MARK TURNER wallows in the virtuosity of Swansea Jazz Festival openers, Simon Spillett and Pete Long
Thomas Bartlett
Shelter
(Modern Recordings/BMG)
★★★★★
THE NOCTURNE was developed by Irish composer John Field c1814 and, by the 1850s, reached its culmination with Frederic Chopin’s masterful collection of 21.
It was Chopin’s romanticism that was a revelation to Thomas Bartlett when he was a child — music he understood with his heart, not his head. He’s now resurrected the idiom magnificently by modernising it with contemporary sensibilities, particularly jazz.

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