Now play Cherokee!

[Jazzrook]

49 years ago today! The greatest ever jazz concert in Britain?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nBU3JymeuPU

[Tom Audustus]

49 years ago today! The greatest ever jazz concert in Britain?

www.youtube.com/watch?v=nBU3JymeuPU

Probably not.

[aka Calum Da Jazbo]

well i was there and that is what it seemed then and now Tom Adjustus ....

[BLUESNIK'S REVOX]

well i was there and that is what it seemed then and now Tom Adjustus ....

Still think that concert CD is up there with Ornette's Swedish/Golden Circle Bnotes. I even like OC's "classical" opener.

Great bit of film on Utube of the trio recording film music in Paris. For "Who's Crazy" I think


BN.

[aka Calum Da Jazbo]

[Ian Thumwood]

Whilst it almost certainly had not bearing in kick starting the British jazz scene, it's probably worth noting that British jazz only really started to find it's voice in the second half of this decade. I agree that the appearance of Ornette Coleman probably was seminal in the ranks of visiting American artists and the quality of the music is extremely high. However, as for being the greatest jazz concert on Britain even up to that point let alone afterwards, it is extremely subjective. I wonder how many jazz fans at the time were that switched on to Coleman's music. It certainly seems that it is only recently that his music has been embraced by the mainstream. Prior to this, his approach was still quite controversial even in to the 1980's.

I usually go to gigs with a mate of mine who saw Miles perform in 1967 in a double bill with Archie shepp. He always tells the tale that the Miles Davis gig was exceptional but Shepp was too extreme for many people in the audience who revelled in the previous quintet yet walked out before Shepp had put his horn down at the end of the gig. My friend was one of them who left. The appearance of Miles' band would have been extremely significant but would the set by Shepp diminish it?

The problem when you go back 50 years is the infrequency of concerts by American artists either due to the Musicians Union dispute or the expense and difficult of travel. I would argue that the appearance of the ODJB in London in about 1919 would have been hugely important as jazz would never have been heard live in the UK prior to this. Later on, the European tour by Duke Ellington must be the most important tour by an American band before the war and the impact of this music must have had an even greater impact that Ornette thirty years later given the state of jazz in Europe at the time. In the 1950's artists had to practically be smuggled in to this country to play as was that case of George Lewis. By the time that this was rectified in the next decade I've always had the impression that the "big" names were the likes of Count Basie, Duke Ellington, Stan Kenton and other big band leaders or the JATP line ups. The impression of who performed here is also widened by the groups who performed on "Jazz 625." It is also worth recording the stir Benny Goodman created when he first visited the UK and put together a British band in the late 1960's. People were still talking about this twenty years later and I knew people who considered this to be an endorsement of the quality of British jazz musicians at the time when previously the infrequent appearance of the likes of Deucher and Hayes as deps in American bands created a huge amount of media interest.

I never heard any live jazz / big band music until the late 1970's when the significant styles of music were defined by the spectrum of Buddy Rich / Maynard Ferguson / Thad Jones / Count Basie and recreations of "Greatest big band hits." Other than local bands, I never heard any small group jazz by visiting Americans until I heard Don Cherry with a group that included Carlos Ward and Nana Vasconcelas who come from South America. The first "name" musician I heard was George Russell although I had also seen the current edition of the Basie band (led by Frank Foster, I think) in the mid 1980's.

Since the 1980's a wider range of more adventurous musicians have appeared regularly in the UK and beyond the rather safe environs of Ronnie Scott's which probably ceased to be a significant jazz venue by then or at least one that never really got beyond engaging "Loose Tubes."

I tend to agree with the sentiments of Jazzrook's opening gambit but would add that it is probably more salient to note the number of musicians / bands who never appeared in the UK. As far as I am aware the likes of Jelly Roll Morton, King Oliver, Fletcher Henderson, the Dorseys, Jimmie Lunceford, the original Basie band, Chick Webb, Artie Shaw, Charlie Parker, Lester young, Charlie Christian, the Miles Davis quintet with Coltrane, Lennie Tristano, Art Tatum, Billie Holiday, Tina Brooks, Sonny Clark, Clifford Brown, etc never played in the UK. Hardly surprising that so many different jazz groups who did perform were so etched in people's memory especially given the fact that so much British jazz up to the point of Ornette's concert so slavishly copied their American counterparts.

