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| 2020 CD releases... |
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CDs released during 2020
........................ CDs released during 2019 and 2018 2017 2016 2015 2014
| Rhythm and Blues | "Rendell/Carr Quintet BBC Jazz club broadcasts from the 1960's" | 
Creating ‘a most interesting groove which combines a good deal of avant garde experimentation with the jazz fundamentals of logic and swing’ (Melody Maker), the Don Rendell-Ian Carr Quintet has gone down in British jazz history as a cult band, its few commercially-issued albums remaining among the most collectable of their kind.Mixing the gravitas of the veteran saxophonist Rendell with the ambitious and eclectic tastes of co-leader Carr the unit was a crucible of Brit-jazz development, swiftly moving from orthodox Hard Bop to a style unquestionably its own. These three previously unissued sessions (both studio-taped and live) capture the band in transition from its early incarnation with Colin Purbrook in the piano chair through to the wilder, free-flowing, moods that followed Michael Garrick’s arrival in 1965. Long-term Rendell/Carr fans will welcome ‘new’ versions of the quintet’s classic tracks 'Dusk Fire', 'Jubal' and 'Hot Rod', as well as several group-penned compositions heard here for the first time. The broadcasts are from Feb 22nd,1965, Apr 3rd, 1965 and Jul 10th, 1966. Track list... Rhythm and Blues | "Ronnie Scott Quartet BBC Jazz club broadcasts from the 1960's" |  Everyone knows that the 1960s, the decade in which London swung as never before, were the Golden Era of Ronnie Scott’s club, the tiny bolthole of a basement that had swiftly gone from a strictly parochial phenomenon to an international marker on the jazz map. What’s less well-known, largely thanks to his own diffidence about recording, is that this was also the time in which Scott the player hit his peak.These previously unreleased sessions from 1964-66 find him helming his own quartet; a band praised by critics of the time as a ‘powerful combo’ creating ‘full-blooded, exciting’ jazz; in three distinct settings; live in Manchester (supporting jazz superstars the Dave Brubeck Quartet); in the studio; and accompanying a very special guest, the iconic American jazz vocalist Mark Murphy. Rarely has Scott been heard to better advantage, his playing throughout these sets bringing his legend back to vivid, hard-swinging and passionately communicative life. Stan Tracey is the pianist in the three quartets and bass/drums are Rick Laird/Ronnie Stephenson (Feb 8th, 1965), Freddy Logan/Bill Eyden (Apr 17th, 1966), Malcolm Cecil/Jackie Dougan (June 6th,1964). Track list... Rhythm and Blues | "Harry South BBC Jazz club broadcasts from the 1960's" | 
When the BBC invited pianist/composer and arranger Harry South to front his own big band for a special edition of its flagship radio programme Jazz Club in 1960, few could have predicted the broadcast’s fall-out. Although the Beeb would offer a similar helping hand to other British jazzmen in the decade ahead – making big band leaders of a range of leading figures from Humphrey Lyttelton to Stan Tracey – none of these other bands evolved quite like South's. Beginning as a showcase for his distinctive, often darkly dramatic, original material, and operating as a 'jobs for the boys' forum for those British modernists he felt closest too (among them Tubby Hayes, Dick Morrissey and Joe Harriott) the sheer clout of South's star-packed aggregation ensured it soon attracted interest from outside the normally closed borders of jazz purism. Indeed, when Yeh Yeh hitmaker Georgie Fame decided to pursue his wider musical ambitions, he chose South and his big band as his collaborators, creating the album Sound Venture, a cross-over classic that has become one of the iconic LPs of the decade.Assembled from South's own tape archive, and featuring a wealth of PREVIOUSLY UNISSUED material, including NINE killer Georgie Fame tracks, Further South is both a prequel and sequel to that landmark achievement, a four-disc document of one of the most vibrant times in British music, a souvenir from the days when Swinging London created its very own sound from a heady amalgam of small band Hard Bop, Big Band Swing, R&B and Soul. Containing no fewer than ten complete radio sessions by South's big band (and two by the Dick Morrissey Quartet) and packaged with rare period photographs and an extensive booklet essay by award-winning saxophonist and author Simon Spillett, this set is a must-have for all fans of British modernism. These Harry South Big Band broadcast recordings contain modern big band jazz of quite extraordinary power and dynamism rarely, if ever, equalled since. The Band led by conductor/arranger/composer South- has just about every modern jazz star