Live recording of the orchestra's performance at the Gateshead Jazz Festival 2011 with guests Lol Coxhill and Evan Parker. From George Burt's notes on the piece:
The origins of this piece go back to one summer when I saw The Barry Guy New Orchestra and Peter Brötzmann’s Chicago Tentet within a few weeks of each other. I was looking for ways that a composer (like Barry Guy) or a bandleader (like Peter Brötzmann) could organise music into a structure without inhibiting the players and promoting co-operation between them. I thought I could see one solution in Barry Guy’s graphic scores. In trying to get to the essence of how these work, I drew little diagrams on scraps of paper. Symbols like a triangle for a trio passage or linked circles for a duo came quite naturally. While I was planning a more complicated piece that would bring out the useful aspects of conduction while keeping the emoting and arm-waving to a decent minimum, we got the news of Harry Beckett’s death. An orchestral piece with space for solos seemed a good way to celebrate his life and music, because one of the characteristics of his playing was his ability play lines which floated cheerfully over the broiling chaos of a big free-jazz improvising group. That’s the origin of the Improcerto. Evan Parker and Lol Coxhill, Harry’s old muckers, play the first two solos followed by Neil Davidson, Raymond MacDonald and John Burgess. Conducted sections are by George Burt, Raymond MacDonald, Una MacGlone, George Burt again and Peter Nicholson. George Burt, 2011
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