Vital Spark brings together jazz greats Dave Holland and Norma Winstone to perform some of Kenny Wheeler’s final works written for Jazz ensemble and choir. It features an all-star line-up plus the choir of the London Vocal Project directed by Pete Churchill. The result is a vibrant and harmonically rich album shaped by decades of collaboration and quiet reverence for one of modern music’s most distinctive voices.

Vital Spark captures a rare unity between jazz ensemble and choir, revealing a sound that’s both unforced, delicate, reflective and full of Kenny’s character and energy. The music features new lyrics by Norma Winstone, alongside Wheeler’s settings of poems by Stevie Smith, Lewis Carroll, and William Blake. The result is unmistakably Kenny Wheeler: lyrical but unsentimental, harmonically rich yet spacious. For Dave, Norma, and Pete, this project is not a retrospective but a personal, shared act of remembering and reinterpreting, shaped by decades of friendship, collaboration, and quiet reverence for one of the most singular voices in modern music.

Words about the recording of Vital Spark

The abiding memory of these recordings is the feeling of the love we all shared for Kenny. Everyone involved was dedicated to bringing his brilliance and love for this project to life.

How Pete Churchill deciphered some of the fragments Kenny sent for him to work with we mere mortals will never know! He managed however and the choir and all the musicians loved every minute of their involvement. I hope that this is evident to the listener. Norma Winstone

Of the nine pieces on this album, seven came through my letter-box. Tantalising fragments of music – all in Ken Wheeler’s cryptic hand – arrived unannounced over the course of a few years. Six of them turned out to be brand new poetry settings and the seventh, a wordless scoring of one of his existing tunes. I had another wordless piece up my sleeve that Ken had previously written for LVP and simply by weaving Norma’s wonderful lyrics into these last two I really felt that we had a chance of an album. The final track, Inner Traces, had been written previously for a student choir – but never rehearsed or performed.

It was Dave Holland’s generous commitment to this project that provided all the impetus I needed to prepare the music for a first play-through in 2018… it was clearly time to record. Further pandemic-induced delays followed, but we finally made it to the studio in 2022! Some things are definitely worth the wait! Pete Churchill

When Pete Churchill told me about the existence of this collection of compositions by Kenny Wheeler for choir and Jazz Ensemble, written in the last period of his life, I was eager to hear them. Pete was intimately familiar with Kenny’s music having often worked with him on his projects. He did a heroic job of taking Kenny’s original material and then creating the scores and parts so we could have a first rehearsal. Everyone involved in this project has a deep love for Kenny’s music and many of us have had the privilege of working with him, in some cases over several decades. Norma was such an important part of bringing Kenny’s music to life and there were many musical ideas shared by everyone involved on how to frame and interpret the written music. The feeling in the studio was quite special, we were there to express our love for Kenny and celebrate his music. Dave Holland