of the 1960's including such luminaries as Tubby Hayes,Ronnie Scott and Dick Morrissey in the sax sections on offer. The Band rips it up on just about every track and culminates in CD 4 with Georgie Fame at the microphone with the band in full swing behind him. All in all, a truly remarkable catalogue of music making. But, a word of warning, these recordings are of BBC broadcasts of Jazz Club and (I believe) are taken from tapes made of the various transmissions by Harry South himself and are definitely not Hi-Fi or anything approaching it; but they are nevertheless priceless in their rarity and musical excellence. In addition to the Big Band broadcasts there are some wonderful sessions recorded by the Dick Morrissey Quartet with no less than Harry South himself on piano and the titanic drumming of Phil Seamen on offer. All in all a fitting tribute to a marvellous set of musicians playing at the peak of their powers in the 1960's; with the caveat for the audiophiles alongst us as to the far less then perfect sound reproduction! Jonny Dee This 4 CD set contains broadcasts from 1960, 1963, 1964, 1965, 1966 and 1967. Track list... Jazz in Britain | "The Tubby Hayes Quartet - Free Flight" | 
This is a limited edition double CD in a digipack with a 24 page booklet and is prepared from the Ron Mathewson Tape Archive.Recorded at Ronnie Scott's in October, 1972 this previously unissued recording features one of the last appearances by the 'classic' Tubby Hayes Quartet featuring pianist Mike Pyne, bassist Ron Mathewson and drummer Tony Levin. Taken from original tape sources this release sheds new light on the later stages of the great saxophonists career, showing that although ravaged by ill health and barely months away from his death, Hayes was still capable of giving his all. Featuring a Hayes composition not previously heard (Lady Celia), together with works ranging from Cole Porter,John Coltrane and Victor Feldman this is an album that captures not only a key juncture in both the life and work of its headliner but something of the richness of the British jazz scene in the early 1970's. Packed with period photographs and personal ephemera relating to the gig itself, together with an extensive booklet note by Hayes' biographer Simon Spillett, 'Free Flight' is yet another valuable release from John Thurlow's Jazz in Britain label, an imprint which, although relatively new, is already providing plenty of surprises for fans of the 'golden era' of UK made jazz and improvised music. Track list... Fontana | "Tubby Hayes - The Complete Fontana Albums 1961 - 1969 (13 CD boxset)" | 
Tubby Hayes is undoubtedly one of the most important, influential and ground breaking UK musicians of all time.
During the 1950s and early 1960s Hayes had stood apart from many of his UK-based contemporaries, displaying a
self-confidence and virtuoso musical delivery that placed him neck-and-neck with
many of the leading American jazzmen of the day. He worked with the likes of
Quincy Jones, Ella Fitzgerald, Charles Mingus and Duke Ellington and his many
fans included Miles Davis, Cannonball Adderley and Sonny Rollins. He had his own
primetime TV show and was the face of UK jazz. His premature death in 1973, aged
just 38, left a legacy that many critics and fellow artists point towards Tubby
as the first UK artist to put British jazz solidly on the global map.This 13CD clamshell box set, remastered from the original tape masters, featuring previously unreleased material across Tubby Hayes’ Fontana years comes with a 152 page booklet with extensive liner notes by Hayes’ biographer Simon Spillett. With 5” square CD wallets with spines and plain inner sleeves and Original Artwork as facsimile sleeves, except CD2 Equation In Rhythm / Palladium Jazz Date is hybrid artwork. Mastering Notes: The recordings have been lovingly remastered at Gearbox Records’ Studios, London, directly from the original tapes, using a Studer C37 ¼-inch stereo tape machine. They were then equalised through an all-valve mastering desk built bespoke for Decca studios in the late 1950s, Vintage Lang Pultec EQ, Prism Maselec EQ and Telefunken U73b valve limiters from 1959. track listing... Album Contents: • CD1: Tubbs (1961) • CD2: Equation In Rhythm / Palladium Jazz Date * (A side: Southern Routes Pts. 1 & 2, B side: Tubby Hayes’ Palladium Jazz Date tracks) + Sally/I believe In You (single) (1961 & 1962) • CD3: Tubbs In N.Y. (1961)** • CD4: Return Visit! (1962) • CD5: Late Spot At Scott's (1962)** • CD6: Down In The Village (1962) • CD7: Tubbs' Tours (1964) + previously unreleased bonus material • CD8 & CD9: 100% Proof (1967) + previously unreleased bonus disc • CD10: Mexican Green (1967) previously unreleased bonus material • CD11 & 12: Grits, Beans And Greens (Complete sessions) (1969) • CD13: The Orchestra (1970) **Mono | |