John Surman, Jack DeJohnette, London Brass

Free and Equal is a nine-part suite by John Surman for brass choir, improvising reeds and drums, recorded live in London with Jack DeJohnette and the classical ensemble London Brass. The brass parts are written out, while Surman and DeJohnette improvise around and between them. It sits with Surman's other composed projects for larger forces, such as Coruscating and Proverbs and Songs, and shows him as a composer as much as a soloist.

The work, first titled That's Right, was commissioned by BBC Radio 3 for the Norfolk & Norwich Festival 2000 and premiered in Norwich Cathedral on 6 October 2000. This recording comes from a concert at the Queen Elizabeth Hall on the South Bank in June 2001. Surman plays soprano and baritone saxophones and bass clarinet, and DeJohnette plays drums and, in the opening movements, piano. The ten members of London Brass include trumpeter John Barclay and horn player Richard Bissill. The concert was mixed by Jan Erik Kongshaug with Surman and Manfred Eicher, who was executive producer. The duo had made Invisible Nature in concert the previous November.

Several movements are linked by duo passages for Surman and DeJohnette. In Groundwork DeJohnette's piano sits under a melody woven by bass clarinet and trumpet. Sea Change builds on choir-like swells and fades from the brass, then the ensemble drops out and Surman, on baritone, turns to a calypso in the manner of Sonny Rollins. In In the Shadow the soprano floats over a lilting waltz figure. The title movement brings a full horn chart, a drum solo and a closing hymn for the brass. Bissill also contributes a free, abstract horn improvisation.

In DownBeat, Jim Macnie wrote that "as one episode leads to the next, you come to understand you're in the hands of a master". John Fordham in The Guardian called the album "a subtly formidable piece of work". Writing in Titel Magazin, Thomas Rothschild noted that the title points to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. It also describes the music, free in its improvised passages and equal in its treatment of soloists and ensemble.

This is the CD edition, ECM 1802, first released in February 2003.