New York, NY (Top40 Charts) Taken from the album 'On A Clear Day', Steve Rushton's Rare Orchid is a fresh, vibrant and daring concept in music and arrangement that has produced quite magical results. Mixing a standard rock set-up with orchestral players resulting in a line-up of over 20 musicians the album is made up of incredible new arrangements of some classic tracks as well as Steve's original material.
"The concept was to stretch out as a player, using jazz and the tracks I loved as a kid, and show that the other musicians featured are capable of things they wouldn't normally get booked to do!"
- Steve Rushton
Feeling limited and unable to express his musical ideas fully within the confines of a single framework, the Rare Orchid concept has seen Steve take musicians from many different areas to combine their capabilities. With rock players that can read complex arrangements and classical players that can improvise he has created a new versatile configuration of instrumentation - a more adult orientated approach to popular music.
Using musicians from the BBC Big Band, the BBC Singers, the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, Ronnie Scott's All Stars,
Jeff Beck Group, Bee Gees, Ten Years After, the Pasadena Roof Orchestra, Crass, Strictly Come Dancing band and L.S.O, Steve Rushton's Rare Orchid is unlike anything you've heard before. Within the larger ensemble there are boundless combinations of musical textures and inexhaustible creative blends. Themes can be extended and transformed as different sections of the band take over from one another.
The vast array of musicians has the common ground of ability, willingness to explore and mutual respect, with passion, character, humour and elegance being both visceral and ethereal. There is accuracy and groove with pop sensitivity all tightly arranged in a unique and inspiring way.
Over the course of a career that spans five decades, Steve Rushton has become one of the UK's busiest and most in-demand drummers, with an impressive list of credits to his name. A flamboyant and stylish performer, he is perhaps best known currently for his work with Imelda May, touring the world as a member of her band, featuring on her last three number one albums, and on the Grammy nominated
Jeff Beck album and DVD, "Rock 'n' Roll Party" (Honouring Les Paul).
Louise Cookman takes lead vocals on most of the songs. A fantastic singer with a unique quality of phrasing, a high technical ability to cover different musical settings, knowledge and history of popular song and a tonal edge which sounds youthful, vulnerable yet still full of experience and confidence. Brought up with music all around her (her father was a musician and was part of the team who set up Rolling Stone magazine in the UK) she spent much of her youth travelling round the country to various festivals. Her first Big Band gig was with Ken Mackintosh before she took on the role of vocalist with the Pasadena Roof Orchestra, and currently with the Piccadilly Dance Orchestra where she has featured on BBC 4 with Len Goodman.
