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Jazzjet

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Posts posted by Jazzjet

  1. In case this has escaped the more eagle-eyed, the excellent Electric Jive blog has been posting regular private recordings made by Ian Bruce Huntley in South Africa in the early 60s to early 70s. Among a whole series of fascinating and historic recordings are several rarities by Chris McGregor and The Blue Notes. For example, a June 1964 Cape Town recording of the band before they left for a life in exile and a recording live at the Blue Note in Geneva in 1965.

    Check these recordings here :

    http://electricjive....=chris mcgregor

  2. The short guy with ginger beard and glasses pictured with Ray at the foot of the page could often be found in London jazz shops flicking through the LPs at a supersonic rate.

    Spot on ! I thought he looked familiar - I'm sure I've come across him at Mole and yes, he was manic !

    I saw him at Tower once and his technique didn't quite translate to CDs! He looked very grumpy.

  3. I think I only went into Ray's once. Found it a bit pricey for me and a long walk up Shaftesbury Ave for nowt. Reckless Records and Soul Jazz Records in Soho were a lot more convenient and had better stuff. Was Ray's an offshoot of Collett's?

    MG

    Yes, Ray used to sell jazz from a tiny basement in Collets when it was in New Oxford Street. The ground floor was the Folk/Blues department (more a large room, actually) and there was always a running battle between the two departments about who was playing "their" music too loudly. When Collets closed the New Oxford Street shop in the early 1970s, they opened up a new book shop in Charing X Road which had the folk department in the basement. The jazz department under Ray Smith moved to the shop in Shaftesbury Avenue with blues being sold from the basement.

    I remember a rather imposing woman with long blonde ( or gray ) hair who ran the Folk department in Collets. I think her name was Jill Cook.

    Yes, know exactly where you mean. Red brick emporium of Chinese and Itialian-ish tourist eateries and small stores. That's the one !

    And your comment would also tie up with my recollections of CCR of that period. It must indeed have been Collets, after the move.

    Not sure if this has been posted but there's an absolute cornucopia on the late Ray Smith and 'Ray's Jazz' on here:-

    http://cargocollecti...Ray-s-Jazz-Shop

    4%20Advert100.jpg

    Love that picture of the Ray's store front with the copy of Pete laRoca's 'Basra' on display !

    Wonderful link. Thanks very much. The short guy with ginger beard and glasses pictured with Ray at the foot of the page could often be found in London jazz shops flicking through the LPs at a supersonic rate.

  4. Listened to the CD today. Some fascinating material. The Osborne - Surman Quartet from 1966 is excellent and brings back great memories of the Westbrook sextet. The Henry Lowther - Lyn Dobson Quintet is also great and shows Lowther in excellent form even back in 1964.

    The liner notes mention 'Simply Not Cricket : A British Jazz Discography' by Philippe Renaud. Has anyone read this? Volume 1 ( 1964-1994 ) is on special offer with Volume 2 ( 1995 - 2000 ) from Jazzscript, although still not exactly cheap.

  5. I must admit I spent most time downstairs, it's amazing to think now how many second hand Blue Notes, Prestiges and Riversides I bought for £1 to £1 10sh.

    John Kendall's basement was probably responsible for most of the respiratory ailments among the London jazz record buying public. Damp and dank - not exactly prime conditions for rare vinyl either.

  6. Meanwhile, according to the Telegraph Dobell's is getting an exhibition.

    http://www.telegraph...op-Dobells.html

    Next up - 'Mole Jazz - The Musical'?

    I have never seen that wonderful picture of Dobells in colour before, but I have seen it in b&w.

    The picture I was thinking of was actually a different one ...

    dobells.jpg

    My abiding memory of Dobell's was the listening booths which had turntables which could have featured in The Flintstones. The arms were really heavy and could inflict untold damage on an LP which was, of course, put back in the rack to be sold later to some unsuspecting sap.

  7. Then there's the nostalgia, the record label (Impulse albums came out in the UK on the HMV label) and years ago there was the wonderful shop at 363 Oxford Street.

    Yes, when I first moved to London, at the end of 1958, that shop was my local record shop. A fabulous Bauhaus place.

    interior-of-hmv-oxford-street.jpg

    the-interior-of-hmv-oxford-street.jpg

    HMV-363-Oxford-Street-London-Listening-booths-1950s-598x448.jpg

    MG

    And not forgetting Imhof's in New Oxford Street that was similarly futurist in design. I think it's a Boots store nowadays.

