I’ve been discovering the late 60s music of the late Graham Collier recently, and it’s sensational. Here’s a track from 1969’s ‘Down Another Road’ by his septet that sailed pretty close to jazz-rock – but it swings! The drum solo is outstanding.
I have a feeling that they may even have passed Johnny C by at the time (their image didn’t scream ‘cool’), but if so, I’d say he missed out…
And am I along in hearing a pre-echo of ‘Walk The Dinosaur’ in here?
As the standard of my replies elsewhere denote, I’m bored. Now I am soooooooooooo bored I opened this up.
It’s good stuff. I had never heard the name but may now search.
That’s a lovely piece. I’d forgotten that I had that on the first of Gilles Petersen’s “Impressed” compilations.
Strange to think that this is the track after the rather raucous “Aberdeen Angus” (above) on the same album.
Very reminiscent of an old familiar tune from the bebop era, simplified and slowed right down. Racking my brains for what it’s called.
C#,F#.
C#,F#,E,D#,D,C,C#.
C#B.
C#,C#,C#,A,F.F#.
This track has a groove that reminds me of ‘Le Tango’ from the rather 80s-production-tarnished Thijs Van Leer/Jan Akkerman reunion album ‘Focus’:
I saw the Graham Collier band a few times back in the day and they were a fine, consistent outfit. All their earlier albums are well worth seeking out (Deep Dark Blue Centre, Portraits, Mosiac, Songs For my Father etc). There used to be a couple of three album sets covering the early year, which were terrific value. The drummer is John Marshall who was all over the scene at the time. I saw him with Mike Westbrook and he was a founder member of Nucleus, eventually moving on to Soft Machine.
There’s a great compilation crying out to be put together on the London jazz scene from 1967 to 1972.
I’m sure Colin is working on that, as a companion piece to his book.
Funnily enough, I’ve recently compiled a speculative CD (pitched at a just-about-convinced RPM) based on an aspect of Brit jazz 1966-71. I’ll say no more, but fingers crossed. Multi-label licensing is never easy nor quick…
I agree that there’s a great need for a 3CD or 4CD box set on that golden age of British jazz.
And… in between making a living I’m currently on the foothills of a new book on that very era of British jazz. I can’t say more at the moment, because I’ve yet to firm things up with a collaborator (a prolific musician from that era), but I was inspired partly by a line from a review of my John McLaughlin book, saying that it was, in that writer’s view, ‘the best book on 60s British jazz yet written’ or something like that. Hugely flattering, of course – and I had definitely done my best to weave in as much of the milieu of tribes and personalities and innovators in the broad church of Brit jazz in that era as a kind of extended backdrop in the first two thirds of the book – but it occurred to me that if I focused more on that backdrop as a foregound I could perhaps paint a still richer picture, because John McL was ‘on the scene’ and yet also a kind of will o’ the wisp, peripheral presence, not central to it. It has also occurred to me that there are doubtless plenty of people who would be interested in a book focused on the era but who would not be especially interested in a book on John McL – or would not, perhaps, (wrongly!) think that such a book would include much about the 60s Brit jazz world.
Good news, Colin. There is gaping hole in the market for a book on this period. Duncan Heining’s ‘Trad Dads, Dirty Boppers and Free Fusioneers’ was a missed opportunity in my view, concentrating a bit too much on sociology etc for my liking,
Duncan’s book is full of a huge amount of knowledge on the musicians, recordings and era he chronicles and, as he states himself, he approached the whole thing from a determinedly Marxist perspective – with, as you say, a serious dollop of sociology.
It’s not a book without humour, but it can certainly seem rather dry at times. The author’s Marxist virtue can perhaps be the casual reader’s bane.
Personally, I have no interest in politics but I understand that a bit of sociology can tease out connections and motivations etc, and the 60s were a unique era in British social history let alone culturally, a real societal shift. Sometimes Duncan’s thematic, quasi-academic approach can yield real insight – his discussion on race, for instance, is, from memory, very good indeed. And, in my view, he is at his best in sections when his musical enthusiasm comes through.
But while there are some standout sections, I’ll agree that, for a reader wanting a more anecdote rich, music-based narrative, there’s a labyrinth to negotiate. I would say that ‘Trad Dads’ rewards the already committed but would prove challenging to someone just, perhaps, intrigued by the era or relatively new to jazz/British jazz.
His appendix list of 100 great Brit jazz albums 1960-75 is fascinating. I have, at present, around 25 of them (plus others from the era not on his list). That shows you what may be my weakness in this area. On the other hand, I know how to write books on musical history, I know the importance of accessing primary sources and I like a learning curve. I knew only the bare skeleton of the history of uilleann piping before my book on that subject last year.
But, look, the more books on the subject the better – we can all just make contributions. No one, I believe, can write a definitive work.
There are currently 3 different 3-album CD sets available in a certain rainforest at reasonable prices.
I knew of their 1967 first LP on Deram, Deep Dark Blue Centre, now valued at around £100, because it filtered through into the prog arena, but they had several other albums on Fontana, Philips and smaller labels, all of which passed me by.
