Anyone who saw the fine three-parter Jazz Britannia series on telly 13 years ago might want a reminder as to just how good it was. It set the context of new British jazz in the 1960s and '70s very well; many of the voices recalling their experiences, being with us no more, are especially precious to those of us who lived through the period. Generally this second of the three episodes is hard to fault, getting the meaning of jazz emancipating itself from American stylistic hegemony absolutely right, and serving as a useful antidote to the Ken Burns/Branford Marsalis spinnings of history, though the conclusion is maybe a tad lame: the scene may have retreated to the pub backrooms and what support there was from the Beeb, but there was still wonderful new homegrown jazz being released on record at the end of the 1970s/start of the 1980s: the succeeding programme having implied nothing much happened until the coming of Loose Tubes and the Jazz Warriors apart from the Acid Jazz club scene. Some of the best stuff by Don Rendell, Bobby Wellins, Gordon Beck, John Surman, Mike Westbrook and Kenny Wheeler appeared in that time slot, favourites to this day among my irreplaceable well-worn LPs.
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Burn's series got much maligned although it was actually Wynton Marsalis and not Branford who was involved. At the time the programme's conclusions seemed controversial but the accompanying book made it clear that it was as much as "social history" as about the music. As long as you keep the criticism on that perspective, the series worked even if I had reservations at the time.
It is funny how you perceive the British jazz scene in the late 70's and early 80's. This was the period when I was getting introduced to the music and it just seemed so difficult to track down until the mid 1980s when Wynton really helped get jazz back on the map. Locally, gigs were not at a premium and my "live" music experience seemed to be chasing down big bands who played in the area. This seemed to be the large extent of my jazz experience at least from about 1980-85. Most of the smaller groups who played locally seemed to be either Trad or Gypsy Jazz groups with the Modern Jazz stuff often blurring with mainstream jazz. Living in London, you are bound to have a different perspective but even "local" musicians like Andy Sheppard were infrequent visitors and living / playing in France. Southampton is always cited as having a good, local jazz scene and it's links with jazz have always been strong simply due to the city's importance as a port and gateway in to the UK for American musicians.
The suggestion that nothing much happened jazz-wise in the 1970's does reflect my perception. It just seemed an era when there were very few big bands around and this was my main interest when I was about 13-16. Contemporary big band jazz seemed to mean Buddy Rich , Maynard Ferguson or Woody Herman. The British scene was not very visible to me when I was at school and the then well-known players all seemed to be from an early generation. I can still remember someone loaning me a "new" John Dankworth LP around 1985 and being surprised that he was still around. The most noticeable modern jazz figure was Stan Tracey and I think I only became aware of other players like John Surman around 1984/5. On top of that, when it came to earlier "British legends", records by the likes of Tubby Hayes were largely unavailable. I only knew of him through older friends who had heard him. "Loose Tubes and "Jazz Warriors" were a wake-up call, especially the former. I was about 17 when they broke on the scene and they seemed like a revelation and I certainly felt that British jazz went up a few gears in the 1980's. It is intriguing how the scene have evolved because the first thing I noticed was that the younger players go increasingly more proficient technically. This just seems to have continued growing. There was also a massive change in rhythm sections which had habitually sounded much inferior to their American counterparts . Drummers like Winston Clifford, Mark Mondesir, Steve Arguelles, etc just seemed to offer a sea change. Upon reflection, the previous generation had their own great players yet those musicians who arrived in the 1980s arrived en masse and the scene seemed enriched in a fashion that had never happened before. At the time, it felt like there was British jazz before the 1980s and jazz after it.
What is curious is that there are now players in the UK who would demolish even those musicians I grew up with from a technical point of view. This is where I can sympathise with Bluesnik as I have no interest in the current UK scene and do not follow it at all. I have gone to numerous gigs by British players and enjoyed the experience yet I is quite uninvolving and you get the impression that the things musicians valued in 1985 are totally different from what is valued in 2018. Jazz musicians in the 1980s seemed more aware and in awe of their predecessors than I feel is the case now. Any BBC documentary made in 2018 regarding jazz would be quite intriguing - just think that the whole "groove" element of the music would be deemed more important than the idea of improvising. Players today are likely to be more open-minded to popular culture than any earlier generation in the UK. I would concur that the need to differentiate the UK scene from the one in the US is probably a motivator but I cannot see players like Tubby Hayes, Joe Harriot, Mike Osborne, Stan Tracey etc having any traction with many younger players today. I don't think this was the case in the 1980's. -
Not sure if this was part of the Jazz Britannia season but I think it's an exceptionally good and sympathic programme, and the only one I've kept on VHS, and with a VHS player.
