Thread: RIP Jon Lord

News just in: Jon Lord (1941-2012) lost the battle with cancer today. R.I.P.

Originally Posted by Art Rock

News just in: Jon Lord (1941-2012) lost the battle with cancer today. R.I.P.

Oh my Goodness... that it desperately sad news.

truly terrible.

I am saddened by that. He did innovative things with 'Deep Purple,' but I really enjoyed his later forays into classical/orchestral music. He was an accomplished composer, and I'll have to pull out this album for a listen. 'To Notice Such Things' played by the Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra.

^^I listened to the above album on the weekend, below is my 'review' that I posted today on 'current listening' thread and my blog. I got quite emotional because the title work of this cd was written by Jon Lord in memory of his friend, John Mortimer. So now I was listening to a piece the composer had written for a dead friend, and playing it in memory of the composer.

...a tribute to Jon Lord, who died this week. He was co-founder of the legendary rock band Deep Purple, and an exponent of the fusion genre. Towards the end of his life he got back to his roots, making a number of purely classical albums.

To Notice Such Things is a suite for solo flute, piano and string orchestra, composed in 2009 in memory of a friend of the composer, John Mortimer. Mortimer was the author of the Rumpole of the Bailey novels, which lead to the televsion series with Aussie Leo McKern in the title role. This is a neo-classical work, reflecting Mortimer's love of J.S. Bach's music. It is overall a reflective and sad piece, but the pivotal Stick Dance is more lively and reminds me of a Scottish jig. The final movement Afterwards is particularly poignant, and the disc also features a version of this piece for piano solo accompanying a narrator reading Thomas Hardy's poem reflecting on the gap left in our lives by those loved ones who have died.

The composer was on piano on this cd, with Cormac Henry on flute and the Royal Liverpool PO under Clark Rundell. Jeremy Irons read the poem Afterwards by Hardy.

Deep Purple were one of the foundation stones of my fledgling rock collection. They had not long split up when I got into music but for me they formed a kind of 'holy trinity' with Led Zeppelin and Black Sabbath. In addition to his great contribution to rock music where he and his band took Vanilla Fudge's patent overdriven Hammond sound to a new dimension with 1970's 'In Rock' album, Jon Lord was also a class act offstage - personality-wise he was in a way the antithesis of the 70s rock star stereotype: no ego trips, no stories of on-the-road excess and no extended stays in rehab for him. I was never a fan of his 1969 Concerto for Group & Orchestra which I thought was a fairly uneasy synthesis of two musical styles but there were (and still are?) relatively few rock musicians who had the classical grounding and/or confidence to even attempt such a work. A real talent and a true gent.