Jazz in Britain's mission is it to unearth unknown or undereppreciated treasures from British Jazz history. Now that's what I call a self-explanatory name.
I had become aware of the label due to their announcement of an album of unreleased material from late saxophone trailblazer Barbara Thompson, but I ordered another album along with it just to have more value for the shipping costs. Little did I know that both releases would be sent individually anyway, so I received the other double CD many weeks earlier...
TREVOR TOMKINS' SEXTANT - For Future Reference (2CD) (2023)
No, of course I won't complain about not having to wait longer, because this debut album - which is also a requiem - of Jazz drummer
Trevor Tomkins, who passed away last September exactly two months after
Barbara Thompson, is quite a revelation.
I could simulate a decent expertise and give you an overview of the prolific musician's activities, especially during the 1970's, but to be honest I would rather just spark your interest in the music at hand here rather than concentrating on the résumé. If you buy the digipak you get a very comprehensive booklet in which you can read more than enough about
Tomkins' life and work.
One important observation through his whole career however is that he has always been a team player with little ego, someone who rather lets others shine and cares for the harmonious big picture than to push himself into the spotlight. It fits that picture that he became a teacher for drums and Jazz history in the 1980's.
In the beginning of that decade however he formed the first and only group with him as the band leader. With a couple of small line-up changes this sextet did several recordings in the four consecutive Mays of the years 1980 to 1983, which this double album has now pulled from his personal archives.
And even here in his own group, which mostly played local London shows and
BBC radio sessions, he wasn't the central star of the music. Fellow Englishman
Jon Hiseman probably had the total amount of drum soloing that can be found on here done after twenty-five minutes on most regular days in the office.
He also didn't claim songwriting credits on any of the fifteen tracks, which are either cover material from other artists or written by his guitar player
Phil Lee or pianist
John Horler.
But let's finally get to the music, shall we? Most times when I'm writing about Jazz and adjacent genres on this blog, the subject is Avant-Garde madness, Doomjazz or the combination with extreme Metal. There may be exemptions (mind that Jazz is my number one go-to genre when it comes to catching up on classic records, which I mostly don't cover here), but generally I seem to love my Jazz like most of my music to be adventurous and uncompromising.
So please don't misunderstand it as a devaluation of any kind when I say that in contradiction to that sentiment what I love about "For Future Reference" is exactly how good it is at making compromises! There is something "average", but without any negative connotation, about this band, which already begins with its instrumentation.
Besides the drums we hear saxophones (sometimes flutes), trombone, electric guitar (or 12 string), a sometimes also electric piano, yet a traditional upright bass.
This line-up allows
Trevor Tomkins' Sextant to be very flexible, because it provides a sound palette which sits in a place between amplified Fusion, grand big band sound, yet also sweaty improvisational club atmosphere, without ever clearly committing to one of these aspects for long. This music, which is presented in an easily digestable average song length of seven minutes, flows between styles very subtly without you even actively noticing it during casual listening.
In a similar way this collection of foremost the British Jazz history from the Sixties to the Eighties sometimes ventures forth from London to Detroit or even Havana.
The seemlessness and of course just the enormous class of the players however turn this double CD into an experience which doesn't even wants to be painstakingly analyzed.
For me this is simply:
Wow, awesome! Jazz! So awesome indeed that I included the album in the midyear ranking of my
Top 15 albums of 2023 (so far). What a shame that
Tomkins', who was involved in the development of this release couldn't see the beautiful result anymore. Drum in peace!
And before I forget it: Yes, even though he was such a team player his personal performances here, his vivid grooves and textures are absolutely fantastic!
BARBARA THOMPSON - First Light (CD) (2023)
And now to the spectacular artist I've already been at least a little familiar with from her band
Paraphernalia,
Neil Ardley's New Jazz Orchestra and of course alongside her husband, the beforementioned
Jon Hiseman, in both
The United Jazz + Rock Ensemble and the Jazz Rock legends
Colosseum! I was even lucky enough to see her perform live with the latter, twice in 2007 and once in 2014, when advances in Parkinson's treatment allowed her to tour again after what had already been supposed to be her goodbye from stage. It still took the disease another eight years to beat the saxophone player.
The fight of course goes on without her and "First Light" is a part of that, since all net profits from the album go to
Cure Parkinson's.
