green prism – hiljef

Hilary Jeffery
Green Prism
2026

music composed by Keith Tippett, arranged by Hilary Jeffery

lyrics by Julie Tippetts

performed by:

Julie Tippetts, Tobias Delius, Paul Dunmall, Hilary Jeffery, Eleni Poulou

multi-track brass played and recorded at Berlintune Studio by Hilary Jeffery (2021 – 2024)

Julie Tippetts, Paul Dunmall, Eleni Poulou, Hilary Jeffery recorded at J&J Studio, Bristol by Jim Barr (2024)

Tobias Delius, Eleni Poulou recorded at Lowswing Studio, Berlin by Guy Sternberg (2025)

mixed at Berlintune Studio by Hilary Jeffery (2024 – 2025)
final mix and master by Guy Sternberg at Lowswing Studio (2025)

produced by Hilary Jeffery

to be released on Discus Music (UK) in 2026

AUDIO PREVIEW ↓

Liner Notes by Martin Phillips

Very few jazz musicians excel across so many aspects of their art: soloist, duettist, small, big and enormous band leader, totally free improviser, writer of highly composed works. Keith Tippett was one of them. In a career lasting more than fifty years, he produced a succession of innovative recordings. Written in 1971 for the fifty-piece band Centipede, “Septober Energy”, elevated him, aged only twenty-three, to as near star status as a jazz musician gets. His writing for large ensembles matured through two other iconic albums: “Frames: Music for an Imaginary Film” recorded by his Ark orchestra (1978) and “First Weaving”, the seven section suite heard on Tapestry Orchestra Live at Le Mans (2007). His 1980 album, “The Unlonely Raindancer”, set the template for his subsequent solo piano work. Matthew Bourne considers that, in more open-minded times, the double album would “have altered the landscape of solo piano improvisation thereafter.” He duetted with a range of prominent figures, from Stan Tracey, through Andy Sheppard to Louis Moholo-Moholo. From 1988 to 2011, alongside Paul Dunmall, Paul Rogers and Tony Levin, he was an equal member of arguably the greatest free improvising group of the period: Mujician.

“Linükea” (1995) was his first move towards contemporary classical music, performed and recorded with the Kreutzer String Quartet. “The Monk Watches The Eagle” (first performed in 2004 but unreleased until 2020) fuses jazz elements with choral music. In discussing “The Monk”, Martin Archer of Discus ruminated on the difficulty of genre classification. Keith never liked being pigeon-holed: “Septober Energy” wasn’t jazz-rock and “Linükea” wasn’t classical music. In the end, Martin decided the most appropriate description was ‘Keith music’.

The music on “Green Prism” is rooted in the last of the many commissions Keith wrote in the latter part of his career. It is quintessentially ‘Keith music’. And it is equally an extension of the unique series of recordings Keith made with his wife Julie, from their earliest days in the 1970s as Ovary Lodge to the four “Couple in Spirit” albums. Julie’s words and vocal performance are central to the powerfully evocative music presented here. “Julie’s voice to me is like an instrument with many different tonal colours and amazing range. Her intonation is fantastic.” Those are the words of Paul Dunmall, another long-time collaborator with Keith and also a key contributor to this album.

The creative force behind Green Prism is multi-instrumentalist and composer Hilary Jeffery. Like many others across the years, Hilary was inspired by attending one of Keith’s jazz workshops while he was studying at Dartington College of Arts. He had already met and played with Paul Dunmall. He describes these experiences as “Unforgettable and life changing. Keith, Julie and Paul were very encouraging to me as I was starting out to live and work in the musical multiverse. They were role models for how to live musically in an uncompromising and authentic way which was deeply inspiring and motivating.”

Hilary subsequently played with Paul on many gigs and recordings and, in 2002, with Keith’s Tapestry Orchestra at the Victoriaville Festival. Following a Keith Tippett/Louis Moholo-Moholo concert in Berlin in 2017, he approached Keith to write a piece for the Berlin based brass group, Zinc and Copper. Keith accepted and subsequently wrote the suite “Winter’s Welcome”, which the group premiered in Berlin in February 2019. Keith’s health had deteriorated so badly by then that he never heard the piece performed live. After his death in 2020, Hilary resolved to take the music and record it anew for multi-track brass. The result is “Green Prism”.

Those who have followed Keith’s music closely will recognise one or two old favourites given a new livery. “Thoughts” is a deconstructed version of the early composition, “Thoughts To Geoff”, a tune originally featured on “Dedicated To You, But You Weren’t Listening” (1971) and given countless outings at workshops Keith gave in the UK and across the continent. Here, after stating that earworm motif, it takes off, drawing on figures composed by Keith for the original suite. There’s simultaneous soloing, riffs crossing and colliding until eventually there’s Julie’s voice at the centre of an ecstatic large ensemble improvisation: pure Keith music. “A Song About Gloves” starts out with a brass rendition of Keith’s “A Song” before evolving into an accompaniment to Julie singing her poem about gloves. Paul Dunmall’s tenor sax weaves its way through, above and below the harmonies in classic Dunmall fashion.

Of the original compositions, “Green Prism Parthers” is a wonderful workout for brass ensemble, clarinet and synthesizer. An elegiac piece which Hilary describes as “a journey into a twilight forest. A path into unknown territory. The path is shared by ‘parthers’ – a term coined by Eleni Poulou – people who make paths, people on the same path who show the path, animals on the path.” Along the way there are plentiful spaces between the dense brass passages for Toby Delius’s clarinet and Eleni Poulou’s synthesizer improvisations.

