British J*** Reissues

Posted by: John C on 04 May 2004

The past few years have seen a resurgence of interest in British Jazz of the 60s and 70s. Though Britain is probably better known for it's great exponents free jazz, improvisation or fusion, there is in fact a little mountain of (until now anyway) hard to find swinging modern jazz.A groundswell of interest was helped along a few years ago by Gilles Peterson's "Impressed", a great collection of hard to find gems.

Here are a few of my favourites, most available on CD now for the first time in 30 odd years.I hope someone else might be interested enough to try them out.

Don Rendell/Ian Carr Quintet.
Shades of Blue/ Dusk Fire/ Phase iii/Live and Change Is.

Unavailable for 30 years 5 simply wonderful, essential albums from this greatest of British groups. A facile comparison is with the great quintets of Miles Davis but this wonderful group was quite unique, playing music from straight ahead jazz to beautiful moody modal post bop.Engineered in the legendary Landsdowne studios with tremendous sound quality. I rate this as some of the favourite music in my collection. Available as two mid price double CDs www.BGO-records.com

Joe Harriot
Free-Form/Abstract

Brilliant West Indian sax player who formed his own ideas of a new freer jazz independently from Ornette who was developing similar ideas across the pond. These two records are minor masterpieces.

Tubby Hayes/Ronnie Scott
The Jazz Couriers.

Any number of albums and all essential. No nonsense straight ahead hard bop. Ronnie Scott himself really was the most lovely player but it's Tubby who gets most of the plaudits. A huge talent on saxes and vibes. Down In The Village is simply rip roaring fantastic, full of joy. Some highlights...Tubby the Tenor, Introducing Tubbs, Mexican Green all of them gems.

I could mention many others who I have discovered for the first time in the last year or so.. Ronnie Ross, Tony Kinsey,Mike Garrick, Harry Becket, Graham Collier but if you want a taster try the Gilles Peterson compilation on vinyl or CD (Vol 2 out soon!) and hopefully like me you won't be able to get enough of this great music.

John

Posted on: 04 May 2004 by Geoff P

John

In particular I absolutely agree about Tubby. He was playing live concerts when I was a callow 16 year old and snuck in to hear him (typically in Jazz pubs so underage).

It was a sad thing that he died so young. He was good enough to have ended up up there with the likes of Coltrane, Parker, Cannonball, Lockjaw, Mulligan, Getz etc. etc. in the fullness of time.

A buddy of mine, John Serman used to play in the Mike westbrook band on Baritone sax and was completely influenced by Tubby. He is still recording, I saw some releases from Norway but a bit obscure.

Ian Carr, Tony kinsey and Graham Collier I know and thing bloody great aswell. Ronnie Scott almost single-handedly kept British Jazz alive against the pressure of rock & roll, and even John Dankworth is a good jazzman though he became more commerciallized over time.

I would love to get some of these. Is there a mail order site where a good selection can be found other than BGO?.

regards
GEOFF

Posted on: 05 May 2004 by John C

Geoff I'm very impressed you are a mate of John Surman (if it is he). I have many of his albums though less fond of his ECM output. You can get most of these cds at the excellent www.crazyjazz.co.uk

Hock, they are a bit brittle but you know if you had a simple little stereo like us real music lovers you wouldnt be bothered by that

I think the sound on the Rendell/Carr's are excellent. Garrick is easily available on CD but I think Universal Japan have released a lot of this music and probably in the usual excellent sound. Dizzy Reece another great Brit export (well West Indian actually)!I have all of his BNs on Japanese vinyl and love em.

John

Scored the long out of print Tina Brooks Mosaic box (vinyl only release) yesterday!!!!

Posted on: 05 May 2004 by Geoff P

quote:
Geoff I'm very impressed you are a mate of John Surman (if it is he). I have many of his albums though less fond of his ECM output.

Yep! That's him, I spelt his name wrong.

We grew up together in Plymouth. John formed a traditional Jazz band when were still at secondary school and we played every friday at a local converted church hall. I for my sins was the banjoist. At that time john mainly played Clarinet. He announced one day we should move to mainstream so the Banjo became a guitar and his clarinet became a tenor sax.
Mike Westbrook turned up as we were approaching GCE 'O' levels and became the organiser of a dream he had to form a big band. John had decided he wanted to move to Baritone, partly because of the challenge and of course because there were'nt many well known baritone players.

I did'nt play in Mike's band ever but was a hanger on during the growing pains.
John went off to the Royal College of Music (of course), by then he could play virtually any instrument from piano to trumpet and only had to hear a piece of "new" music through one riff to be able to play it by ear note perfect.

I was never a musician so it all drifted away and I doubt if he would even remember me now, but John was always highly "interior" when it came to music. We coined the name for him of "SEZ SURMAN".

Thanks for the link.

regards
GEOFF

Posted on: 08 May 2004 by Geoff P

quote:
Please give me a hint where to search

Fredrick

Just do a search on "Norwegian Jazz". I use www.google.co.uk to search and that gives a good response.

regards
GEOFF

Posted on: 09 May 2004 by John C

Hock the Ornette in Coleman in Europe double LP is essential. Recorded in the world famous Fairfield Hall of sunny Croydon it was Ornette's first European foray. I'm sure I mentioned this record here before. Notorious for a heckler shouting out "now play Cherokee' Far better sound than Golden Circle and Izenson's bass is much more clear. Tremendous arco playing. (Maybe you should try this Frederick?).One of my favourites.

As for Surman... Westering Home, Morning Glory and tales of Algonquin are good.I have some of his jazz rock as well ... best avoided! Upon reflection and Coruscating are the only recent ones on ECM I have but if he's had the rarum treatment its probably worth having as a taster.

John

Geoff great story!

[This message was edited by John C on Mon 10 May 2004 at 8:14.]

Posted on: 10 May 2004 by Geoff P

quote:
As for Surman... Westering Home, Morning Glory and tales of Algonquin are good.I have some of his jazz rock as well ... best avoided! Upon reflection and Coruscating are the only recent ones on ECM I have but if he's had the rarum treatment its probably worth having as a taster.

John

I stumbled across this site which gives 1 minute sound samples. It is interesting because it has more detail pages with individual album listings and reviews for Jazz artists in general.

http://ubl.artistdirect.com/music/artist/songs/0,,499001,00.html

I do struggle a bit with some of Surman's work, I admire the improvisation butit is too claustrophibic for me.

regards
GEOFF