Researching notes for “Impressed with Gilles Peterson Vol. 2 - Rare, Classic & Unique British Modern Jazz 1963 –1971”, BBC presenter Peterson decided that Neil Ardley would be a perfect choice to provide some introductory words ‘to give context, substance and insight to a period that saw British modern jazz in transition’. 

Neil was an important link between many of the musicians featured on the album in addition to being responsible for some of the tracks included.  

Neil died on February 23 2004; his notes never completed. Peterson dedicated the album to him. 

News of the death of Neil Ardley at the age of 66 years came for many as a bolt from the blue, encountered abruptly in the fullsome obituaries that appeared in the national newspapers with enormous black and white photographs of Neil, conducting away, sometime back in the 1970s, someplace. 

Neil had grown accustomed to the lack of recognition accorded his substantial contribution to British modern jazz. Happily, he had developed a parallel career in publishing and later as a successful author. 

He is best remembered for his pioneering work with ‘jazz orchestra’, notably the New Jazz Orchestra (NJO), whose first album, ‘Western Reunion’ (1965), opened the door to his distinctive sound, most famously observed on his fabulous “Shades Of Blue”. 

That door was opened wider when Neil met independent producer Denis Preston  - ‘a rare Diaghilev-like figure’ as Neil observed. 

Preston owned Lansdowne Studios in London and had been recording popular jazz artists, such as Acker Bilk and Chris Barber, for the Record Supervision and Lansdowne Series (recordings themselves being reissued for the first time by specialists such as Lake Records).  

Preston, a bridge between ‘trad’ jazz and an emerging rock variant, warmed to Ardley and proved the cornerstone of a series of ground-breaking album releases.  

He offered his professional and financial support in future recording ventures and under his wing Neil composed his first full-length works in a style that combined classical methods of composition, with returning themes in a framework that was European yet essentially English pastoral in treatment.   

As John L Walters wrote in a Guardian newspaper obituary for Neil: “He had an idiosyncratic ear for orchestral colour, a classical composer's ability to create long, through-composed pieces from a handful of motifs and a jazz bandleader's ability to write for specific personalities.” 

‘The Greek Variations’ (1969)  - based on a folk tune - and ‘A Symphony Of Amaranths’ (1971) - with settings of poems by Yeats, Joyce and Carroll, and a version of Edward Lear's Dong With The Luminous Nose, recited by Ivor Cutler - featured strings, orchestral woodwind and harp.  

Key contributions came from the likes of trumpeter Ian Carr, drummer Jon Hiseman, saxophonists Barbara Thomson, Dave Gelly and Don Rendell and vibraphonist Frank Ricotti.   

The two albums were part of a trilogy completed by ‘Kaleidoscope Of Rainbows’ (1976), composed between 1973 and 1975 as a seven-part work for jazz orchestra and performed by an augmented version of Ian Carr's band Nucleus.  

Neil had been commissioned in 1974 by the London Borough of Camden to write a new work to mark the first major jazz festival in the UK for many years. It was held at the Roundhouse in London in October of that year. He had decided to extend the ideas worked out in the previous two albums to complete the trilogy.  

‘Kaleidoscope of Rainbows’ toured England the following year under the auspices of the Contemporary Music Network of the Arts Council and became its most successful attraction. A final concert before a packed house at the Royal Festival Hall was so well received that Gull Records decided to record and release Neil’s creation. 

Neil was to record again  - ‘Harmony of the Spheres’ in 1979 - but thereafter his output was diminished by market forces out of kilter with both the genre and the cost of making such ambitious recordings. 

However, his career as a writer now safely underway, Neil focussed on the literary life with children’s publisher Dorling Kindersley and is best remembered in these circles for his award-winning The Way Things Work, which sold 3 million copies worldwide.  

By the time he retired in 2000, Neil had written over 100 books with total sales of some 10 million copies.  

His growing interest in electronic music evidenced in ‘Harmony Of the Spheres’ evolved into with the electronic jazz group Zyklus, combining improvisation with electronic methods of composition. 

In 2002, Neil toured a revised version of ‘Kaleidoscope Of Rainbows’ with a performance at the Purcell Rooms in London with Jon Hiseman and other jazz luminaries. His last jazz composition was ‘On The Four Winds’, performed for Radio Three by New Perspectives in 1995. 

His later interest in choral music led also to the composition of Creation Mass (2001), a setting of 11 poems by long-term collaborator Patrick Huddie, and what was to prove to be his last recording.

Kaleidoscope of Rainbows