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Forgotten Esquire recordings - 6..........All Star Sextet...
Alan Dean was a vocalist and typical figure of the immediate post war band era, working with the premier bands, big and small but he was also a bopper and in this context composed some fast moving but melodic bop lines using his voice as an additional horn, plus some scatting. He was the nominal leader of the All Star Sextet which made it's debut at the Downbeat Club in March, 1948. The declared intention of the Sextet was to play only bebop and it was probably the first UK bebop-orientated group to play the clubs, they certainly played enough to qualify as a regular group.
Between April,1948 and September, 1949 they recorded for Esquire although a number of tracks were not issued until many years later. Only four 78rpm records were issued until the early 1980s an LP was issued which contained everything.
In 1991 eight titles were included on a long out of print 4 CD set (Bebop in Britain).
This leaves the LP as the only record of the bands output. There were three genuine 'boppers' (Alan Dean, Ralph Sharon and Tommy Pollard) in the group. The others were big band or night club musicians seeking relief from their bread and butter work and keen to learn the new bebop. The group was popular at the Feldman Swing Club and also got to broadcast for the BBC Overeas Service. Esquire recorded the band very early in it's life, the outstanding soloists on these 1948 titles were Ralph Sharon and Tommy Pollard. This was the only time that Pollard was recorded playing vibes and his superb playing stands above everything else to be heard, his feature on I Can't Get Started is a masterpiece.
The recordings contain a nunber of fine solos from tenor sax player Aubrey Frank and it should not be forgotten that all records made by the Ralph Sharon Sextet between late 1949 and November, 1952 before his departure to the US, some of which include Jimmy Skidmore or Tommy Whittle have also never been re-issued on CD.
All Star Sextet discography...

So the whole All Star Sextet catalogue, all over sixty years old is in limbo and surely due a re-issue.
Some of us have transferred our own, worn LP to CD, although none of us has all the 78s and while this is OK it would be marvellous to have the LP professionally restored to CD...
Experiment in Time with Victor Feldman

This page was last updated during January, 2014
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