Very good Brian Auger interview

[Serial_Apologist]

In AllAboutJazz - complete with album extracts, including from the 60s with Julie, and amazing anecdotes about John McLaughlin, Jimi Hendrix, and Joan Bakewell... interviewing Duke Ellington! Other stuff I hadn't known about, too, including how he first got to play the Hammond as a consequence of Georgie Fame going awol from a tour gig. "How long have you been playing Hammond organ?" "About 45 minutes"!

http://www.allaboutjazz.com/brian-auger-to-oblivion-and-beyond

[Serial_Apologist]

I can't find the personnel on the earliest track there: the last one - a version of "the Preacher", but I'm willing to bet the alto player is Graham Bond. I'll do some more fishing tomorrow to see if I can find out more.

[BLUESNIK'S REVOX]

I can't find the personnel on the earliest track there: the last one - a version of "the Preacher", but I'm willing to bet the alto player is Graham Bond. I'll do some more fishing tomorrow to see if I can find out more.

"By eighteen, his musical prowess began attracting attention and in 1962 he formed a trio with bassist Rick Laird, Phil Knorra on drums, adding a young John McLaughlin and saxophonist Glen Hughes"
It could be Glen Hughes who played baritone with Georgie Fame and was also a pretty useful alto player. I've got a bootleg of him with Don Rendell live. He had a big heroin habit and I recall he died in a house fire. But he was quite highly regarded for the time he was around.

[BLUESNIK'S REVOX]

MORE...
"Baritone saxophonist Glenn Hughes was common to both groups. Glenn and John had previously played together in Georgie Fame’s (pre-fame) Blues Flames in 1962–63 and in the Tony Meehan Combo (October 1963 – January 1964). John and Glenn would have a last musical hurrah together with a version of Brian’s quintet in August 1964, reassembled for a German residency. By that point, Rick had moved on to become house bassist at Ronnie Scott’s jazz club, backing a series of American headliners at the club and on TV. He left to study music at Berklee College, USA in early 1966. By the end of that year, Glenn Hughes was dead – dying in a house fire, but essentially a victim of a ‘jazz lifestyle’ involving hard drugs. Having played around London’s jazz pubs and in Berlin bars during much of 1964, sometimes heading his own trio, he re-joined Georgie’s Blue Fames in November ’64 – in time for its sudden chart successes from early 1965 onwards. He would find it amusing that after years of playing jazz to a high level, for peanuts, he was finding a level of success by playing one parping note in Georgie’s hit single ‘Get Away’."

[Serial_Apologist]

MORE...
"Baritone saxophonist Glenn Hughes was common to both groups. Glenn and John had previously played together in Georgie Fame’s (pre-fame) Blues Flames in 1962–63 and in the Tony Meehan Combo (October 1963 – January 1964). John and Glenn would have a last musical hurrah together with a version of Brian’s quintet in August 1964, reassembled for a German residency. By that point, Rick had moved on to become house bassist at Ronnie Scott’s jazz club, backing a series of American headliners at the club and on TV. He left to study music at Berklee College, USA in early 1966. By the end of that year, Glenn Hughes was dead – dying in a house fire, but essentially a victim of a ‘jazz lifestyle’ involving hard drugs. Having played around London’s jazz pubs and in Berlin bars during much of 1964, sometimes heading his own trio, he re-joined Georgie’s Blue Fames in November ’64 – in time for its sudden chart successes from early 1965 onwards. He would find it amusing that after years of playing jazz to a high level, for peanuts, he was finding a level of success by playing one parping note in Georgie’s hit single ‘Get Away’."

Really useful information, for which many thanks!

[BLUESNIK'S REVOX]

Really useful information, for which many thanks!

Although, listening to that again, I think you may be right the first time! It does sound a lot like Graham Bond. Similar to his playing on the Bond/Rendell album.

[Jazzrook]

MORE...
"Baritone saxophonist Glenn Hughes was common to both groups. Glenn and John had previously played together in Georgie Fame’s (pre-fame) Blues Flames in 1962–63 and in the Tony Meehan Combo (October 1963 – January 1964). John and Glenn would have a last musical hurrah together with a version of Brian’s quintet in August 1964, reassembled for a German residency. By that point, Rick had moved on to become house bassist at Ronnie Scott’s jazz club, backing a series of American headliners at the club and on TV. He left to study music at Berklee College, USA in early 1966. By the end of that year, Glenn Hughes was dead – dying in a house fire, but essentially a victim of a ‘jazz lifestyle’ involving hard drugs. Having played around London’s jazz pubs and in Berlin bars during much of 1964, sometimes heading his own trio, he re-joined Georgie’s Blue Fames in November ’64 – in time for its sudden chart successes from early 1965 onwards. He would find it amusing that after years of playing jazz to a high level, for peanuts, he was finding a level of success by playing one parping note in Georgie’s hit single ‘Get Away’."