    Meanwhile, according to the Telegraph Dobell's is getting an exhibition.

    http://www.telegraph...op-Dobells.html

    Next up - 'Mole Jazz - The Musical'?

    More on Dobell's ( with a great photo of the carrier bag ) from music journalist David Hepworth :

    http://whatsheonaboutnow.blogspot.co.uk/2013/01/twenty-quid-will-get-you-last-great.html

  8. A greater worry is the overemphasis on 'competitive' sport - various politicians were falling over themselves last week to criticise a mythical 'all must have prizes' culture in schools and coming up with knee-jerk responses to immediately go into the National Curriculum (if that still exists).

    What that overlooks is how off-putting competitive sport is to the majority of kids who will never be very good. I was one of those - given a ball by the PE teacher to amuse ourselves with while those with talent got the training (or, best of all from my point of view, allowed to do cross country which involved running out of the changing rooms to the lane behind the school field and then going for an afternoon stroll down country lanes).

    So much has changed since then and PE teachers try really hard to get everyone involved. But there remains a stubborn resistance to sport amongst some kids, especially teenage girls who feel embarrassed by the whole thing. Someone mocked 'Indian Dance' as being included in PE lessons but a creative approach to exercise like that is far more likely to get a broad range of kids involved.

    I just worry that a government mired in an inability to bring any real changes will leap for cosmetic changes in a soft area like this and just undo the good work has been done on the ground for years.

    The Olympics have shown how thrilling competitive sport can be and will inspire and involve lots of kids. But it isn't just about that.

    It was Cameron that made the derogatory comments about 'Indian Dancing'. I'd like to think that whoever inserted the Indian Dancing scene into Eric Idles' performance of 'Always Look On The Bright Side of Life' had Cameron's comment in mind.

  9. Didn't see any of it but heard the radio reports - glad they went quirky rather than pomp and circumstance. Though I did catch Parry and Elgar in there.

    Hilarious to hear the looney right getting all uptight. Hopefully they'll be a samba band and chicken tikka all round in the closing knees-up.

    Somehow, a lot of the ceremony reminded me of Rob Young's 'Electric Eden' book brought to life, which is a good thing as far as I'm concerned.

  10. Congrats to Roger on his MBE per today's Queens Birthday Honours List :party::tup - I assume that's you Roger and not a doppelganger :g . Nice article in Jazz Journal on 'Dejeuner Sur L'Herbe' by the way.

    Looks also like Vocalion have a 'new' Summer Sale - pretty well the stuff that was on offer at the last sale.

    Yes it is me - thank you :blush: - but for my "day job" not for jazz-related activities. The 'Dejeuner Sur L'Herbe' article was written with some emotion because I really do feel that this particular gem (along with "Hum Dono") should have been reissued long ago. I just can't wait to discover what Vocalion will be reissuing in their next batch!

    Just picked this up. Many congratulations, Roger.

  11. Immediately beside the self-congratulatory column in the issue of 31 July 1802 is an advertisement. At 7 p.m. on 19 August 'A Grand Miscellaneous Concert' will take place at Wynn's Hotel (tickets 3/6). Nine years of war had produced Falmouth's most prosperous and vibrant period to date. Plays and concerts were growing in popularity; the range and number of visitors meant a flowering of the performing arts.

    The Grand Miscellaneous Concert was led by a single musician, only a couple of years resident in Falmouth, and one of the most remarkable men ever to step ashore at its quays. Joseph Emidy would be playing pieces by Stamitz, Eichner and Martini, as well as his own compositions: a violin concerto and pieces for guitar and mandolin (which instruments he also 'teaches in a most easy and elegant stile')... His playing of the violin, wrote one admirer, reached 'a degree of perfection never before heard in Cornwall'. Another reckoned him to be 'the most finished musician [he had] ever heard of'. This was an impressive transformation for a man who had just spent four years playing hornpipes on the decks of a naval frigate, still more for one whose first music was more likely to have been Mande jeliya than Bach, played on kora and ngoni rather than on a church organ. As a boy, some fifteen years earlier, Joseph Emidy had been taken from his home in West Africa, and led in chains onto a Portuguese slave ship bound for Brazil....

    The rest of the story...which is remarkable... can be found here:

    http://www.emidy.com/

    None of his compositions survive.

