Coltrane and Miles

The Renga Ensemble is a one of the London Philharmonic Orchestra's most innovative initiatives. A flexible mixed chamber group that collaborates with performers and composers from outside the classical mainstream, they have worked with jazz musicians Kenny Wheeler, Cennet Jonsson, Huw Warren and Rufus Reid, folk singer June Tabor and fiddler Chris Wood, Indian percussionist Ramesh Shotham, improvising classical pianist David Dolan and many others.

In this performance they perform Birth of the Cool followed by Stroman's recomposition of John Coltrane's Africa/Brass with US saxophonist Jean Toussaint, members of the London Jazz Orchestra, Tomorrow's Warriors and two musicians from the Sphinx programme.

John Coltrane's great legacy is that of freedom in life, culture and music. In Africa/Brass, his first album for the Impulse label, he expressed his ideas on the largest canvas of his career, using an oversized big-band to present pieces including 'Song of the Underground Railroad' and the groundbreaking 'Africa'. Though revolutionary, the album had an unfinished feeling about it; Scott Stroman and Jean Toussaint have taken it as a starting point, recomposing and revisiting the music to honour Coltrane in the 40th anniversary year of his death.

The group was born out of the London Philharmonic Orchestra's Roots series and launched after a successful programme led by Stroman with African singer Youssou N'Dour and guest Herbie Hancock. They have commissioned and performed new suites and song-cycles, and earlier this year gave the first complete UK performance of the Miles Davis-Gil Evans Birth of the Cool suite with members of the London Jazz Orchestra to a packed house in St James' Piccadilly.