Liverpool Sound and Vision * * * *

To set your eyes on the vision before you, to take in the natural beauty of the largest natural harbour in the world and understand the depth of history fought over in its name and the loss of what was once a flourishing and diverse eco-system, is to feel a bitterness of humanity’s actions in the face of environment.

Environment is everything, without it we flounder in space, our attempts at creating a lasting heartbeat of memory is negated by the damnation that the beauty we could have utilised to educate and inspire the release, the song and the tune in our heart.

Composer Jon Gold recognises the effect that environment has on inspiration and the serious Jazz and talent that comes from his latest collective release, Guanabara Eyes, what is underneath is a ranging spectacular that exemplifies the crowning ideal of maturity, a defining example of reading the room and seeing the audience lap up the experience and the imagination that drove it along.

Brazil plays its part in both the life story of the musician and the effects on the recording, and as musicians such as Mauricio Zottarelli, Itaiguara Mariano Brandão, Rodrigo Ursaia, Vladimir Gapontsev and Bryan Murray join the composer on the journey, the sense of the sensual, the swing and the flavour of the musical tide roars with such elegance that tracks such as Squirrel Samba, For Luiz, Theme For MZ, Sumidouro, the stirring Balacobaco!, and the album title track Guanabara Eyes all testify to the genius of Jon Gold, to his vision, and to the desire of being not just inspired by the natural, but by the environment you shroud yourself in and explore at will with.

From strings and orchestra, full bands, and passionate entrances, Guanabara Eyes is an album of extraordinary pleasure and one that entreats sophistication as a truth and not as product.

Ian D. Hall