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British Jazz

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Jazz Pianist View Drop Down
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Jazz Pianist Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 16 Jun 2011 at 3:04pm
Hey come to Birmingham, there's loads going on here
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Sean Trane View Drop Down
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Sean Trane Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 11 Jul 2011 at 2:47am
Just discovered Henry Lowther's Child Song
 
Stunning really!!!
my music collection increased tenfolds when I switched from drug-addicted musicians to crazy ones....

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Dick Heath View Drop Down
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Dick Heath Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 12 Jul 2011 at 3:02pm
A lot of recent British jazz is listed above. However, has been suggested a number of time in histories of British jazz, that it started to move away from a strong American influence just after World War Two and eventually showed enough independence of form etc to impress the ultimate critics, American audiences - having said that George Shearing slightly predates. Therefore it is necessary to remind of Humphrey Littleton (his Bad Penny Blues  can be heard in the Beatles' Lady Madonna), (my name sake) Ted Heath, and perhaps the most innovative British jazzer to that time, Tubby Hayes. However, there was a split between the innovative and the retro, dixieland jazz (subsequently known as trad jazz), where British jazz musicians wanted to resurrect the style and sound of 20's American jazz, e.g Kenny Ball, Acker Bilk. To a lesser extent Chris Barber  followed this route in the 50's but included a blues set (occasionally with genuine 30's American blues artists) and then a skiffle set (that where Lonnie Donegan came from and the seeds of British rock'n'roll).  The 60's had further splits; the Jazz Britannia series suggested young jazzers (e.g. Graham Bond, Georgie Fame) were forced to play electric transportable keyboards in jazz clubs, not being allow to play the house musician's acoustic  piano - then through absorbing R'nB (partly because the urging of audiences of young American servicemen)  played some of the earliest (blues based)  jazz rock. In the meanwhile there were those who wanted jazz but with minimal American sound, hence for instance the appearance of the previously mentioned Don Rendell and the young Ian Carr.  Big band arrangements were by the late 60's coming from Mike Westbrook - check out the double set of Westbrook's March Song with John Surman to the fore, and slightly later  Mike Gibb. One of the first British albums labelled jazz rock was Experiments In Pop by Gordon Beck. Free form or improv jazz came from a number of British musician, John Stevens (for straight Stevens, check out John Martyn's jazz blues folk rock of  Live at Leeds, for free jazz Stevens check out the Konnex released BBC Radio 3 recordings with Allan Holdsworth),  Fred Frith, etc.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_jazz

provides far more detail, for instance I find I'm guilty of omitting Johnnie Dankworth and Ronnie Scott, to name but two.

However, I keep rolling back to jazz rock  and other jazz fusions. BTW if you want an example of musician exploring jazz possibilities and futures at the end of the 60's, check out John Surman's contributions to Mike Westbrook's March Song, John McLaughlin's  Extrapolation, his own belated issued album Way Back When, and the McLaughlin/Surman: Where Fortune Smiles, all recorded within 24 moths of each other. And then consider the progression that lead to his distinctively British sounding Road To St Ives recorded  in the 80's.


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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote snobb Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 12 Jul 2011 at 3:09pm
It's interesting that Jack Bruce first solo recordings (released as his second solo album though) are quite similar to McLaughlin/Surman "Where Fortune Smiles"
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote js Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 12 Jul 2011 at 3:18pm
By the way Dick, if you need Acker Bilk records, they are quite common at thrift stores in the states. Wink
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Sean Trane Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 13 Jul 2011 at 3:19am
Originally posted by Dick Heath Dick Heath wrote:

 
 In the meanwhile there were those who wanted jazz but with minimal American sound, hence for instance the appearance of the previously mentioned Don Rendell and the young Ian Carr.  Big band arrangements were by the late 60's coming from Mike Westbrook - check out the double set of Westbrook's March Song with John Surman to the fore, and slightly later  Mike Gibb. One of the first British albums labelled jazz rock was Experiments In Pop by Gordon Beck. Free form or improv jazz came from a number of British musician, John Stevens (for straight Stevens, check out John Martyn's jazz blues folk rock of  Live at Leeds, for free jazz Stevens check out the Konnex released BBC Radio 3 recordings with Allan Holdsworth),  Fred Frith, etc.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_jazz

provides far more detail, for instance I find I'm guilty of omitting Johnnie Dankworth and Ronnie Scott, to name but two.

