Saxophonist and composer Julian Siegel’s fourth release on Whirlwind and his most ambitious musical feat to date, sees him assemble the Julian Siegel Jazz Orchestra.

Following the acclaimed quartet release ‘Vista’ and the influential co-led Partisans album ‘Nit de Nit’, Siegel solidifies his reputation as one of Europe’s most celebrated artists working across jazz and improvised music.

Siegel has appeared as a member of some of the great large ensembles – he lists Hermeto Pascoal, Mike Gibbs, Kenny Wheeler, Django Bates and NDR Bigband amongst extensive performing credits. Now, the instrumentalist turns leader: ‘Tales from the Jacquard ‘is Siegel’s first record at the helm of a large ensemble.

On the half-hour ‘Tales from the Jacquard’, history fuses with technique. The piece is rooted in the East Midlands, where Siegel’s parents owned a lace making business. “It seemed like a natural thing to try and explore the lace-making process and use this research to inspire new music.” Experimentation with Jacquard cards played a key role in his compositional process. “The fact that each card contains numbers as well as rhythms gave me lots of musical ideas.” Having originally translated its card language into lace, the Jacquard now informs musical construction, creating melodies, rhythms, orchestrations and harmonic structures.

This exploration continues with “Blues”, grounded by a heavy bass line over which Jason Yarde and Trevor Mires dazzle. “Song” and “The Goose” appeared on Siegel’s quartet album ‘Vista’ and both get a full expansion here, opening up the structures for solo adventures from Mark Nightingale, Percy Pursglove and Stan Sulzmann. The other tracks include “The Missing Link”, emerging from a dark opening into an energetic boppy swinger that features trumpeter Claus Stötter, invited over from the NDR Big Band Hamburg.