Ronnie Smith’s Seasons of Woman – CTS Lansdowne’s Live Recording
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Light and Shade performed a selection of Ronnie Smith’s jazz compositions and arrangements, featuring many world-class musicians, including Dave Gordon, Martin Shaw, Scott Garland, Keith Waithe and top female jazz vocalist Tina May. The concert was recorded by CTS Lansdowne engineer Dick Lewzey, assisted by James Shannon, as the soundtrack for a DVD of the event to be released later this year.
CTS Lansdowne’s Adrian Kerridge commented:
“The sheer scale of the Colosseum, together with its very special acoustic,
makes it as ideally suited to live orchestral concerts as it is to film scoring.
Even with a sizable orchestra performing, there is space for a large audience,
and our permanent recording facilities at the hall make it very straightforward
to capture events of this nature. With our control room always available,
and all cabling already installed, we can keep set-up time to a minimum and
offer an extremely cost-efficient resource for live recording. This type
of concert recording is therefore becoming a frequent part of our project
schedule.”
Composer and band leader Ronnie Smith has a long association with Watford’s
Colosseum. He was Musical Director at the hall, and at the town’s Top
Rank Ballroom, from 1964 to 1974. During this 10-year period Ronnie and his
band regularly performed to audiences in excess of a thousand people per
night and, as a result, he still has many fans in the area.