 
Hey Dick, welcome aboardWink
 
 
What I"d be really interesrted about is more info about the all-important (at least it seems like it) New Jazz Orchestra (it is not yet entered in JMA's database), because it appears that A LOT of British jazzers went through it (notably Rendell, Carr, Thompson, Ardley etc...
 
Sadly, it looks like their albums are not reissued at all, or just partly.... Would there be some special reason for this???
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
my music collection increased tenfolds when I switched from drug-addicted musicians to crazy ones....

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Dick Heath View Drop Down
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Dick Heath Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 13 Jul 2011 at 3:37am
Originally posted by Sean Trane Sean Trane wrote:

Originally posted by Dick Heath Dick Heath wrote:

 
 In the meanwhile there were those who wanted jazz but with minimal American sound, hence for instance the appearance of the previously mentioned Don Rendell and the young Ian Carr.  Big band arrangements were by the late 60's coming from Mike Westbrook - check out the double set of Westbrook's March Song with John Surman to the fore, and slightly later  Mike Gibb. One of the first British albums labelled jazz rock was Experiments In Pop by Gordon Beck. Free form or improv jazz came from a number of British musician, John Stevens (for straight Stevens, check out John Martyn's jazz blues folk rock of  Live at Leeds, for free jazz Stevens check out the Konnex released BBC Radio 3 recordings with Allan Holdsworth),  Fred Frith, etc.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_jazz

provides far more detail, for instance I find I'm guilty of omitting Johnnie Dankworth and Ronnie Scott, to name but two.

 
Hey Dick, welcome aboardWink
 Thanks, fancy seeing you here!!??
Sadly, it looks like their albums are not reissued at all, or just partly.... Would there be some special reason for this???
 I suggest many reasons. Original record label defunct or so small can only reissue a limited number of albums on CD per annum (I guess labels like Ogen???) , parent label seeing little urgency on CD issues (Island Records was dreadful until bought out by WEA), master tapes lost or mislabelled (admittedly a rock band but T2 have this problem), musicians not wanting a reissue for various reasons (Miroslav Vitous sat on Warners' reissuing of Magical Shepherd - but let Wounded Bird issue it about 9 months later on CD*), people like us not making enough fuss/noise. Jon Newey, managing editor of Jazzwise magazine, tells me his editorial team rattled Warner's cage and as result two Back Door albums got issued - but there hasn't been a rush to reissue the others.
 
The above mentioned Experiments with Pops was reissued on CD by a small American label,  approx 40 years after it s release on vinyl in the UK.  The recovery of John Surman's 1969 recording Way Back When and apparently premier release, was down to Cuneiform  5 or so years ago
 
* Allan Holdsworth is legendary in vetoing the handful of live albums in the can - so it is a miracle that  3 plus a dodgy 4th on are on the market. 


Edited by Dick Heath - 13 Jul 2011 at 3:41am
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Sean Trane Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 13 Jul 2011 at 4:04am
Well, at least I'm quite glad that my fave UK jazzman Graham Collier's full works have been reissued... (absolutely love Down Another Road, Deep Dark Blue Center, Darius, etc).
 
But I hear some are getting rareCry since the Disconforme reissue label folded
my music collection increased tenfolds when I switched from drug-addicted musicians to crazy ones....

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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Sean Trane Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 28 Jul 2011 at 8:35am
Michael Garrick's Sextet with Norma Winstone  in The Heart Is A Lotus StarStarStarStarStar
my music collection increased tenfolds when I switched from drug-addicted musicians to crazy ones....

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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Moshkito Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 25 Aug 2011 at 5:05pm
Hi,
 
Brittish arts' history have a lot of moments when people experimented and found something and did something ... with music ... but honestly ... other than the early experiments with Soft Machine, in their early albums (post Daevid), it is hardly jazz ... as defined by the term and music, and sometimes I thought that too much of it was way too composed for my tastes ... and to me that tastes a lot of the tastes of jazz out of it.
 