"STAN TRACEY: GODFATHER OF BRITISH JAZZ
Sunday 30th January, 1.20am to 2.35am (Saturday night)
Documentary celebrating the life and work of jazz pianist and composer Stan Tracey.
Btw, as I've got "older" I've realised how much good Jazz there was in the 1960/70s OUTSIDE Britain - Poland, Germany, France, Scandinavia etc. We weren't insular regarding the States, but I (at least) rarely looked in that direction in that period unless it was visiting Americans in Europe.Comment
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That's it - I also have it. Well, Ian's free to watch that link for something other than my perspective...Originally posted by BLUESNIK'S REVOX View PostComment
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I think the Stan Tracey programme/profile was one the best I've seen on anyone. A revealing portrait of the life of a working UK jazz musician in that period and after, warts and all. The romance stripped away. And very well shot, narrated and structured. A model.Comment
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AND...I've just watched that Jazz Britannia Strange Brew, I don't think I caught it the first time around so many thanks for the link SA. Georgie Fame still slightly outraged that he had to pay to get into Ronnies! "We were kind of nonentities!"
Good stuff.Comment
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Georgie's most visceral stuff dates from the early 1960s - I dare say you have the 1964 "Live at the Flamingo". I went there once - on my catering wages it was cheaper than Scott's - but don't remember it then being as boisterous as on that occasion. Like others I got my hair crew-cut for a time to look as near as possible to the smartly dressed young black dudes with their neat hair, shiny mohair suits and narrow-rimmed trilbies. I'm trying to remember if it was Georgie who lent Manfred Mann his Hammond organ or the other way around - a case of fame subsequently being cast in its wake, if you don't mind waiting while I get my coat. Must dig out that story from Lol Coxhill telling how they would personhandle the thing from the Flamingo and down the stairs at the Speakeasy for early hours gigs backing Count Suckle: can you imagine??Originally posted by BLUESNIK'S REVOX View Post
And I remember Robert Wyatt (I think it was) recalling how he and the other members of Soft Machine would be allowed into the club, but made to stand out of view at the back!
Funny when you think Ronnie himself played on one of their recordings a couple of years later.
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I spent many weekends at the Flamingo, mostly for Georgie Fame but also for Graham Bond who I was never that impressed with. My Bond story is the band on stage for an age waiting for Ginger Baker, not happy, and then Baker pushing through to the stage with two model like blondes on his arm. It wasn't the best looking band by any stretch!
There's a two part radio doc on the iPlayer with Georgie talking about the Flamingo, R&B at the Flamingo and it's recording. He insists its not a true record of how they sounded as Speedy was in Pentonville and Jim Sullivan was added to the band at "the producers insistence". But it's still a key record.
There was another organ based group that did the all nighters, called I remember "Rockhouse". They were good but I've never seen any later mention of them.
I never found the Flamingo intimidating or threatening despite its "now" reputation. But we did get beaten up in Cheltenham's "Blue Lagoon Club" by their local mods who thought we were from "Loooondoon" (The Action were playing). Cheltenham, very territorial!Comment
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I wouldn't have let anyone from Cheltenham beat me up, unless they'd come dressed up in Jane Austen period clothes.Originally posted by BLUESNIK'S REVOX View Post
I don't remember Rockhouse, but I do recall Zoot Money's Big Roll Band, with the leader on Hammond. Some of the original members of the New Jazz Orchestra including Clive Borroughs the original nominal leader pre-Neil Ardley, left to join it. I wonder how many were watching EastEnders at the time when the makers decided they wanted a live band to perform the signature tune in the Queen Vic, and as part of the unfoldings "auditioned" several musos for the bass guitar part. Zoot was one of them, on bass guitar - he could to all intents and purposes do the slap 'n' tickle funk thing fine. The ZMBRB still plays, at the Bulls Head in Barnes. I keep on telling myself I should go, just to see if they've worn as well as me, if only once.Comment
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Well, Andy Summers, later of the Police was Zoot Money's guitarist. In his book he says he spent hours in his bedroom listening to Kenny Burrell so something rubbed off. They later morphed in "Dantalian's Chariot" who were frankly bloody awful, Zoot's unconvincing attempt at psychedelia with Summers. Not a good move. There are clips on Utube of Zoot Money now at the Bulls Head...he "aged" somewhat!Comment
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Alan Price also does a montly gig at the BH. As Lindsay Anderson's composer/performer of choice in "O Lucky Man" plus one or two others I thought he had something great going. Then someone I knew in the SWP tried selling him a copy of the rag, and he told him "Ah wouldna gee ya tha pickin's from ma nooze for that", so I'm not so sure!
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