sidewinder

From the 'Wisdom In The Wings' twofer. Stan Tracey Big Band from 1969.

One advantage of being retired these days is that you can stay as late at you want Swanage on Sunday before the drive back and then recuperate at leisure the next day ! The post-Sunday torture of previous festivals is avoided. So much good stuff - Sunday night ended with Zoe Rahman's 'Colour of Sound' Octet, a real surprise for me as she has taken on board influences from Tyner and Hancock mid-sized groups with the use of alto flute/bone/flugel and also added in those Abdullah Ibrahim and Bengali influences. Lovely ! I really liked this group and will definitely be buying the CD (sadly had run out of cash on the day so could not buy one from Zoe herself afterwards). I think this one was the last gig of a UK tour, very fine band of all-stars really (Mark Armstrong, Camilla George, Rosie Turton, Tori Freestone et al). Norma Winstone with 'The Printmakers' on Sunday afternoon was pretty wonderful, I can't recall hearing Norma sound better. Last year she brought the trio with Mark Lockheart and Nicky Illes and this year expanded it to the full band and to noticeable effect. Again, a group of all-stars - the interplay with Illes, Lockheart and guitarist Mike Walker was superb. Once again I was very impressed with drummer James Maddren - perfect for this sort of group. Saturday night was dominated for me by Emma Rawicz and her 21 piece (!) Jazz Orchestra in the Mowlem Theratre. Led with such confidence and maturity for a 22 year old, the charts were put together and conducted by Emma and with noticeable Kenny Wheeler, Gil Evans and I think Maria Schneider influences. Very individual though as I believe that she senses sounds by colours (can't recall what that is called). Obviously a huge talent - her tenor playing is top notch too. Some of the most interesting music, often low-key, was caught in Marquee 2 under the new 'The Sound of Jazz To Come' strand. I caught 'The Other Way' from Bristol on Saturday, who combine jazz with folk and prog rock to interesting effect. Also in Marquee 2 on Sunday were Alyn Shipton recreating the Gerry Mulligan Quartet and 'Matt Stockham Brown's 6161', another Bristol band sounding to me a bit like a combination of Mike Mower's 'Itchy Fingers' with electronica, a sound somewhat akin to 'Get The Blessing'. Some interesting music coming out of Bristol at the moment. Pleased also to see Greg Abate as special guest with 'The Sound of Blue Note' on Friday night. They did a very nice version of Duke Pearson 'Sudel' with the 3 part harmonies nicely recreated. Had a brief chat with the always friendly Greg A. and bought his first CD with Phil Woods from him. For the most part the weather also behaved and yesterday in particular was a lovely sunny Swanage day - idyllic really, apart from the football result which many there ignored anyway (seeing Zoe Raman's band in the Mowlem was a much better priority). Also great to see Henry Lowther with his 'Still Waters' band, playing superbly at 83 and with Tori Freestone guesting in place of Pete Hurt, to fine effect. Art Themen also his usual wonderful and inventive self with various groups, always seems to be ageless to me although I recall seeing him with Stan Tracey's Octet about 40 years ago and quite a few times at Swanage. All promises well for the 35th festival next year !

I remember these UA 10" LPs when they came out (or at least a few years later when shops over here listed them in Jazz Journal) and I've occasionally come across them in the years since.

Loads of good stuff scheduled - Tony Kofi, Clark Tracey, Gary Crosby plays 'Mingus Moves', Barnes/Newton, Nigel Price, Zoe Rahman, Lianne Carroll. As well as the Mowlem Theatre they are back to 2 marquees near the seafront this year, a welcome development. Personally I think Cheltenham has lost it - caters largely these days for Cotswolds loadsamonies who are not into jazz and the jazz content such as it is seems to be focused on the Parabola Arts Centre. Haven't attended for years. A shame also that Bath these days seems to have totally lost interest in its Jazz Weekend as part of the Bath Fest - the Cotswolds £ effect again I think. Back in the glory days it was Cheltenham, Bath and Swanage in quick succession.

'The Complete Max Roach Plus Four Mercury' box, 7CDs. Spurred on by the Max Mosaic thread and about time I gave this one another spin. CD1 - sounding excellent, first time I have heard this set since changing the pre-amp.

For once with Mosaic I am going to hang fire on this one for a while. TYQ looks like a good option though and they should hopefully get repeat batches.