It is a different kind of release than the
Trevor Tomkins' Sextant album in several ways. These are recordings of three different ensembles (
Group E,
Barbara Thompson Big Band and
Jubiaba) from the years 1971 and 1972. They all have in common that the original tape recordings were in dire need of restauration, and even though the result is listenable and enjoyable, there are still some sound mistakes and wobbly passages left. As a result you shouldn't approach this with the expectations of big studio or production or modern live recording quality, but rather as a bootleg. So as good as the cause of donating for medical research is, it's also needed to justify the physical release.
Musically though there's no doubt that this deserves to be heard!
Group E opens the compilation with its longest track. The fourteen+ minutes rollercoaster "The Tie Game" as well as the following only half as long "Threnody" are both the most dark and chaotic - or let's say late
coltraneish material I've heard from
Thompson so far. Led by her on tenor and soprano saxophones and flute, the band instrumentally is a classic quartet with drums, bass and piano. But what gives these pieces a special energy besides their wild and free performance is
Barbara's back and forth with the fifth member, vocalist
Pepi Lemer. Their crazy dialogue is the core of these recordings.
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| Barbara Thompson & Colosseum live 2007 |
The album continues with the big band suite "Awaking" consisting of the three parts "First Light", "Second Light" and "Daylight".
Conducted by
Neil Ardley, who makes the twelve members sound like many more, the twenty-six minute epic bridges Jazz with Classical Music, Progressive Rock and other findings between those pillars. With
Norma Winstone a different kind of Jazz singer is featured here, who does lyrical Vocal Jazz as well as impressive harmony or unison runs with various instruments.
The arrangements take full advantage of the available array of instruments, which includes of course
Thompson's sax and flute, plus horns, trumpet, trombone, various strings, keys and percussions and the alternation between upright and electric bass as a backbone. And even with this selection to pick from the band still finds sounds you wouldn't even have expected in this constellation.
In proper recording quality this could have been a classic. Yet that being said let me repeat that this is still highly enjoyable to listen to! This recording in particular is also one of the rare instances in that time period, where we can already hear
Thompson playing to the unmistakable drive of
Jon Hiseman. The only thing which disappoints me a little here is that the third part just fades out way too early. (Maybe the recording just became unusable at that point?)
The last third of the album belongs to the other, quite different big band
Jubiaba, which among others was influenced by Funk, Fusion and Afrobeat, but still featured many strong melodies and harmonies as you would expect in any of
Barbara Thompson's works. Two of their five tracks here would reappear six years later on their studio album, on which by the way a certain
Trevor Tomkins played the drums. On these older versions he's also participant, not on drums yet, but on percussions.
Each composition has its very own style and temper and at least from my not too educated perspective I'd say that this is the most typical
Thompson material here, both in terms of her individual playing as well as the similarities to the overall impression of a
Paraphernalia album.
Among the countless possible ways to get acquainted with her work this surely isn't a top-tier starting point, but if you're fan enough to look past the technical imperfectness (which for me only becomes a serious issue with the sometimes too shrill sound and occasional skipped split seconds during the final tracks), this is a very intriguing release, which presents the wide range of a great artist during a short span of time.
And it surely motivates me to dive deeper into any phase of her discography!
"Leben heißt Leben", "Geburt einer Nation", "Leben-Tod", "F.I.A.T."... Laibach's 1987 watershed album "Opus Dei" has been remastered and with a really improved sound now reveals many details which could easily be missed in the original.
In honour of the late saxophone pioneer's eightieth birthday Repertoire Records re-issued Barbara Thompson's 1980 live show of amazing Jazz Rock with sprinkles of Funk, Latin and Oriental influences and pinches of schmaltz and Disco and added an at least equally compelling bonus compilation focussing on her work on flute. With liner notes from her daughter Ana Gracey this 2CD Fusion treasure chest comes with a lot of love.
Does this even still count as a reissue? Jazz In Britain took the only and relatively obscure 1974 cassette album "One, Two, Three_ _ _ Go!" of Jazz pianist Gordon Beck's band Gyroscope and beefed it up to an almost four hour chronology of demos, live shows and radio broadcasts on three CDs. Even though the sound quality of these recordings isn't always ideal, there's no escape from the magic of his boundlessly talented and creative band. A stunning and vivid document of British Jazz history.
Blue-ified in true Jazz classic fashion this first ever vinyl pressing of Yazz Ahmed's 2011 debut album is a true beauty inside out. The trumpet player does her first steps in merging Miles Davis-inspired Western Jazz tradition with her Bahraini roots and already shines as a unique creative voice in both impressive band arrangements and magical duets with congenius bass player Janek Gwishada.