[BLUESNIK'S REVOX]

Well lets take a look. 50 years ago = 1964. By 1964 Billie, Basie. Ellington, Monk, Blakey, Shorter, Morgan, Timmons,.Mclean, Kirk, Dizzy, Farmer,Coltrane, Dolphy, Cannon, Silver, Ray Charles, et al et al et al had played chez Brit. Plus almost every US and European saxophonist of merit through Ronnies. Plus the US folk blues tours which gave Brit audiences more exposure than most American. And I vividly remember furious arguments re Ornette in the early sixties...from which sprang the British free scene. Ditto Trane.

This does remind me of Owen Jones sounding off first hand about the Miners Strike when he was born in 1985.

BN.

BTW...I once met Elvis on Great Yarmouth pier in 1960. Turned out he was Billy Fury so I gave him a cold chip.

[aka Calum Da Jazbo]

please El Senor Blues or S_A tell Ian the real history of Jazz in the UK please!

Ian you were not there - where do you think all the free jazz took heart from apart from Coltrane ... practically avey one who was any one in the UK jazz scene was at that concert ... a year or so later the Trio was at Scotts and Humph and Charlie Rouse were sitting behind me ... interesting conversation!

when it came to the free and new jazz scene in the 60s NYC was keeping close tabs on London; poor Joe Harriott if only .... i was going to hear his free jazz in that amazing quintet in at least 63 & 64 ....

By now firmly established as an outstanding bebop soloist, in 1960 Harriott turned to what he termed "abstract" or "free-form" music. He had been toying with some loose free-form ideas since the mid-1950s, but finally settled upon his conception in 1959, after a protracted spell in hospital with tuberculosis gave him time to think things over. At first he struggled to recruit other like-minded musicians to his vision. Indeed, two of his core band members, Harry South and Hank Shaw, left when these ideas surfaced. He finally settled on a line-up of Shake Keane (trumpet, flugelhorn), Pat Smythe (piano), Coleridge Goode (bass) and Phil Seamen (drums). Les Condon temporarily replaced Keane on trumpet in 1961, while Seamen left permanently the same year, his place taken by the return of the quintet's previous drummer, Bobby Orr.

London and the UK was a very active and original jazz scene in them there days, that is why there are so many old grey boppers around here innit?

[Ian Thumwood]

I don't think Billie Holiday ever appeared in the UK. Granted the other musicians appeared in the UK but visits before the war were pretty rare although they did include the likes of Fats Waller, Benny Carter, Duke Ellington , Louis Armstrong and Coleman Hawkins. Practically no one from the 1920's played other than Sidney Bechet who was a member of will Marion Cook's orchestra.

Granted the number of visiting musicians greatly increased after the musician's union ban but visits were still irregular enough to prompt comment. I totally agree with your remark about Ornette Coleman but I think that the scene was such in 1965 that someone like Stan Kenton would have also evoked similar awe. I think that the number of visiting musicians was so insignificant to warrant genuine interest and publicity. When the likes of Woody Herman, Benny Goodman and even Gil Evans in the late 1970's / early 80's assembled band with British musicians, this was a national important and a vindication that British musicians were not necessarily as inferior as some fans might have imagined.

From my perspective as someone who regularly goes to gigs, there is generally a far greater wealth of visiting musicians available to hear these days even if the likes of Dizzy, Jackie McLean, Cannonball, Dolphy, Ellington, Basie, etc are no longer around. I don't wonder that an Ornette gig might have seemed so seminal back then when it was nothing like the scene today which is bursting with new developments and exciting musicians who appear outside London in local venues and at the numerous festivals which were not as prevalent then as they are now. For a jazz fan in 2014 there are few legends from the music's golden era who are still around that you can appreciate (veteran musicians today probably include the likes of John Scofield, Bill Frisell, Henry Threadgill, Wadada Leo Smith, David Murray and a host of others who emerged in the 1970's) and who made intermittent visits to the UK prior to the 1980's but there are generally more venues to hear jazz from around the globe. I've got three venues close at hand to hear world class musicians - this wasn't possible when I was a teenager. Small wonder at Calum and Jazzrook's enthusiasm when most jazz fans prior to the 1980's were generally only fed crumbs in this country - even if these crumbs were extremely tasty.

