Artist: Colin Towns' Mask Orchestra
(featuring Maria Pia De Vito)
Title: Nowhere & Heaven (2 x CD)
Record Label: PROVOCATEUR
Catalogue No.: PVC1013
Year: 1996

Track listing:

• CD1
  1. Skin Treatment (6.55)
  2. Slow Dancing (5.10)
  3. Dance Fantastique (6.01)
  4. Standing Female Nude (12.50)
  5. Blue-Noir (5.17)
  6. Nowhere & Heaven (15.44)
  7. Tears For A Traveller (8.20)
  8. Screech (13.31)

  Total running time = 73.52

• CD2 (bonus album)
  1. Is The Sky Early? (8.02)
  2. The Shout (7.47)
  3. Short Stories Suite
     1. Strange Circus (7.02)
     2. Intimate Marching (2.35)
     3. Night Train Window Face (3.58)
     4. Passing Clouds With Cool Winds Blowing (7.06)
     5. Far Off Whispers (3.48)
     6. Turning Wicked (6.42)
     7. Hot Or What? (6.41)
     8. Forbidden Talk (5.15)
     9. Provocateur (5.52)
  4. It Don't Mean A Thing If It Ain't Got That Swing (6.26)
  5. Nocturne (4.20)

Total running time = 75.48

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Personnel

Vocals: Maria Pia de Vito
Trumpet: John Barclay, Graham Russell, Henry Lowther, Guy Barker, Gerard Presencer
Trombone Mark Nightingale, Richard Edwards, Peter Beachill, Roger Williams, Pat Hartley (CD2, tracks 1, 3-12)
Saxophone: Peter King, Jamie Talbot, Alan Skidmore, Nigel Hitchcock, Julian Argüelles, Alan Barnes (CD2, tracks 8, 9 & 11)
Piano / extra Sounds and colours: Colin Towns
Bass: Dudley Phillips
Drums: Clarc Tracey
Clarinet: Phil Todd (CD2, tracks 2-11), Jamie Talbot (CD1, track 4)
Cello: Andrea Hess (CD1, tracks 2 & 4; CD2, track 13)

Recording details

Produced by: Colin Towns
Engineered by: Dave Hunt
Recorded at Angel Studios, London

Trumpet Concerto recorded at CTS Studios, Wembley, London

All tracks written by Colin Towns except CD2, track 12 written by Duke Ellington

This is Colin Towns' second album with THE MASK ORCHESTRA. In THE MASK ORCHESTRA Colin brings together some of Britain's best jazz talents with both new and established players. Altogether they make an exciting and ground-breaking group. Together they take all that is great in the jazz genre, turn it on its head and produce music which unlike so much 'new' jazz actually looks forward instead of back.

The first album of THE MASK ORCHESTRA hugely impressed the British press and public alike. The Stage described the album as sumptuous, rich, breathtaking, dynamic. The Sunday Times said it was one of the most heartening surprises of the past couple of years. The band went on to do a sell-out British tour which was featured live on national radio. One of the performances (from Croydon, UK in 1995) was recorded and made into a film by Hollywood director, Stuart Orme. This may get a commercial release at some point.

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