    I'd never heard of him until reading the chapter in this book from which the quote above is taken:

    levelling-cover_1916614f.jpg

    Thanks, Bev. New story to me - and I live here.

  12. Anyone ever heard this curiosity?:

    220px-GilesFarnabys1973.jpg

    Seems like a collision between Early Music, folk and jazz.

    Details

    • St. George’s Canzona,
    • The Druids
    • Trevor Crozier’s Broken Consort,
    • Jeff Clyne (bass guitar)
    • Dave MacRae (electric piano)
    • Trevor Tomkins (drums).

    Not due for imminent reissue - I just stumbled on it searching for the Elizabethan/Jacobian composer Giles Farnaby.

    More about this album here, complete with audio samples :

    Giles Farnaby's Dream Band

    The track 'Newcastle Brown' was apparently issued as a single.

  13. Today's steady rain and high winds create problems for this afternoon's gig.

    I was planning on driving down out West to see Mike Westbrook's big band this afternoon - however the predicted weather for the whole area looks abysmal and the drive would be an ordeal. What a shame ! :(

    Good job there's a hosepipe ban. Weather down here in Cornwall is appalling - tree down outside the house and they could hold the Olympics sailing event on our lawn at the moment.

    Still, we can always head out for a hot pasty. Oh, hang on....

  14. Thank goodness they didn't give it to 'you know who'. :rolleyes:

    Davina McCall? David Mellor? Michael Portillo?

    Actually, given that she never misses a chance to get in the limelight, I'm predicting Anne Widdecombe within 3 years.

    01.jpg

    Sorry! That photo may well break a house rule somewhere.

    I think that photo breaks several house rules.

  15. Sat through quite a few performances by Ronnie with his various bands and there's no doubt that he was one of the very finest tenorists to ever come from these shores. His playing had a very strong Mobley influence, extremely lyrical with great sense of 'structure' in his solos (and minimum grand-standing). In the 'Couriers' days Tubby was still developing and very much the young gun, whereas Scott was the more established player and a UK 'touring veteran'.

    I seem to remember that Ronnie was also a Joe Henderson man.

  16. After a genial (well as genial as murder can be) lolling in the Sicilian sunshine, the grim North returns tonight:

    bridge_ep1.jpg

    The Bridge

    Promised in the next year - Lilyhammer (Norway), Sebastian Bergman (Sweden), The Killing III (the last series), The Killing for Americans II, Wallander for Brits Who Won't Read Subtitles (i.e. Branagh) and, next spring, Borgen II.

    Get out the smorgasbord.

    Who would have thought that subtitled TV programmes would have become so popular over here. Makes you proud to be British!

    'Inspector Montalbano' was an excellent watch and we're still ploughing our way through the first series of The Killing which I got as a box set for my birthday.

  17. It would be interesting to hear, but I've heard the material, and you can't hear too much of anything, really.

    I have a very high tolerance for homemade tapes and such, but this one is damn near unlistenable. You can hear the lines (more or less), but the tones all sound the same, which is to say, one prolonged GRGGRGRHKNWPCLQGRGGRGRHKNWPCLQGRGGRGRHKNWPCLQGRGGRGRHKNWPCLQ Not a vowel to be had.

    Too bad, really.

    Sort of like Joe Btfsplk, no vowels in his sir name.

    My copy of this, albeit not great, is listenable, at least to me.

    Since this is a private recording I can offer it to anyone that wants to hear it. These are the links

    Part 1

    Part 2

    Part 3

    Part 4

    Part 5

    Interesting. Do you have a track listing as there are more tracks here than in the session listed above?

    This is what I put together.

    Joe Brazil's basement Detroit, MI Donald Towns (tp), John Coltrane, Joe Henderson and Hank Mobley (ts), Joe Brazil and Sonny ?Red? Kyner (as), High Lawson (p), Ernie Farrow (bass), Roy Brooks (d). 1. Untitled blues jam, ending with Now's the Time (18:46), 2. Woody'n You (7:25), 3. Paul's Pal (12:20), 4. Sweet Georgia Brown (11:40) Total 47:00 Disc 2 1. Unknown Title 19:42, 2 Unknown Title 21:22, 3. Unknown Title 18:35 Total 59:41

    Thanks a lot for the information. My query is to do with the tracks on Part 2. These appear to be a lot more contemporary and studio-based than the lo-fi Joe Brazil basement recordings. The same applies to track 2 of Part 1. Just wondered where they might have come from.

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