sidewinder

Neil Ardley (Australian World Record Club)

‘Neil Ardley and the Danish Radio Big Band, 1968’ (Jazz In Britain, mono)

Just arrived - for a busy afternoon’s reading.

My copy of the Neil Ardley bio has arrived. It looks every bit as good as the pictures, packed with personal photos, correspondence, flyers etc. A real labour of love. Quite a sizeable and weighty volume so the shipping is justified - over 400 pages. Strongly recommended ! The two CDs are very interesting too. CD1 has Neil leading the Danish Radio Jazz Orchestra from 1968 with material from ‘Dejeuner..’ plus extras and a prototype early version of ‘Greek Variations’, a real find ! CD2 has 80s material on synth by Neil, some with Pepi Lemer vocals plus recordings from the 2003 St Cyprians concert by ‘Zyklus’, his last live performance.

3LP compilation and booklet compiled by Derek Jewell. Some great choices.

Conn ‘Wally’ issue of the LP, signed by Wayne on the back. Sounding surprisingly good, to my ears.

Northern Lights seen from Stonehenge last night (Thurs).

Blue label, mono. Great sounding LP.

‘Jazzwise’ this month has a review of that Cafe Oto gig. There was mention of a serious bout of pneumonia back in 2021 I think.

I’ve got the feeling that it was 10 of the favourites selected by Mike Hennessy. ‘Hub of Hubbard’ was one of them. Around 1980.

My reaction too on seeing most of these festival lineups these days, alas.

I quite like that series. Remember when they first came out, MPS boxed up 10 of the best and sold them as a boxed set. Never seen one here ‘in the wild’ though.

They were indicating that deliveries were due to start next week but looks like mine is early. I did contribute some ‘source’ material so maybe it is priority service, perhaps. The book can be ordered via the JiB Bandcamp page under ‘Merchandise’. There’s also a bit of info on it on their Facebook site. A rare example of where we on this side of the Atlantic benefit ! I must admit, the most recent CD order of the Rendell/Carr and Trevor Tomkins arrived literally overnight. Both are recommended. Next order for me is probably the new Barbara Thompson. Net profits go to the Parkinsons charity so in a very good cause. There’s also Barbara’s memorial concert coming up in London in June I think. With regard to the Ardley book, I think the size/weight pushes up the price of shipping, even here in the UK. Hopefully Dusty will order it in. It looks like a labour of love by Viv Ardley and JiB and comes with 2 CDs of previously unissued music from the Ardley archive, plus a download of the sold-out RFH ‘Kaleidoscopes’.

Just got a message to say that my copy of the Neil Ardley bio with the two CDs of Ardley material has been shipped by Jazz In Britain. Earlier than expected - excellent !

Reads like a personal and somewhat idiosyncratic tribute to me and definitely not an obituary. Seems to stop at 1949 !

Video with sound through hifi - George Coleman Octet, Camden Jazz Festival 1981

Acoustic Sounds series.

This is, surprisingly, turning into one of my favourite issues in the Tone Poet series.