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Graham Collier, 'Down Another Road @ Stockholm'

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snobb View Drop Down
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    Posted: 01 Mar 2023 at 7:57am

recording of the week,Graham Collier, 'Down Another Road @ Stockholm Jazz Days '69'

by Joshua Lee

Graham Collier sextet playing live
Graham Collier Sextet (Photo by Harry Monty)
 

A big player in the 1960s and ‘70s British jazz boom, bassist-bandleader-composer Graham Collier was heavily prolific during much of that period, making an early splash with his Graham Collier Music project playing his self-penned compositions alongside other UK jazz contemporaries like Kenny Wheeler and Harry Beckett. My Only Desire Records’ previous Collier reissue, British Conversations, was a hitherto unreleased big-band recording marking the 10-year anniversary of the bass player’s passing. This latest edition, Down Another Road @ Stockholm ‘69, is a live set of Collier et al. playing through his 1969 studio album Down Another Road, which was originally released in 1969 on Fontana Records.

Part of the impetus for MOD’s release of this album actually came out of the original studio recording’s scarcity; copies of Down Another Road sell for upwards of £200 on the used market. Rather than straightforwardly reissuing the studio album, this live recording proves to have plenty to dig into alongside what fans of Collier might expect from the original. Much like British Conversations, this release features a remaster courtesy of Gearbox Records sourced from the original analog tapes, complete with liner notes from Graham Collier biographer Duncan Heining.

Down Another Road @ Stockholm sees Collier playing alongside trumpeter/flugelhornist Harry Beckett, trombonist Nick Evans, and tenor & alto saxophonist Stan Sulzmann in the horn section. Also featured in this sextet was oboist/pianist Karl Jenkins and drummer John Marshall, both of whom would within a few years join Canterbury scene band Soft Machine, and Jenkins would also pen choral works like ‘The Armed Man (A Mass for Peace)’ and ‘Requiem’. For the most part the tracklist mirrors that of the original studio album, with the exception of the tune ‘Danish Blue’, replaced by the similarly abstract free jazz piece ‘Burblings for Bob’ (its first commercial release); for how out-there the horns get the rhythm section and Jenkins’ piano hold down a relatively steady groove during its near 14-minute runtime, setting the tone of the rest of the set – bluesy, groovy yet willing to get experimental.

Graham Collier playing bass
Photo by Harry Monty

The recording proves to be a great showcase of the Collier band’s voicing of horns, with some exquisite arranging on the Jenkins tune ‘Lullaby for a Lonely Child’ against the more subdued bass and piano, while Stan Sulzmann’s solo marks one of the highlights of the set with his arresting dynamics. Sulzmann shines again on the title track, which Collier notes in its introduction was jokingly titled as such due to its similarity with the Jenkins tune ‘Down a Road’; said title track is accompanied by a more bluesy rhythm, with Collier switching his walking lines for something more straight-ahead rocking.

Karl Jenkins occasionally swaps out the piano for his oboe on tracks like ‘Molewrench’, giving the tune a starker chord-less quality in the beginning before he switches back to the piano during the outro passage. Elsewhere he plays the leading melody on the pastorally-tinged intro passage to ‘The Barley Mow’, named after an old thatched-roof pub and a favourite haunt of Collier and co.. Down Another Road @ Stockholm ‘69 presents these fan-favourite Collier and Jenkins tunes in very much the same way they appear on the original album, albeit with a slightly rawer edge and more spirited performances from all players owing to the live setting, and there’s plenty of chances for extended soloing which is always welcome; another excellent entry in the Collier catalogue from My Only Desire.

from www.prestomusic.com



Edited by snobb - 01 Mar 2023 at 7:57am
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