The Big Picture

The Big Picture is a 2009 avant-garde jazz studio album by English guitarist and composer Fred Frith and the Swiss-based ARTE Quartett. It was recorded in January 2008 at Swiss Radio DRS2 in Zürich, Switzerland, and was released in 2009 by Intakt Records, together with Frith and the ARTE Quartett's first collaborative album, Still Urban, which was also recorded in January 2008 at Swiss Radio DRS2. The Big Picture comprises two suites of music, The Big Picture for saxophone quartet with two improvising soloists, composed by Frith in 2000, and Freedom in Fragments for saxophone quartet, composed by Frith in 1994. Freedom in Fragments was originally written for the Rova Saxophone Quartet and was performed by them on Frith's 2002 solo album Freedom in Fragments. Frith does not perform on The Big Picture. Reception In a review at All About Jazz, Marc Medwin stated that The Big Picture illustrates Frith's "fascinating approach to composition". He called the ARTE Quartett's playing "virtuosic", especially in their handling of the Freedom in Fragments suite. Medwin found "Song and Dance" "much livelier and ... more fluid" than the original Rova Saxophone Quartet's interpretation, and "Red Rag" "particularly infectious".