, Dave Elliott(drms). Voice:Paola Bottomley. Photographer: Pictures courtesy of David Sinclair.

’Unweaving The Rainbow' The Trinity College Jazz Ensemble perform ‘Unweaving The Rainbow' at a concert at Ronnie Scott's club in March 2010, guided by the composer, Matt Roberts.

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