Mark Lockheart & Roger Sayer: Salvator Mundi
Edition Records

In collaborating with organist Roger Sayer on Salvator Mundi, British saxophonist Mark Lockheart shifts gears dramatically from his other recent Edition Records release, Days on Earth, which augmented him with a small number of gifted jazz players and a thirty-piece orchestra. As satisfying as the material and performances are on that large-scale outing, they're equally so on the duets release. It is, however, a much different animal, Salvator Mundi liturgical and classical in character compared to the orchestral jazz of Days on Earth.

With decades of recording and performing behind him, Lockheart is, of course, a well-known and highly regarded figure who first came to attention in the mid-‘80s with Loose Tubes; Sayer, previously the organist and Director of Music at Rochester Cathedral, currently holds the same titles at the Temple Church in central London. Some might be familiar with him as the organist featured on Hans Zimmer's soundtrack for Christopher Nolan's 2014 film Interstellar.

Recorded at Temple Church in London, Salvator Mundi, issued in CD and digital formats, benefits noticeably from the resonant acoustics of the space, with the sounds of the saxophone (soprano and tenor) and organ captured with remarkable clarity. Works by English composers such as Charles Villiers Stamford, John Blow, Henry Purcell, and William Byrd are featured alongside new pieces by John Ashton Thomas, who also arranged the album's oft-lyrical material.

The spotlight shines heavily on Lockheart throughout, but he's clearly up to the challenge. His pure tone and explorative sensibility are tailor-made for this project, whose stately, majestic pieces offer a near-unrestricted forum for his horn to express itself. Much of it's performed at a meditative pace (even the traditional “In Dulci Jubilo” is taken at a slow tempo) that allows the listener an even better opportunity to appreciate the high level of the musicianship and the contrasts between the players' instruments.

There are, not surprisingly, moments of exceptional beauty that leave lasting imprints, Thomas's moving “Temple Hymn 1” among them. For this piece Lockheart plays at a near-whisper during the opening minute before moving into a solo that glides as gracefully as a high-flying bird. The understated reverence the two bring to Thomas's “Temple Hymn 2” and Purcell's “Dido's Lament” only heightens the magical aura of the material. If the latter is the album's arguable peak, Thomas's gorgeous closer “The Garden” isn't far behind.

August 2019