Compositions: Bobby Wellins
Orchestrations: Florian Ross
Tenor Saxophone Soloist: Bobby Wellins

Reeds
Martin Kershaw
Paul Towndrow
Tommy Smith
Konrad Wiszniewski
Bill Fleming

Trumpets
Ryan Quigley
Cameron Jay
Lorne Cowieson
Tom MacNiven

Trombones
Chris Greive
Kieran McLeod
Michael Owers
Lorna McDonald

Rhythm
Steve Hamilton (piano)
Brodie Jarvie (bass)
Alyn Cosker (drums)

Recorded May 2013 by Kevin Burleigh, Gorbals Sound, Scotland
Mixed August 2013 by Jan Erik Kongshaug, Rainbow Studios, Norway
Photography by Derek Clark
Cover Photo of Bobby Wellins by Venture Photography
Design by Nadja von Massow

Produced by Tommy Smith

Echoes from a Lost Future

Bobby Wellins and the Scottish National Jazz Orchestra bookmark history with ‘The Culloden Moor Suite’.

The disaster at Culloden on 16 April 1746 marks a moment in Scotland’s timeline that forever changed the course of Caledonian history. It’s also fair to say that the brutal nature of the conflict and its bloody aftermath has resonated in the Scots psyche ever since that fateful hour.

In 1961, Bobby Wellins was inspired to compose TheCulloden Moor Suite after reading John Prebble’s vivid account of the last pitched battle on British soil. Fifty years later, Bobby Wellins and the Scottish National Jazz Orchestra joined forces to re-create his thrilling and evocative music. Together they conjured up the fervour, the anticipation, the horror, and ultimately the lamentable failure of a lost cause paid for in blood.

The five-act structure of The Culloden Moor Suite also affords generous space for expressive soloists whose voices place the listener at the heart of the action and the centre of the landscape. In this specially commissioned arrangement by Florian Ross, the battle and its terrible aftermath are seen from a modern, yet wholly empathetic perspective.

There is surely no ensemble anywhere that is better qualified than the Scottish National Jazz Orchestra to interpret Bobby Wellins’ emotive vision of this Highland tragedy through the medium of soul-stirring contemporary jazz.