The film scene in the mid to late 60's was fabulously free and experimental. The theater scene had its free days going as far back as the late 50's and the "angry young men" ... and music had its heyday in the late 60's ... only to give way to the commerciality of it all. The music lasted the least of these 3, by the way, mostly because the rock press was always eager to kill something they did not know or understand ... and even Syd Barrett screamed about that -- lest we forget! ... "... people have stood, and cheered ... something they did not understand!"
 
I guess that I like the freer forms of jazz a lot more than the structured stuff out there ... that sometimes simply sounds like another lounge lizard jazz wannabe band.
 
But yeah ... my ears are definitly twisted!


Edited by Moshkito - 25 Aug 2011 at 5:07pm
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Sean Trane Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 26 Aug 2011 at 4:18am
Originally posted by Moshkito Moshkito wrote:

Hi,
 
Brittish arts' history have a lot of moments when people experimented and found something and did something ... with music ... but honestly ... other than the early experiments with Soft Machine, in their early albums (post Daevid), it is hardly jazz ... as defined by the term and music, and sometimes I thought that too much of it was way too composed for my tastes ... and to me that tastes a lot of the tastes of jazz out of it.
 
The film scene in the mid to late 60's was fabulously free and experimental. The theater scene had its free days going as far back as the late 50's and the "angry young men" ... and music had its heyday in the late 60's ... only to give way to the commerciality of it all. The music lasted the least of these 3, by the way, mostly because the rock press was always eager to kill something they did not know or understand ... and even Syd Barrett screamed about that -- lest we forget! ... "... people have stood, and cheered ... something they did not understand!"
 
I guess that I like the freer forms of jazz a lot more than the structured stuff out there ... that sometimes simply sounds like another lounge lizard jazz wannabe band.
 
But yeah ... my ears are definitly twisted!
I'm not sure I read your text well or at least don't know what to make of it.ConfusedWink..
 
 
 
British jazz had plenty of freer-form of jazz, with Mike Osborne, Keith Tippett , Hugh Hopper, Elton Dean and a few others .... AAMOF, you might want to check out almost anything that was released on the Ogun label from 74 until 80... It doesn't have much to envy to Ornette or Cecil, really!!!
 
True enough, ypou had a few real jazz composers (meaning that they wrote out the music for each instrument a bit like  Mozart would for a symphonic orchestra) that barely played an instrument while playing their music... A lot of these more-ambitious works were commissioned (ordered) by radio or official institutions
 
Mike Gibbs is a trombonist
Michael Westbrook is a pianist, but he often preferred having Mike Taylor playing
Graham Collier is a contrabassist
Neil ardley was (RIP) a pianist, but delved into synthesizers
Michael Garrick plays piano, but some of his works written were a lot to do with petry that was adapted to jazz or the other way around... this meant more than just writing arrangements, but reworking in depth and therefore some real "song"-writing.
 
I won't name them all, but there are a few more as well.
 
 
But mostly these guys considered themselves a songwriter or  composer and were more music director
 
 
 
 
my music collection increased tenfolds when I switched from drug-addicted musicians to crazy ones....

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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Frederic_Alderon Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 13 Nov 2018 at 4:55pm
Here is my current top 10 list in no particular order:

Nubya Garcia – Nubya's 5ive
Tom Misch – Beat Tape 2
Yussef Kamaal – Black Focus
Emma-Jean Thackray – Ley Lines
Kamaal Williams – The Return
Dinosaur – Together, As One
United Vibrations – Galaxies Not Ghettos
Tenderlonious – The Shakedown ft. The 22a Archestra
A.R.E. Project – A.R.E. Project
Yazmin Lacey – Black Moon
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote StarThrower Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 09 Mar 2019 at 1:17pm
I like Nucleus, and Graham Collier. I picked up several of the re-issues on the BGO label. The John Surman archival release, Way Back When on Cuneiform is another excellent release.

Edited by StarThrower - 09 Mar 2019 at 1:18pm
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