Sax No End

[Guest]

Sax No End is a stereo recording by the Francy Boland-Kenny Clarke Big Band made in 1965. The band had as it's guest Eddie "Lockjaw" Davis, famous from his "Atomic Mr. Basie" stint. The title track, the 2nd on the 1st side, starts with an Eddie Davis solo and then (with a key change) starts a chorus and a half of sax-section led by alto-player Derek Humble, which is amazing, as you will hear. The whole thing is (I think) a 64-bar chord sequence which I haven't been able to identify. The sax section launches the next track which goes along as tho' it's through-composed but no, Benny Bailey comes in with a lovely turn of phrase but it's not long before he gets caught up the the high-voltage action which characterises a lot of this LP. The staccato interjections provided to gee-up Peter's Waltz reduce Sahib Shihab (who starts purposefully enough) to the odd burble! Johnny Griffin is the other main soloist. We heard this band at Ronnie's and I was bold enough to say to Benny Bailey how much I enjoyed his LP "Midnight in Europe" (with strings).

You will also find on this page,

http://www.cliveheathmusic.co.uk/vinyl2.php

Duke Ellington's "Such Sweet Thunder" which is the LP version and not the stereo re-mastering of many years later.

Johnny Hodges "The Big Sound". This an LP I have loved for years, especially as good getting-up-music, the joie-de-vivre is infectious and with Billy Strayhorn at the piano there are compositions and not just a string of head-arrangements. Like the Ellington I've come to prefer the mono to the later stereo version.

...and in keeping with another thread, for those who don't know it, "Steamin' " with the Miles Davis Quintet. I've had it for years as a two-fer with "Workin' " but never got around to playing it with the new MC stylus, hence it has been a real pleasure ( thank-you Ian) to hear it in HIgher-FI than before.

[aka Calum Da Jazbo]

way to go Clive; many thanks for your continuing efforts to offer us all the delights of some classic jazz ....

ahem and an opportunity to hear some great Brit trumpeters in Jimmy Deuchar and Shake Keane

all in great quality sound Clive

[gradus]

According to the original sleeve note Sax no End was based on Chinatown. I have two versions by the band, the better of which (imv) is the Live at Ronnie version - still Wow!!!, after all these years.

[clive heath]

Thanks for that, gradus, my sleeve note is in Spanish as the LP was bought for 2000 pesetas, well over 10 years ago, along with some other goodies in a shop in Gerona in Spain where they were clearing out all the prehistoric stuff.

[Ian Thumwood]

Not heard "New box" for ages! This was a great band. I used to have their album "Doin' time" which was pretty sensational. When I was growing up the Clarke / Boland band was always cited as one of the top contemporary bands although I think it had already ceased to exist when I discovered jazz around 1980. I suppose it was essentially a be-bop group but Boland's charts seemed to have a musculinity about them which set them far apart from much of the big band music of the era. In many respects they were a bit like the Thad Jones / Mel Lewis group although I feel Jones was more adventurous. shame that the TJ / ML always seemed to be so badly recorded but there was a time when the BBC used to broadcasst concerts of Jones with the Danish Radio Big Band on Radio 2 where some of the Jones charts could be heard to greater advantage in stereo. Thad Jones , as good as he was as a trumpeter , was always a more interesting writer and tracks like this have always appealed:-

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=an6_DJRy-Ts