sidewinder

With very best wishes !

UK CBS 2LP Big fan of Glass Bead Games here. Not only is it a very good Clifford Jordan album - but also an excellent feature for Cedar Walton and Billy Higgins. I have the Strata-East double and also have it on the Clifford Jordan Mosaic set so will pass on the PP, fantastic as that no doubt is.

Wayne signed the back of my Liberty ‘Schizophrenia’ LP - that would be around 2003 when I caught the Quartet for the first time.

Very sad news - he signed my copy of ‘Holidays in Hell’ with ‘stay at home’. In person, expectedly witty and also with a kindly nature, I found. RIP.

Recall when I saw Louis Bellson’s Big Band the first time that Blue had been in the recent lineup and most recent recording (on Pablo I think) but had sadly passed on after ilness not long before the tour. The band did a tribute number in his memory called ‘Blue’ featuring Bobby Shew.

‘Another Story’ is a real sleeper of a session - excellent LP.

The Jazztet titles I picked up on this All Platinum/Cadet label had noticeable warp and wow effect. Not what you want to hear on ‘Killer Joe’. Back in the late 70s it was the only way over here to hear this music though.

And ‘All Platinum’ was bankrolled by Morris Levy of Roulette fame, I believe. There were stories of that studio being given cases full of cash no questions asked during that period. Money laundering? Stores like Mole and Honest Jon’s over here were full of those pressings with the B&W covers back in the late 70s and they all had that notch cutout. Don’t think I ever saw one of those Cadets without the notch and all of the ones I have - have it. Reeks of a scam ! https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000nlkb This is an interesting listen !

Yes, excellent sounding LP. The King was good too.

Freddie H. seems to have spent a fair bit of time over this side of the pond in 1965. Simon S’s essay confirms that he was touring Europe with Friedrich Gulda’s Orchestra (along with Tubby Hayes and JJ Johnson) and got stuck between flights in London, facilitating an impromptu Bull’s Head gig with Tubby. Talking of Ronnie and jokes - he used to occasionally get comedians into the club. Prof. Irwin Corey was one - and I caught one of those occasions where he shared the bill with Cedar Walton. Pretty surreal - Ronnie was watching from stage left and laughing his head off, can picture it now.

On tour at a pub in Wiltshire.

John Nott Alan Knott David Nutt

Art has also been doing impromptu solo spots from his doorway to his neighbours in Henley at the height of the lockdown. Looking forward to seeing him and his band at Swanage. First time I saw the Scott group at the club it was a Quartet with Louis Stewart, Ron Mathewson and Martin Drew. Then around 1980 John Critchinson on piano came in for Stewart. A few years later Dick Pearce was added on trumpet/flugelhorn then they added Mornington Lockett on second tenor. One early appearance I remember was the group backing the singer Julie Amiet, who I believe was an Australian expat.

NY USA, mono

Hopefully, the Westbrook Derams will get a quality vinyl reissue in the Decca ‘Explosion’ series. Cover photo taken at Bovington Tank Museum? 47w63rd DG Mono, lovely big and precise sound. Incredible for an LP that is well over 60 years old !

Yeah, that Ella Memorex ad even made it over here.

And it is just heresay, at the end of the day. To be categorised under ‘myth’ until proven otherwise.

Those episodes filmed at The Marquee are distinguishable from the striped marquee feature at the back of the stage, indicative of that club just after it had opened on Wardour Street.

Interesting - per the documentary one of the ‘patrons’ of the club was gangster ‘Italian Albert’ Dimes, who backed them in the move to Frith St and kept other gangsters away. No mention of any financial arrangement - apparently he liked them. The ‘misterious’ bit of Ronnie was probably pinning down his character. Again, the doc mentions him being referred to as ‘a nice bunch of guys’ by club doctor Wally Hauser. I wonder if Pete King knew?

I think my Cadet ‘Art’ has one of those B&W covers from the depths of the 70s. Golson’s ‘Take a Number...’ as well. Mole Jazz was full of them.

I thought they were recorded at The Marquee on Wardour St, as well as BBC studio facilities including the Shepherds Bush Empire. I saw Elvin around 1999/2000 at the club too. That was the band with Ravi - and Sonny Fortune I think.

I think that gig was around 1980 but I saw him on quite a few occasions there up until the late 90s/early 2000s.

I remember paying either 1 or 2 pounds per night, Tues - Thurs (off peak) with a Student’s Union Club Member admission (£20 per season). Remember buying that card from Pete King in person, in his inner sanctum office. Prices were at a premium when the big names such as Ella, Buddy Rich, Woody Herman etc. were on. 2 separate shows per night for those. Yes, the late sets were always the best when the noisy ‘gold card expense’ brigade had thinned out.

Just watched a re-run of the documentary. Interestingly, there’s a shot of Ronnie at the front of the club taken on one of the weeks I was there (Elvin Jones Jazz Machine, Joy Yates plus the Dave McRae Trio). Uncanny !