JRR Today...Roy Budd!

[BLUESNIK'S REVOX]

A track....Roy Budd at the Bettws Social Club, Newport!

With Dave Holland...

Hell, where was I when that took place? Working down the pit?! Feeding the ponies? On strike?

BN..

[BLUESNIK'S REVOX]

The Bettws Social club usually had Tom Jones, strippers and failed BBC Wales comedians!

Lots of those.

Jazz?

BN.

Still laughing at this...Dave Holland, from the hell that was the beer soaked carpet Bettws Social Club to working with Miles!

Me, I was in Jersey, surfing, picking fruit and reading Trotsky...its all coming back! The 60s....the drugs do work.

[Anna]

Blimey, you mentioning Bettws reminded me (long forgotten) of the weirdest night of my life in Bettws in the late 80s -not at the Social Club I hasten to add!! I haven't been back to Bettws since!

[BLUESNIK'S REVOX]

Bettws was the place in the recent Police Commissioner elections, where not ONE person voted! Not even the candidate.

But in the late sixties it was even........ worse.

A Welsh Royston Vaisey.
BN.

I still find the idea of Dave Holland playing there hilarious! I once bumped into Stan Tracey as he was about to play an Arts Council gig in Swindon in the 80s....Welcome to Swindon Stan! Looks around and mutters, "What a fk/ng dump!"

History repeats.

[grippie]

reminded me (long forgotten) of the weirdest night of my life in Bettws in the late 80s I haven't been back to Bettws since!

Come on Anna tell all

[Serial_Apologist]

Roy Budd completely passed me by as a jazz pianist operating in London in the late 60s - I was abroad for some of that time and then living in the SW, which would partly account.

According to Wiki Budd went on to compose several film scores, including Get Carter (1971). The entry states there was only enough money for three musicians to play the score; Budd performed the main theme simultaneously on piano and harpsichord, and...... b****r me if it isn't on youtube!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?gl=GB&hl=en-BG&v=8kMhcf8eyiA

[Anna]

Come on Anna tell all

I fear I cannot. Bluesnik mentioned Bettws and suddenly the vision of the garage where I had to turn left, or was it right, flashed into my mind - and I have been forever picking fragments from my brain to try and piece together a clear picture ..... I fear it may be too awful to recall completely in its complexity!!

[Serial_Apologist]

and I have been forever picking fragments from my brain to try and piece together a clear picture

I know! You got shot in the head and haven't been quite the same person since?

[Anna]

I know! You got shot in the head and haven't been quite the same person since?

Not quite, I meant picking the fragile filiment fragments of memory out of the lace scraps held together with safety pins and a staple gun that passes for a brain .....

[BLUESNIK'S REVOX]

Cut to music from the Twilight Zone...a shaft of light over a Welsh housing estate, a scream, crashing glasses, and the sound of modern jazz piano...

BN.

Neat track tho!

[Anna]

Cut to music from the Twilight Zone...a shaft of light over a Welsh housing estate, a scream, crashing glasses, and the sound of modern jazz piano...

BN.

Neat track tho!

Yes Bluesnik - It's called The Gurnos Estate Blues ....... Or, I used to be quite Tidy like, but brother, look at me now!!

[Alyn_Shipton]

Funny thing is, when Roy Budd was on telly a lot with his trio in the 60s, I wasn't much of a fan. Listening back to the tracks suggested by JRR listeners, I now realise what I was missing... He must be the only musician to have made a "Newport" album not in Rhode Island...

[BLUESNIK'S REVOX]

I was born in Newport and in my mid teens used to walk/pose around town with a copy of "Ray Charles at Newport" under my arm!

Yes, I know, tragic!

BN.

I think Crazy Cavern and the Rhythm Rockers recorded an album at Newport, Wales. Unlikely to trouble JRR!

[Ian Thumwood]

The best track yesterday was the trio with Bill Coleman. Oddily enough, I was playing the CD from which this track was taken alot in my car in the week before Christmas. This record features many of the recordings Coleman made in Paris in the late 30's and includes some pretty amazing records which I feel allowed the trumpeter to push out and explore more than many of his contemporaries were able to do in the States as he was very much one of the principle jazz musicians performing in France at the time and the bands seem to have been assembled to showcase his ability. You sense that his fellow musicians were more than pleased to let him take centre stage on the records he made with them as they appreciated his greatness and, in some ways, his solos seem to predict the kind of work produced on many "mainstream" studio sessions of the 1950's where the long playing time permitted more than a 12 bar solo or a complete chorus at best. The records are model examples of trumpet playing in the pre-modern era. On these 78 rpms, Coleman is very much the the dominant musician. It is a shame that he is not really celebrated more as he was an extremely good trumpet player in the Armstrong style. Tracks like "Joe Louis Stomp" are amongst my favourites but I felt that the CD was extremely consistent in the quality of jazz on it. Many of the tracks are quite exceptional and the supporting cast often includes neglected musicians like Herman Chittison (as pointed out) and Oscar Aleman. Obviously these records don't resonate like the Armstrong Hot 5's and 7's but I feel they deserve to be more widely appreciated as they represent some of the best jazz trumpet commited to wax in the 1930's. Had he not spent so much of his life in France, I think he would have had a far greater profile although I think he is probably more highly considered on this side of the Atlantic. both amongst fans and musicians fortunate enough to have performed with him.

[Serial_Apologist]

The best track yesterday was the trio with Bill Coleman. Oddily enough, I was playing the CD from which this track was taken alot in my car in the week before Christmas. This record features many of the recordings Coleman made in Paris in the late 30's and includes some pretty amazing records which I feel allowed the trumpeter to push out and explore more than many of his contemporaries were able to do in the States as he was very much one of the principle jazz musicians performing in France at the time and the bands seem to have been assembled to showcase his ability. You sense that his fellow musicians were more than pleased to let him take centre stage on the records he made with them as they appreciated his greatness and, in some ways, his solos seem to predict the kind of work produced on many "mainstream" studio sessions of the 1950's where the long playing time permitted more than a 12 bar solo or a complete chorus at best. The records are model examples of trumpet playing in the pre-modern era. On these 78 rpms, Coleman is very much the the dominant musician. It is a shame that he is not really celebrated more as he was an extremely good trumpet player in the Armstrong style. Tracks like "Joe Louis Stomp" are amongst my favourites but I felt that the CD was extremely consistent in the quality of jazz on it. Many of the tracks are quite exceptional and the supporting cast often includes neglected musicians like Herman Chittison (as pointed out) and Oscar Aleman. Obviously these records don't resonate like the Armstrong Hot 5's and 7's but I feel they deserve to be more widely appreciated as they represent some of the best jazz trumpet commited to wax in the 1930's. Had he not spent so much of his life in France, I think he would have had a far greater profile although I think he is probably more highly considered on this side of the Atlantic. both amongst fans and musicians fortunate enough to have performed with him.

I saw Bill Coleman performing in Zurich at a place in the Niederdorf, the red light district, called the Casa Bar, when I was waitering in a hotel there in 1968. There was a plaque high up on the wall of one of the brothels, indicating that Lenin had lived there before returning to be at the vanguard of the Bolshevik revolution! The band Coleman was backed by were called The Piccadilly Six - I think I may have seen a write-up about them somewhere. One didn't hear much contemporary jazz in Zurich at that time; the nearest in the city that I heard was sub-Manfred Mann - Geneva was reputed to be the place.