Jon Lord Documentary And Limited Edition Concerto CD Gets December Release
Thursday, 15 November 2012
Written by Jon Stickler
With his legendary organ blues-rock sound, Deep Purple's founder and soul, Jon Lord has influenced decades of rock music. He is with no doubt the pioneer of fusing rock and classical/baroque forms and became one of the most important composers of the last decades while having a major impact on the music business. On Monday, July 16th, he passed away after a long battle with pancreatic cancer.
Jon Lord co-wrote many of Deep Purple's legendary songs like 'Smoke On The Water' and played with many bands and musicians throughout his career (Whitesnake, to mention one out of many). Best known for his orchestral work 'Concerto For Group And Orchestra' first performed at Royal Albert Hall with Deep Purple and the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra in 1969 and conducted by the renowned Malcolm Arnold - a feat repeated in 1999 when it was again performed at the Royal Albert Hall by the London Symphony Orchestra and Deep Purple.
Jon Lord always wanted a studio recording of the concerto. Irony of fate: he made his desire real only most recently. He finalized his very last mission - the first and only studio recording of the famous 'Concerto For Group And Orchestra', representing the definitive performance of a unique work.
Lord assembled guest musicians such as Iron Maiden's Bruce Dickinson, Joe Bonamassa and Steve Morse in the Abbey Road Studios, to work with his trusted partner, director Paul Mann, on the 2012 version of the legendary concert.
Speaking back in May 2011, Jon said: Over these last years since leaving Deep Purple, I've played it over 30 times with different orchestras and conductors all over the world, and, of course, in 2000 I did it well over 30 times with Purple on the Concerto tour, so I've been honing the piece live on stage, and I've had the opportunity to change things in the score that weren't sounding quite right. It is therefore a marvellous and exciting prospect to have the definitive recording of the definitive version of the score."
Already available in 2 different formats (CD and CD and DVD including a 5.1 audio mix) now comes a very special edition of the 'Concerto For Group And Orchestra'. Conductor Paul Mann has written a personal history of his association with the Concerto and also detailed the full story of the work and the new recording.
The in-depth text about the person behind the Concerto also features a text from Jon Lord telling about his personal approach to the Concerto as well as a statement from Marco de Goeij, telling how he was able to reconstruct the lost musical score for the 'Concerto For Group And Orchestra' by watching videos of live performances and listening to audio recordings.
All this resulted in a fascinating 80-page story highlighted with rare pictures that will now be released in a media book featuring the full Concerto on CD as well as a DVD containing the "Making Of" as well as exclusive interviews with Paul Mann and Marco de Goeij – out on 3rd December.
So, to paraphrase an early Deep Purple lyric: "Listen, Learn and Read On..." Check out documentary footage from DVD below.
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Jon Lord co-wrote many of Deep Purple's legendary songs like 'Smoke On The Water' and played with many bands and musicians throughout his career (Whitesnake, to mention one out of many). Best known for his orchestral work 'Concerto For Group And Orchestra' first performed at Royal Albert Hall with Deep Purple and the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra in 1969 and conducted by the renowned Malcolm Arnold - a feat repeated in 1999 when it was again performed at the Royal Albert Hall by the London Symphony Orchestra and Deep Purple. 
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