Must admit that baritonist Glenn Hughes is a new name to me but here's a rare recording with the Don Rendell Sextet live at Klook's Kleek in 1963:

https://www.YouTube.com/watch?v=ocZh5rUsuFg

JR

[BLUESNIK'S REVOX]

Must admit that baritonist Glenn Hughes is a new name to me but here's a rare recording with the Don Rendell Sextet live at Klook's Kleek in 1963:

https://www.YouTube.com/watch?v=ocZh5rUsuFg

JR

More on Glenn...

Auger..."“It allowed me to have a five-piece band,” says Brian. “And I brought John in on that and Glenn Hughes who was a phenomenal baritione sax player. Glenn was the best baritone player I’d ever seen at that point. I had records with Pepper Adams on them, and Serge Chaloff, and I thought Glenn was better than either of those. He handled that horn like a tenor.”

[Jazzrook]

More on Glenn...

Auger..."“It allowed me to have a five-piece band,” says Brian. “And I brought John in on that and Glenn Hughes who was a phenomenal baritione sax player. Glenn was the best baritone player I’d ever seen at that point. I had records with Pepper Adams on them, and Serge Chaloff, and I thought Glenn was better than either of those. He handled that horn like a tenor.”

Brian Auger mentions Glenn Hughes in this interview:

https://www.YouTube.com/watch?v=Am1vtvWFXro

JR

[Serial_Apologist]

Must admit that baritonist Glenn Hughes is a new name to me but here's a rare recording with the Don Rendell Sextet live at Klook's Kleek in 1963:

https://www.YouTube.com/watch?v=ocZh5rUsuFg

JR

Wonderful! - particularly the previously unknown to me drummer.

Brian has a great memory going, for him and us - I'll be following the rest of the interview Jazzrook linked to.

[BLUESNIK'S REVOX]

The drummer "Chick" was apparently a city trader in "real life" and used the name musically in case his business clients thought he was not serious! About making money for them.

[Serial_Apologist]

The drummer "Chick" was apparently a city trader in "real life" and used the name musically in case his business clients thought he was not serious! About making money for them.

[Ian Thumwood]

Picking up from the initial post with the interview, I found most of the music mentioned all really new to me. Brian Auger was just a name to me who I had associated with the likes of other musicians dug out from the past during the Acid Jazz movement of about 30 years ago. It is almost a sub-culture with the music blurring the lines between jazz and the pop music of the day. I have never explored Graham Bond, largely as a consequence of what i have read about him which has never been complimentary and perhaps the kind of musician people would now be trying to "cancel" is they had any interest in jazz.

I never know whether to be more amazed by the fact that British jazz musicians were probably ahead of the game in creating "fusion" in the mid 1960s or that the audience for popular music could accommodate improvisation. I would suggest that the latter is increasingly less the case and am not convinced that it is considered desirable. It would be interesting to have learned what people thought at the time and whether there was a backlash amongst more conservative players who had, say, grown up listening to Charlie Parker.

[Serial_Apologist]

Picking up from the initial post with the interview, I found most of the music mentioned all really new to me. Brian Auger was just a name to me who I had associated with the likes of other musicians dug out from the past during the Acid Jazz movement of about 30 years ago. It is almost a sub-culture with the music blurring the lines between jazz and the pop music of the day. I have never explored Graham Bond, largely as a consequence of what i have read about him which has never been complimentary and perhaps the kind of musician people would now be trying to "cancel" is they had any interest in jazz.

I never know whether to be more amazed by the fact that British jazz musicians were probably ahead of the game in creating "fusion" in the mid 1960s or that the audience for popular music could accommodate improvisation. I would suggest that the latter is increasingly less the case and am not convinced that it is considered desirable. It would be interesting to have learned what people thought at the time and whether there was a backlash amongst more conservative players who had, say, grown up listening to Charlie Parker.

