Alan Ganley JL 12.iii.11

[aka Calum Da Jazbo]

another prog for devotees of jazz in this land, or mebbe soho eh? ...lots of familiar names and i am looking forward to hearing what Mr G has to say about it all ....


... followed at 2130 as Byas'd has posted by a special JRR devoted to George Shearing

cor what with the FA Cup, the Six Nations and all that Jazz a good weekend is looming ...

[aka Calum Da Jazbo]

listened in the car driving sprog home and got quite concerned with how tame much of the music sounded until the trio with Derek Smith and the bite of Joe Harriott's solo in the all star band track .... obviously a nice and dedicated artist but not much of this stuff grabbed me ....

and it was a re-run [budget cuts all round eh cf the discussion of BAL]

... you can find Derek Smith on iTunes ....

[Serial_Apologist]

"British jazz ceased being tame once it had made up its mind to stop trying to be a second-hand copy of the American article". Discuss.

S-A

[Chris Newman]

Alan Ganley was not tame in the mid-sixties when he played with the Johnny Dankworth Band. As a teenager one concert I vividly remember was of them playing the Matyas Seiber/John Dankworth Improvisations for Jazz Band and Symphony Orchestra with the London Philharmonic Orchestra. Towards the end there is solo break for the jazz band's drummer. Ganley was phenomenal: baffling and amazing the LPO's principal percussionists at the time Christopher Seaman (now a well known conductor in the USA) and Tristan Fry as well as the audience. Serendipity note: In checking my details I discover that Seiber, a fine composer of serious music, went under the name of George Mathis for more popular stuff. He was a protege of Michael Tippett and sadly died in a motor accident in Kruger.

[elmo]

Have to agree with Calum, if in the sixties that was the stuff I'd heard first I never would have become interested in Jazz. luckily I heard records by Horace Silver, Miles, Dolphy, Trane etc. I recall listening to jazz club on the BBC at the time and thinking most of it sounded like dance band music ( Joe Harriott, Tubby, Phil Seamen, Stan Tracey etc excepted). John Dankworth' s tracks on that programme have certainly not stood the test of time that track with Cleo was unbelievably twee..

Listened Later to JRR's tribute to George Shearing and that reinforced my feelings stated above.... well played but pretty vacuous stuff compared to his contempories make -
your own list of pianists

[aka Calum Da Jazbo]

yep the Dankworth Band could be incredibly exciting live, saw them at a most memorable evening at the RFH, but the selections were tame, the music in the programme came alive when the Derek Smith Trio was played and flared again with Harriott ... even the Scott and Hayes groups sounded somewhat limited, too well ordered perhaps .... mebbe having become an arranger he liked everything in its proper place ....

incidentally i can get quite put off by Dankworth soloing, he can be a bit square in his phrasing at times ...

[Ian Thumwood]

Some of the Dankworth big band records are much better than you might anticipate but I would tend to agree with Calum that he could be extremely polite and conservative as a soloist. Allan Ganley is one of those British jazz musicians I think I have seen but am not too sure. To be honest, I am not that familiar with his work other than to say some of the charts he used to produce for the BBC Big band in the 1980's when I was first discovering jazz weren't at all bad. Just seemed like another name from the past.

Did the Tubby Hayes' "Late spot at Ronnies" get selected. This is a CD I do have which I don't mind. Gorden Beck is pretty useful at the piano but I was always more enthused by Jimmy Deucher's excellent playing on this disc after the leader's dependable work. The rhythm section seemed very stiff though although I appreciate that AG probably produced better work later on in his career. Sometimes the quintet seems to be dragged along by the swinging from line and pulling the bassist and drummer along in it's wake. The out of tune piano doesn't do the recording any favours either.

Have to agree totally with S-A. Most British jazz of the 1950's and early sixties seemed to slavishly follow the American model - certainly the only model there was then. By and large, I would suggest that this is a generalisation but one that isn't unfounded.

