Alan's collaboration with Tim Whitehead and Kathleen Willison

At the Winchester Jazz Festival this summer Kathleen performed a set of new songs composed by Tim with lyrics by Alan. 

Alan has regularly read his poems between sets at Richmond's Way Out West Club, where Whitehead, last year's artist-in-residence at Tate Britain, is a star attraction. Thanks to his success with "Colour Beginnings," a musical response to a selection of J.M.W. Turner's work, Whitehead is receiving ever-widening critical acclaim. He and Franks have been collaborating on songs for the past three years, and plan to release an album of live recordings later this year. The lyrics range from rueful reflections tinged with American blues, as in "We've lived too well for too long," to the verbal audacity and stunning rhyme-scheme of "Extemporise." A songwriter in his own right, Franks says he was more than happy to surrender his words to Whitehead and see what happened. The results, as Saturday's audience will see and hear for themselves, are electrifying. See more at theWinchester Jazz Festival website. More on Alan's collaboration with Tim and Kathleenhere.