John Fordham suggests that jazz-rock - at any rate its beginnings, in this country - came as something of a relief for some of the older generation such as Ronnie Scott since it represented an alternative to free jazz, which - to me at the time, at any rate - seemed to be the "other" direction jazz was destined to dissolve into. First generation beboppers such as Don Rendell had accommodated their improvisatory vocabularies to modalism, so improvising over a fixed key ostinato with a predictable rhythm, which is what much early Jazz Rock consisted in, was no great act of adjustment. Ronnie would record with the Softs in about 1972. Another player of the Peter King generation of late beboppers who did go over to Jazzrock Fusion in the 70s was Dick Morrissey (Morrissey/Mullen, with guitarist Jim Mullen). Tubby Hayes, while as far as one knows open-minded, would not travel a Fusion route. neither would Peter King or Stan Tracey. The critics most negative towards Jazz Rock were the few who had welcomed the coming of Ornette and his influence on the younger generation - Barry McRae feeling rock rhythms restricting soloistic freedom; more conservative critics were more accepting, if sometimes condescendingly. Oddly enough it was Humph Lyttelton, the best known of the older mainstream, who welcomed the new trend - I remember him introducing a Jazz Record Requests where he showcased a Frank Ricotti track in positive terms. I was a bit of a jazz purist in the late 1960s - I remember feeling little of what was called the British R'n'B had much room for improvisation, just the odd one chorus on a 12-bar if one was lucky. Now when I think back I remember seeing Brian Auger's trinity with Julie Driscoll just the once, in a Sloany sort of gambling club called the Cromwellian, at around the same time as Antonioni's movie "Blow Up", with its trendy instrumental rock at the very start - the Yardbirds I assume, though it's never been made completely clear in write-ups - segueing straight into the same theme tune played straight by Herbie Hancock's band. Nice improvising in Herbie's backing music during the course of it. I still treat Maryon Park in Woolwich as a kind of shrine to "Blow Up". There's a scene when David Hemmings is about to bonk Vanessa Redgrave where he sits her down, puts on a track from the LP of the music for the film - a very funky track - and passes her a joint, which she takes a puff from and in a sitting position starts moving rhythmically to the music, whereupon Hemmings says words to the effect "No, not like that - s l o w l y... against the beat". A iconic moment, as they say. The tenor sax improvisation on that is by Alan Skidmore - the only time one of the British musicians brought on scene is heard in the movie. That and the Hammond improvising, plus some drum soloing at The Cromwellian... and it can be argued Julie's vocals were in many ways improvisatory, were the only early "crossover" stuff with jazz improvising - which I would not describe Cream as being - that I was aware of at the time. I had no knowledge that Manfred Mann had released an album of instrumentals, "Soul of Mann", with strong improvising from Henry Lowther and Lyn Dobson. Henry told me that the usual tour and club performances of Manfred Mann allowed no space for improvised breaks. Within a couple of years one encountered Soft Machine at the UFO club with a light show in front of a very stoned audience, which was very loud and while I would eventually come to see the light I was too constricted in my tastes, split between earlier jazz and the latest modernist music on Radio 3 to follow up on that trend, and in any case was working every hour that god sent all over the country for a few years. Of the British free players, in the 1970s John Stevens backed the folk rock singer John Martyn and soon after formed his own Free Jazz Rock band Away with Trevor Watts, though Ian Carr would remark that Stevens was responding to his great hero Ornette Coleman's forming of Prime Time. Trevor Watts's Amalgam had already displayed rockist tendencies on his own "Innovation" of 1974, with Keith Tippett on piano, alongside the omnipresent Stevens. The whole story of Britain's Fusion journey through the 1970s in varying degrees of stylistic independence from America is a fascinating one.

[BLUESNIK'S REVOX]

Yardbirds - "Blow up", scene with Page & Beck.

http://youtu.be/jSJGEn4FDys

The blank faces and stance of the audience are a nice touch.

Btw, Terrance Stamp thought he had lined up the photographer role as he had shown Antonioni all the swinging sites, places and people in contemporary London. Then it went to David Hemmings, Stamp still outraged to this day.

As for Tubby Hayes and Rock etc, he did refer to all the early artists as "twangers", with the exception of Georgie Fame (I think Hayes did the arrangement for "Yeah Yeah"?), but it didn't stop him making a bloody awful album of later contemporary pop songs, and MUCH earlier a 50s jive/rock and roll album with Tony Crombie. And of course, a ton of session work.