[Serial_Apologist]

Dankworth's Billion Dollar Collection LP from '67: (erm, btw) Kenny Wheeler's Windmill Tilter was essentially an enlarged Danworth lineup

Aside from that interesting compositional experiment, Seiber/Dankworth from '57, reffed above, Joe Harriott was I think the first to break the US emulative mould with his "Free Form" of 1960. Garrick was important in his own sometimes understated, sometime overstated way at the time. There was a fascinating jazz-into-blues trransition period with a few interesting things: the 3 tracks from '63 at the Klooks Klek from Solid Bond; the Group Sounds Five (when will Henry Lowther release the tapes??) ad hoc jazz 'n' poetry gigs with likes of Lowther, Bondy, Heckstall-Smith where there might be some unofficial tapes; but it all really seemed to take off around '66: SME at the Little Theatre Club, then later that year Ronnie leasing the Old Place became a watershed for groups gathering and interchanging personnels. I always think Ronnie was very brave forming The Band, with Surman and Warleigh, and Kenny Clare alongside Tony Oxley. Quite a risk to his musically relatively safe reputation - Stan Tracey apart!

[BLUESNIK'S REVOX]

I agree with Calum (not Nick)...re "tame"

The program wasn't helped by the two dire Cleo Lane tracks, fine/funny tho she is as a person, but more mannered than Kenneth Williams. She once (chez R3) called Betty Carter "mannered" ... pot and entire kitchen sink me thinks.

The joy for me was that Joe Harriot solo...just lept out from the mundane and the bland. Was there something "danceband/teatime" about 1950s Brit jazz apart from Tubbs, Tracey etc...a genial love of warm flat beer and cricket that sapped the strength?

Putney wasn't PhillY?

BN.

[aka Calum Da Jazbo]

...ahh it was Klooks Kleek eh S_A, a 28 bus ride away

[Alyn_Shipton]

Calum
Just to pick up on your point no 2. Actually this wasn't a "rerun". Of my interviews with Allan - and there were two of them, both done at the Stables, drawn on for this programme - only approximately 4 minutes of the 15 or so of discussion had been broadcast before. I re-edited the interviews and drew on a list of recordings that Allan and I had discussed at the time of the second interview, done with this programme in mind. There is no question of "cost-cutting" on JL. Indeed listeners can join us on location at Gateshead, Cheltenham and Oxford in the coming weeks for live recordings of the programme. This pushes our (extremely tiny) budget to the limit, but the appreciative comments I get from people who like to come along to the recordings, in some cases meet the artists, and generally enjoy the music, makes it worthwhile, and Radio 3 are prepared to give us the extra support to make this possible.
Regarding "reruns" in the forthcoming programme on Moody, only a fraction of our conversation has been broadcast (as part of a concert interval of his band from Ronnie's) so again, I'm trying to ensure that new material is heard each week.
Given the esteem with which Allan Ganley was held in the musicians' community, and the number of calls and emails I have had from his friends and colleagues saying how much they've enjoyed the show and appreciated the coverage given to a man who was, for fifty or so years, the first call drummer in London, it seems that they are at odds with this board. It may be that the 50s and 60s recordings by Dankworth et al are not to the taste of everyone here, but they had a dedicated following in their time, and have one still.

[aka Calum Da Jazbo]

Thanks Alyn, but BAL has been mucking about with format, so it was a question not an accusation. Thanks for the clarification.

I am sure many people would appreciate the programme, as an event in itself. i have good memories of seeing Alan Ganley performing in Soho both in the early days and after Bermuda with an impressively deep tan!

Nonetheless there was a cutting edge to the Derek Smith Trio that was not so evident on the other tracks .....

[BLUESNIK'S REVOX]

Alyn - No disrespect to Alan Ganley intended, in fact I'm "on" ( in the audience) the great Tubbs quintet '61 record at Ronnies (I clap in a sad 3/4).

I think the problem (apart from my reservations re. the Dankworth/Lane era) is that with a drummer as tasteful, reserved? and professional as Ganley - who is not usually a leader - the impact of the tracks played depends almost entirely on the rest of the band. And in that/this case ...he suffers. He's often just playing time at the back.

But the Derek Smith was a good stab at Silver and the Harriot solo was wonderful.

BN.

BTW: It's not just Dankworth - I find some of Tubby Hayes' writing for a larger band, very late 50s/60s "ITV danceband/background musak". The "Tubbs" 1961 Fontana album for example. It's as tho Gil Evans etc. never lived.

BN.

[BLUESNIK'S REVOX]

Talking about (US) writing/arangements in the 1950s - I recently came upon Marty Paich's "Big band Jazz Picasso" (1957) re-released on Candid by Alan Bates(to which I owe Jamie Cullum a thanks for playing).

VERY impressive and with some fine solo work from Jack Sheldon and Herb Geller etc.

Cook/Morton are a bit sniffy about it ("West Coast") but its a very good record.

BN.