Neil Ardley - Kaleidoscope of Rainbows - Progressive Voyages Review

I know that I am forever bleating on about my teenage years and the many hours i spent trawling for records That interest me, Well one of those that I came across on my trawls was this 1975 album from jazz composer Neil Yardley that was released on the Gull label,

Here its 50th Anniversary is celebrated with a warm and delicate remastering and reissue, The music is based on a series of pieces that reflect the Balinese Gamelan folk music scale,

This is broken into seven Rainbows here, which over its 9 tracks i(ncluding a Prologue and an Epilogue) texplore and highlight this scale in a rather interesting and revealing manner and way..

The album has a running time of 54 Minutes.

Notably the album enlisted the crema of British jazz, including Ian Carr, Barbara Thompson and Paul Buckmaster amongst others including both past and current members of Nucleus.

The album has gained lots of awards over the years and has been called one of the first albums of World Music to be recorded.itvis even included in the top 500 jazz albums.

The album is really improvisations on the Balinese Gamelan 5 note scale, the theme is worked, deconstructed and rebuilt during this series of interpretations, it is very minimalist like a piece by terry Riley or even Steve Reich, their is a splendid bass provided by Roger zsuton of Nucleus, that is very anchoring to the them,

To get the best out of this album you will need to set aside an hour a day for a couple of days, as it will time for themes and motifs to filter through your mind, bear in mind these scales are harmonicclly related but rather more by scales and harmonic melodies than chords progressions as in normal jazz music.

It is a challenging. Listen for sure Yet there is much to be appreciated heein, I find the bass to be a key in all this as it both leads, drives and follows the beat and rhythm of the music. You will notice the same opening repeating in each of these Rainbows, often in a different yet still familiar way, several are inversions of the theme and scale.

The longest of these being Rainbows z6 & 7 which nothing have space to evolve and develop..

It is a very subtle album and would appeal I feel to folks whonlikebminimalistbmusic or possibly even Tangerine Dream or Tim Blake as their compositions have somewhat similar musical traits fans of Malcolm Galloways minimalist classical music would possibly also appre iate this most interesting album.

Personally I really enjoyed it a lot, once I really listened and began to understand it a little more. Fabulous Cover and excellent booklet notes from Sid Smith

Info here : Thee: Neil Ardley: Kaleidoscope Of Rainbows - 50th Anniversary Edition CD https://share.google/7vcEUgNHDI9s5fDNl

Author John Wenlock-Smith Saturday 27th June 2026.