The three tracks “In Breath”, “One Year On” and “The Sigh” offer a musical triptych, spanning a boundary. On one side, Keith writes the melodies and chords for the original suite: on the other, his music is performed after his passing, with Julie trying to come to terms with the loss of her lifelong soul mate. It’s difficult not to feel that the slow melancholy of these pieces reflect an artist aware that his work was drawing to a close. There is none of the exuberance of “From Granite To Wind” or the playfulness of “The Nine Dances of Patrick O’Gonogan”. These final works are closest in tone to “The Monk Watches The Eagle”, for which Julie wrote lyrics imagining a holy man looking back over his own lifetime, knowing that the day of his passing had come. The music is marked by a quiet spirituality. This is not a Dylan Thomas-type raging against the dying of the light: more the calm resignation of Edward Thomas pausing at the edge of “The unfathomable deep/Forest where all must lose/Their way.”

“In Breath” is an extended version of “The Sigh”. Hilary’s arrangement is a perceptive revisiting of Keith music. There are the familiar dense chords and harmonies, the anthemic swells. We hear Paul Dunmall’s soulful saxophone weaving its way around Julie’s poetry-song, as it had done for over thirty years. There’s even, at one point, another echo from Keith’s past as a trumpet passage recalls Mark Charig’s many performances with Keith.

“One Year On” is painfully beautiful. Julie ruminates on the void that Keith’s death has left in her life. Time doesn’t ease the hurt: “my eyes are full to brimming, one year on” she sings, over the sombre brasses. The record ends on “The Sigh”, which as far as is known, is the last piece Keith ever wrote, a ballad in which he encoded the message “I love you Julie”. In this wordless version, Paul Dunmall’s saxophone has gone. There is no Julie. We leave the record with just the brass sounding the final farewell.

PRESS RELEASE by Martin Phillips

“Green Prism” is at once a tribute to a master of composition in his maturity and a sensitive re-imagining by someone from a new generation discovering a way to celebrate the spirit of Keith Tippett. It’s a recording that will engross anyone who has loved Keith’s music.

“Green Prism” is a re-working of the final composition of the jazz musician Keith Tippett, who died in 2020. This new work has been arranged by multi-instrumentalist and composer Hilary Jeffery. It will be released on Discus Music in May 2026.

After attending a Keith Tippett/Louis Moholo-Moholo concert in Berlin in 2017, Jeffery approached Tippett to write a piece for the Berlin based brass group, Zinc and Copper. The resulting suite – “Winter’s Welcome” – was premiered in Berlin in February 2019. Keith’s health had by then deteriorated and so sadly he never heard the piece performed live. After his death in 2020, Jeffery resolved to take the music and record it anew. The result is “Green Prism”.

The music on the album is not an exact recreation of Tippett’s score for the Zinc and Copper ensemble. Jeffery has re-worked the arrangements for multi-track brass plus the voice of Julie Tippetts, the saxophone of Paul Dunmall, Tobias Delius’s clarinet and Eleni Poulou’s synthesizer.

It’s difficult not to feel that these last compositions by Tippett reflect an artist aware that his work was drawing to a close. In particular, the three tracks “In Breath”, “One Year On” and “The Sigh” offer a reflective musical triptych.

Jeffery’s arrangement of “In Breath” is a perceptive revisiting of the original chart. There are the dense chords and harmonies familiar to anyone who has encountered Tippett’s work before. Paul Dunmall’s soulful saxophone weaves its way around Julie Tippetts’ poetry-song.

The record ends on “The Sigh”, which as far as is known, is the last piece Keith ever wrote, a ballad in which he encoded the message “I love you Julie”. In this wordless version, Paul Dunmall’s saxophone has gone. There is no Julie. We leave the record with just the brass sounding the final farewell.

“Green Prism” is a recording that will not only engross anyone already familiar with Keith Tippett’s music; it will hopefully bring him to the attention of a new generation of those with mind’s open enough to appreciate the best of contemporary composition.

TRACK LIST ↓

[1] “A Song About Gloves”

ISRC: GBV5F2619701

K.Tippett, J.Tippetts, arr H.Jeffery

Julie Tippetts – voice
Paul Dunmall – tenor saxophone
Hilary Jeffery – brass

[2] “Dancing”

ISRC: GBV5F2619702

K.Tippett, J.Tippetts, arr H.Jeffery

Julie Tippetts – voice
Tobias Delius – tenor saxopohone
Paul Dunmall – C soprano saxophone
Hilary Jeffery – trombones, computer

[3] “Green Prism Parthers”

K.Tippett, J.Tippetts arr H.Jeffery

ISRC: GBV5F2619703

Tobias Delius – clarinet
Hilary Jeffery – brass
Eleni Poulou – synthesizer, music box

[4] “In Breath”

ISRC: GBV5F2619704

K.Tippett, J.Tippetts, arr H.Jeffery

Julie Tippetts – voice
Paul Dunmall – tenor saxophone
Hilary Jeffery – brass

[5] “Thoughts”

ISRC: GBV5F2619705

K.Tippett, arr H.Jeffery

Tobias Delius – clarinet, tenor saxophone
Paul Dunmall – melodica
Hilary Jeffery – brass, melodica
Eleni Poulou – synthesizer, melodica
Julie Tippetts – voice

[6] “Green Prism – The Rock”

ISRC: GBV5F2619706

K.Tippett, J.Tippetts, arr H.Jeffery

Julie Tippetts – voice
Paul Dunmall – tenor saxophone
Hilary Jeffery – trombone, brass
Eleni Poulou – synthesizer

[7] “One Year On”

K.Tippett, J.Tippetts, arr H.Jeffery

Julie Tippetts – voice
Hilary Jeffery – brass

ISRC: GBV5F2619707

[8] “The Sigh”

ISRC: GBV5F2619708

Hilary Jeffery – trombones

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