Anyway, I thought you would have been more of a Shakin' Stevens fans ?

[Ian Thumwood]

please El Senor Blues or S_A tell Ian the real history of Jazz in the UK please!

Calum

I totally agree regarding the merits of Joe Harriott who was probably the most original voice the British jazz scene had produced up until the early 1960's.

With regard to the current scene, put it like this. Since I started going to gigs in the early 1980's there are very few musicians I haven't heard in concert or at least amongst those players I admire. The big exception is Paul Bley who I've never scene nor been aware of playing within driving distance of Winchester. Another exceptions are Andrew Hill - his concert in Basingstoke was cancelled and therefore I never got to hear him and Miles Davis. Other than that, it has been possible to hear 100's of players including Ornette Coleman, Sonny Rollins (three times), Gil Evans, Yusef Lateef (twice), Keith Jarrett, Wynton Marsalis (probably about 6-7 times), David Murray (five times), Wayne Shorter (6 times), Herbie Hancock (lost count), Michael Brecker (five times), Pat Metheny (lost count), Dianne Reeves (four times) , Ahmed Jamal (three times) , Carla Bley (four times) Kenny Garrett (four times), Roy Haynes (twice) , Jck DeJohnette (lost count), etc, etc. The richness and availability of quality jazz around these days is far in excess of in 1964. My point is that gigs would have stood out more in 1964 due to their rarity and the quality of musicians appearing.

It's easy to look through rose tinted glasses when the quality of musicians you heard back then was so high. These days the same high quality is more likely to visit these shores or play in any number of the European festivals.

[aka Calum Da Jazbo]

IAn if you want to take the piss get the chronology right ..... naff in the sixties would be more like Gerry & T P or Dave C 5 ...Mr Stevens after a long spell in the Young Communist League and Cardiff [which is worse?] had his first hit in '77


teh man:

now that was shakin .....

i read what you say Ian but the time of Ornette and John C and Mingus & Dolphy and Joe Harriott was the first time ... the people you reference are second or third generation .... they are all one more once eh ... great jazz but not first .... the UK scene did not lack for either real quality or originality but it was simply not on the scale of the scene in NYC never mind the rest of the USA in the late 50s early 60s!


after all what could compete with the Lenox School developments

[BLUESNIK'S REVOX]

IT..." I totally agree with your remark about
Ornette Coleman but I think that the scene was
such in 1965 that someone like Stan Kenton
would have also evoked similar awe. I think that
the number of visiting musicians was so
insignificant to warrant genuine interest and
publicity."

Ian, for fuks sake! I know the world begins "afresh" for you when you get out of bed, but really...

BN.

[BLUESNIK'S REVOX]

Lady Day came to play...

"Frequently Max Jones made first contact
with American musicians at their lowest
point. When he first met Billie Holiday,
at London Airport in February 1954, she
was clad from neck to foot in a luxurious
mink coat and 'tired, cold and resentful'.
Like (Dinah) Washington, Holiday was
notoriously impossible and intimidating.
Jones opened the door of the hire car
which was to take her to her hotel.
'Gingerly I proffered the bottle, asking
whether it was too early for a taste and
apologising for the lack of glasses. The
look of menace was replaced by a smile.
I don't think she spoke but she slid
forward and the bottle vanished into the
mink . . . .'"

Well maybe he imagined it. All that fog in 50s England. I've seen the newsreels.

BN.

