Jon Lord Reveals New Solo Album

Former Deep Purple keyboardist Jon Lord has revealed details of his forthcoming solo album, To Notice Such Things.

Release on 22 March To Notice Such Things was Inspired by his good friend, the late Sir John Mortimer (the English barrister, dramatist, screenwriter, author and creator of Rumpole of The Bailey, who died in January of 2009.) On his official website Lord reveals the story behind the album:

"He was a great friend and a great inspiration to me and I hope my love and respect for him comes out in the music.

"A few weeks after he passed away, I was offered a commission to write a piece for solo flute and strings – a flute concerto in essence. At first I turned it down because I thought there wasn’t enough time, but after a couple of days of thought, I realized that I had these three little pieces for flute and piano that I had written for the theater shows that I used to do with Sir John, and I thought that they might provide the basis for this ‘flute concerto’ and that I could write in his memory.

"John and I became friends about 12 years ago. A couple of years later he asked if I would be interested in playing the piano and writing a bit of music for him, for his theater shows – Mortimer’s Miscellany – during which he sat on the stage and, accompanied by two actresses, a pianist and a flute player, he read poetry and prose, told stories and jokes and related hilarious legal anecdotes, giving his wonderfully wise and witty take on life, love and the law.

"There was a total of about six minutes of music which has now grown into a 27 minute suite for solo flute, piano and string orchestra. I wrote it during March, April and May, and it was an emotional yet fascinating experience to work on it when John’s presence was still so very strong. In fact it still is, but back then he had only just passed away."

The all-instrumental album was recorded at the end of last September with the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Clark Rundell with Cormac Henry on flute, and also features three additional pieces.

Here are the tracks

1. To Notice Such Things
   a. As I Walked Out One Evening
   b. At Court
   c. Turville Heath
   d. The Stick Dance
   e. The Winter of a Doormouse
   f. Afterwards
2. Evening Song
3. For Example
4. Air on the Blue String