Next weekend Friday through Sunday it is the Swanage Festival, Dorset again here in the UK - Looking forward to it, Greg Abate is back (hopefully selling more if his CDs) and there is a varied and good lineup including the likes of Norma Winstone, Henry Lowther's Still Waters and Art Themen's Organ Group. Young saxophonist Emma Rawicz is leading her jazz orchestra, looking forward to that one in particular.

Joe Pass 'For Django'. Another very good Tone Poet LP from the 20% off sale.

Horace Silver Quintet 'Silver's Serenade' (Tone Poet) Outstanding - this stereo version compares very favourably with my mono NY pressing. Might even be better !

Prepare to buy some more storage racks..

Yes, that corner area is uninviting and as you say, unstaffed. Sad - when it started out it was a lively shop run by Paul Pace and co. , the nice coffee bar next to it and with good CD and LP offerings. I remember buying the Hazel Scott Debut 10" from the 'Hen's Teeth' box. Heck, they even had good free gigs there by the likes of Empirical.

Bobby Hutcherson 'Total Eclipse' in the Tone Poet version. It will be interesting to compare it with the Liberty issue. Edited to say that this version sounds pretty excellent to me. Certainly a step of two up from the DMM version I bought in the mid 80s. The gatefold colour pictures of Bobby and co. are great too.

A slippery slope.. ! Tone Poet LPs arrived today - very fast service from the UK Blue Note shop.

Last time I was in Foyles/Ray's the Jazz section seemed to have shrunk a bit. There was a small section with second hand 10" LPs but not sure if any 78s, don't think so. They had a note on the rack saying 'not buying any second-hand collections at present'. As for Mole - any evidence of the old sign and original shop presence, which survived into the 2010s, now obliterated with the King's Cross developments.

Pure Pleasure have never encountered any other incidence of this apparently, must have been a manufacturing balls-up at Pallas. The Rouse is good - very much 'of its time' but in a good way. Interesting that cello was used as part of the front line.

One of the Strata-East/Pure Pleasure LPs. Interesting session - sounds like a bit of 'Bitches Brew' influence in there plus David Lee on drums gives it a sound which is akin to Rollins' Milestone LPs of this era. Incidentally my Tolliver 'Impact' had an OK side 1 but some unknown Krautrock on side 2. Commendably, Pure Pleasure are replacing it with a new copy.

Got the email too so hopefully my full set minus vol 1 will be on its way across the 'oggin shortly.

Yeah, Chalke was pretty good and in a lovely scenic spot too. One of the highlights of the year. There was a recreation from scratch of the Anglo-Saxon Prittlewell Burial and this gave me the inspiration. Don't think whoever it was had any Mosaics but he did take a well-used lyre with him to Valhalla ! It would be ace to do this and then have future Baldricks + Time Team scratching their heads.

Inspired by the history festival attended last week I plan on doing a 'Jazz Sutton Hoo Burial' type of thing with a Saxon burial ship lined with LPs/Mosaics and maybe also room for my hi-fi too !

Just taken advantage of the Blue Note Store's 20% off sale to pick up a few of the Tone Poets on my back-list (Tex Book Tenor, Byrd's Eye View etc.) Talking of 'Byrd's Eye View' I actually handled a mega-rare Esquire pressing of that one the other week. It even had an original Transition booklet included within it.

I'm currently this week enjoying a major UK open-air historical festival at which Michael Palin (of Python fame etc) was due to appear tomorrow talking about his Great Uncle Harry and WW1. Just heard that he has had to cancel last minute due to catching covid so it seems to be going around at present (in N London at least).

Used to attend County and one-day matches back in the day as a youngster (saw some incredible players - Boycott, Alan Knott, Botham, Viv Richards) and for some years played in the occasional competitive 20 over evening works games. England performance against Australia predictably poor, they were outclassed. Hard to take this format too seriously though.

I think Dutton Vocalion lost interest in jazz at least 10 years ago. Maybe licensing got tightened up/made more expensive through Universal (aka monopoly operation). Like you, I picked most of those CDs up (thankfully). It really was an excellent series of releases. Now if only we could arrange things for Mosaic to be able to do big sets of Tempo, Nixa, Argo, Deram and Columbia/Lansdowne material (in my dreams !)

Thurman Barker on drums.

I attended a local beacon lighting on the evening of the 6th (hosted by local residents with bar and barbecue) There was a chain of beacons lit right across the South of England, areas that were used as training and embarkation bases. Must make a visit to Tarrant Rushton, where gliders took off for the parachute drops and still largely unchanged from that time.