sidewinder

Oliver Lake Ollie Stan

Herbie Hancock 'Complete Columbia' box - Amazon UK £71. Threw in the Tubby Hayes 'Rumpus' on Savage Solveig to use up a promotion voucher.

I promise to keep 'shtumm' after 'Tales of the Algonquin'

Yes, he's in great form at the moment - in past concerts I recall there was quite a lot of bass clarinet and synth but nothing on either of those last night. Really glad that he stretched out on the baritone in particular, although the soprano work was equally stunning. I have to also say that they did a grand job with the acoustics at the Turner-Sims too. What a fine venue it is. Really looking forward to 'Tales of the Algonquin' later today, with John Warren on piano.

I find Esquires to provide the best sounding original vinyl pressings of Prestige material - and they usually have 'RVG' in the runout. To be honest though, you really can't go wrong with the 70s RCA 24000 series twofer reissues either (apart from the French Carrerre versions), which can usually be picked up at moderate price. Don't think I have any Analog Production titles.

Great concert at Turner-Sims last night. Surman in superb form - have seen him quite a few times over the years and really can't recall hearing him play better. Like all great jazz players, he has a truly unique sound. For this concert, concentrated on baritone and soprano and it was good to hear some really good, strong workouts on the big horn. The band were stunning too, very reactive to each other and they gelled very well with the Surman style. Nice to hear them do 'Where Fortune Smiles' and a lovely version of Coltrane's ballad 'Central Park West' as the well-deserved encore. Before the concert he said that he had jetted in after a 12 hour journey from Oslo and was pretty well 'wiped' but you would never guess it from the amount of energy on show. Very impressive considering the very limited rehearsal opportunity.

Loads of MOR tosh to keep the spooks at GCHQ entertained I guess !

Oliver Lacon Peter Guillam Toby Esterhazy

John Surman Quartet, Southampton Turner-Sims

Bit of an aside from British Jazz and I may have told this one before but can I tell my Steve White story? At an open air gig years back in the US, noticed a strangish nervy guy with a sax in a bag (might even have been a brown paper bag) stood right next to me in the audience fidgetting away and and hyped up. From the stage was the call 'Is Steve White out there?..' and out he steps to give a very rare public performance for us all. Priceless !

Prince Edward Ed Balls Eddie and the Hot Rods

Wow ! Didn't know of that one.

It was indeed. Wasn't it one of Charles Fox's Radio 3 shows though - 'Jazz Today'? That show also used a track from Henry Lowther 'Child Song' for a while too. As an aside, 'Jazz Journal' has an obituary this month of Peter Russell, who used to run the 'Hot Record Store' in Plymouth, home town of Surman. It mentions that JS was in there a lot as a youngster, almost his second home apparently..

Talking of the Surman/Warren 'Tales of the Algonquin', it is being performed at the Southampton event this weekend with Surman (very rare), really looking forward to it. On the previous day he will be performing with his quartet in a separate show with Alex H. on piano, so it will be a major Surman-Fest. I'll have to get hold of that 'Brass Project'. Another one which is a monster is that CD plus DVD of the NDR session with Skidmore, Kenny Wheeler etc and which kicks off with 'Once Upon A Time'. For my money, Surman is one of the greatest musicians to ever come out of this country. At a time when most were following the Gerry Mulligan influence, he took Harry Carney as the starting point and went with it.

Sorry,'fraid not. I will keep an eye open for another copy though.

Ha ! That would be the CD.. (Aforementioned West Coast Classics series)

Came out as a Japanese reissue on Fontana. I've got one upstairs... Also UK issue on Fontana I think.

He was another jazz fan, allegedly he cried during the blitz when he arrived back at his digs to find all his 78 records destroyed. There's a great clip of him in the BBC studio's in the audience of a MJQ concert. Big fan of Bill Evans, I've heard. As mentioned, he's also in the audience on 'Jazz 625' footage. He was in the specially invited studio audience too for the Rendell/Carr 'Live' at Lansdowne, apparently. The show has declined very badly. Like the BBC, sadly. Too many C-listers and full-of-themselves paper pushers on the show these days. Sad.

In red! Somewhere in the 70s, whoever owned Chess/Argo/Etc (or maybe somebody who didn't own it...) flooded the cutout bins with all these LPs that had B&W Xerox-y looking covers. Not remembering if this was the same batch that had same front and back covers, but there was that too. Anyway, you know how tricky xeroxing red could be back in the day. I've got a few of those Cadets and very tacky they look, although they don't sound too bad. Golson's 'Take a Number From One To Ten' and Art Farmer's 'Art' as well as the 'Big City Sounds'. Mole Jazz's deletions rack was full of them. Coincided with the 'Winter of Discontent' over here !

Just about everything Bill Barber recorded with Gil Evans, from Birth of the Cool onwards, was brilliant. His sound is also very distinctive.

George Wallington 'Jazz For The Carriage Trade' (Esquire, mono)

Remember seeing it on the box when it was first transmitted here - around '69 or '70. A highlight of the mid-week viewing at the time. The TV offerings at the time from the US were either this, 'Rat Patrol' or the latest Vietnam news footage. Surreal !

'Lorraine Geller at the Piano' (Japanese Dot)

No snow (we rarely get any) but some fierce storms blowing in from the Atlantic last night !