[Ian Thumwood]

Bluesnik / calum

Let's make this clear. Mingus / Coltrane / Dolphy / Ornette / Harriott were all originals and represent some of the greatest artists that jazz has produced. I don't think that the British scene was quite as good as you both make out but musicians such as Stan Tracey, Tubby Hayes, maybe Dankworth and Gaynair were producing jazz that was at least comparable with much American jazz although maybe, with the exception of the highly original Tracey, more derivative of what went on across the Atlantic. I don't want to get drawn in to a discussion about the state of British jazz prior to Ornette although it is after the concert that the music really started to bear fruit.

As far as someone like Kenton is concerned, it is probably worthwhile recalling that many still considered him "progressive" in 1964 and he had a massive following amongst more "forward thinking" fans in the UK. A former college lecturer of mine was a big jazz fan (Blue Note, Goodman, 1950's Modern. etc) and I can still remember him saying that the best concert he ever went to was one given by Kenton. The sound of the band was said to be incredible. I'm not fan of Kenton's but can appreciate the sentiment that he was very popular and held to be producing "modern music." It's not a joke to make these comments but a reflection that in the 1960's Kenton could still be considered "modern" and that aside from the names you have both rattled off, the jazz scene of the time would have included a number of players from New Orleans like George Lewis, pioneers like Earl Hines and Louis Armstrong, big bands like Woody Herman, Count Basie and Ellington and any number of "mainstream" musicians such as Buck Clayton who had cut their teeth in the 1930's. I think you are both being disingenuous is how your perceive the wider scene in 1964.

I would also strongly disagree about the disparaging remarks about the musicians I have listed as being second or third generation. Hancock, Shorter, Scofield, Murray ? It is as if you both think that jazz somehow started being less significant as the music started to be recorded digitally. As was stated in the Eric Revis article, the music is part of a continuum. I don't consider Coltrane to be any better than Hawkins, Davis better than 1920's Armstrong or Ornette better than Benny Carter simply because their music is more recent. It's all part of the process of the music evolving. Similarly there is plenty of jazz being made today (and more readily available) that will stand up to the very finest jazz recorded over the last 90-odd years. To think otherwise is to under-estimate the importance of the music and both it's power and potential.

Whilst most significant jazz musicians started to put an appearance in the shores once the MU was lifted it is abundantly obvious that their was a paucity of "cutting edge" jazz being made in the UK either by local musicians or visiting Americans who were also prevented from travelling by the war and a general lack of widespread interest / publicity. Go back as far as the like of Bix and it is incredible the extent by which British jazz fans were starved of hearing live performances of their heroes. This undoubtedly changed in the mid 60's yet the improvements in travel and greater awareness of jazz has seen the regular performance in the UK by practically every important jazz musician since 1970.

Hands up as I was sure Holiday never performed in the UK.

[Serial_Apologist]

Hands up as I was sure Holiday never performed in the UK.

A dozen or so years ago, I got to know this septuagenarian one-time groupie who'd been around when Jazz at the Phil came to NW London to do those fundraisers for the E coast flood victims, and she became good friends with, especially, The Count, Ben Webster, Coleman Hawkins, Jimmy Forrest, Oscar Peterson and Ella Fitzgerald. She showed me numerous LPs scrawled by once-famous signaturories and asked me to help her dispose of them, being very miffed when dealers would only offer 2 quid per LP, signed or not. She had a curled postcard signed by Ella - a photo from the 'thirties! "Did you meet Lady Day?" I asked; "She was there in the dressing room". What was she like? "Oh... polite!". She dated Bruce Turner!

I think the point about novelty in the 1960s was that it was the feeling that innovation in jazz (especially) was preparing for a better society and that this precluded covering the past in other than an ironic tone which appealed to those over here who took Mingus's exhortation to "find your own voices" to mean not aping Americans. Like Miles in that (in)famous 1972 Playboy interview they had to repudiate the past (including their own) to insist on the validity of changes underway; listen to the sheer originalty in Bobby Wellins's "Culloden Suite" from the early 60s on JLU today (but only recorded 50 years on); as Ian Carr later admitted, one day it would all be seen as one continuity; but my point would be that consciously making it so was perceived effectively as hankering after a largely discredited past.