Video of the Day: French horn virtuoso Jim Rattigan shares video from Duos album project featuring Ivo Neame, Nick Costley-White & Hans Koller

Jim Rattigan, one of the UK’s leading French horn players and widely recognised as a pioneer of playing jazz on the instrument, is set to release his new 3CD set, entitled Duos, on 20 October via Three Worlds Records.

Over the course of his career, Rattigan has performed in many different types of ensemble but never the duo setting. Following some informal playing sessions with pianist Ivo Neame, guitarist Nick Costley-White and pianist/bandleader Hans Koller, the Duos project grew organically. These sessions also provided Rattigan the opportunity to develop his love of the standard repertoire.

These three new recordings make up three albums within the set: Dialogues with Neame, You Must Believe In Spring with Costley-White and Thelonious Monk with Hans Koller. The seven tracks on Dialogues include music written by Rattigan (‘Elegy’), Neame (‘Passing Point’) and composers as diverse as Glazunov’s (‘Reverie’) and Wayne Shorter (‘Infant Eyes’). You Must Believe In Spring features twelve standards inspired by the work of Jim Hall and Bob Brookmeyer including ‘My Funny Valentine’ and ‘Body and Soul’. Koller’s deep knowledge of Thelonious Monk’s repertoire has long inspired Rattigan. Ten tracks from Monk’s seventy-plus originals were chosen for the album Thelonious Monk, including classics such as ‘Round Midnight’ as well as lesser known ‘Light Blue’ and ‘Trinkle-Tinkle’.

Commenting on the music Jim says “I love all these three albums - they are so different sounding. These are wonderful musicians - I’m talking about really exceptional fantastic players and I just feel so grateful to have the opportunity to play with these people. There were no personal issues at all, it was just all about the music.”

Rattigan is a vastly experienced player - having graduated from Trinity College of music and the Royal Academy – he was immediately in demand as a freelance player, working with all the major London symphony orchestras, chamber orchestras and small ensembles. He then joined the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra where he was a member for six years: but wanting to explore music at a deeper level he’s become one of a select number of French horn players to really play jazz. His unique accomplishment has seen work with a huge array internationally acclaimed artists such as Michael Brecker’s Quindectet, the Charlie Haden / Carla Bley Liberation Music Orchestra, the McCoy Tyner Big Band, Django Bates’ Delightful Precipice, the Creative Jazz Orchestra with Kenny Wheeler, Brad Mehldau with the Britten Sinfonia, the Guy Barker Big Band and the Simon Purcell Octet among many others, all while simultaneously answering calls to record on major Hollywood soundtracks and release a string of albums by his own critically acclaimed ensembles.

See the video for the duo with pianist Ivo Neame below - see 'Alone Together' Nick Costley-White here and 'Ask Me Now' with Hans Koller here and catch the album’s live launch at PizzaExpress Jazz Club, Dean Street, London on Monday 9 October