I bought a terrific vinyl reissue, with new notes by Graham (it was released a few years back), of Deep Dark Blue Centre, plus one of the 3-on-1 BGO CD sets Jazzjet mentioned (containing Down Another Road, Songs For My father, and Mosaics) – sadly, the other 3-on-1 BGO set is now deleted and absurdly priced second-hand. Strange.
Here is the GC Sextet at the Antibes Festival in 1969. I love John Marshall’s ska-like groove at the start. I understand he played on Millie’s recording of ‘My Boy Lollipop’ – as Jazzjet says, a man who was everywhere! (sets up Johnny C to give more examples…)
I don’t know about My Boy Lollipop (I thought that was Mike Wells, who drummed with Screaming Lord Sutch and Johnny Kidd and the Pirates) but John Marshall’s CV is mightily impressive. It includes the early Jack Bruce albums and virtually every UK jazz prog record you can think of.
I knew you’d mention JB… 🙂
JM told me himself about ‘Lollipop’. Jon Hiseman (from his own biography) drummed on the demo of it. Who knew?
Can’t say fairer than that.
At least we know it WASN’T Rod Stewart on harmonica. That much we do know.
Again from Hiseman’s book (I think), JM replaced Jon on a couple of ‘Songs For A Tailor’ tracks because Jon’s playing wasn’t quite right for them, in Jack’s view. Jon, conversely, depped for JM at a few early Nucleus shows.
Dead good that is Colin, thanks. Speaking of Hiseman reminds me of Barbara Thompson – I saw her in a pub in London in the early 80s when she had a bit of a profile. It was the sort of venue where the artists finish playing and go to the bar, so I complemented JH on his great playing. “Thanks mate” he said.
Great clip, Twang – I’m not familiar with the show (maybe an LWT thing than never made it to NI?) but but it looks like something from the early 80s that looks like it should be from the mid 70s, if you know what I’m getting at – beige sets, beige clothes, stilted production values… Still, at least there WAS a jazz programme in those days.
I think you might enjoy Jon’s authorised bio, Twangmeister – it’s not great literature but it’s very readable. He seems to be very critical of his own playing, though.
As fascinating and original as I find Colosseum, any Colosseum II that I’ve investigated sounds ghastly. The Hiseman band that came in between was the (AFAIA) little-remembered Tempest. I’ve just noticed this Italian film of their encore number, fronted by Oliver Halsall (at one point Allan Holdsworth was guitarist, then a period with both Allan an Ol).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4MS7kqec5qQ
I just bought a biog of Tubby Hayes direct from the author, Simon Spillet, who played at my local music club which has, very admirably, started a monthly jazz night. The first two have been brilliant, and the local hipsters have all turned up sporting little round classes, berets, co-respondent shoes and the whole rig.
https://www.equinoxpub.com/home/long-shadow-little-giant-life-work-legacy-tubby-hayes-simon-spillett/
I’ve bought it too – though not yet had time to read it.
Me neither. ? Summer hols….
Here’s the author, Mr. Spillet, who is a seriously good player…
This clip came up immediately after the one above, and seems right for sharing here – the Pat Smythe Trio plus Allan Holdsworth, France 1974. I’ve previously only been aware of Pat Smythe as a man who ran Dudley Moore Trio-type act in early 60s London. seems like he moved with the times. John Marshall on drums, Daryl Runswick on bass (with interesting bowed solo):
I only know Graham Collier as the head of the Jazz course at the Royal Academy of Music, a course a number of my friends were on in the 1990s. I spent many great evenings watching the shows they put on as part of their degree, and drinking in their student bar. He was a fairly avuncular figure who they all admired, and he was good enough to chat with a civilian like me IIRC.
Funny, I’m sure this might be seen as a hopelessly romantic view, but there’s something about the pre ‘jazz education’ era that appeals to me (ditto the ‘pre rock school’ era). My heart sinks at the idea of people getting grants, ‘learning’ jazz (or rock or whatever) and then applying for Arts Council funding to make a CD or put on a concert, inevitably ‘exploring’ some supposedly ‘new’ thing.
Graham Collier was a big believer in jazz education – the first British jazzer to study at Berklee (alongside Rhodesian/later Brit based jazz genius Mike Gibbs), the first British jazzer to get an Arts Council grant (in 1968, from memory, maybe ’67). He used the grant to compose a piece called ‘Workpoints’. I’ve not heard it but, again, the heart sinks – it sounds like ‘work’, not fun. Why would you write a piece called that, who are you trying to appeal to?
I may be throwing babies out with bathwater – and no disrespect to any of your pals Tryp – but, just personally, I’d find it hard to muster much enthusiasm for wanting to hear music made by someone whose main grounding in music was through a degree course rather than by instinctual learning, as was the case in days of yore… But I may be wrong-headed there. I suppose any musician has to play the hand they’re dealt in any era, and in the present era if people are splashing out grants for jazz courses and events etc, well…
Hmmm, possibly, but tell that to the yanks: wall to wall alumni of, usually, Berkeley.
Just checking there’s no confusion, Retro – I’m talking Berklee, the music place in Boston, not Berkeley in California or thereabouts…
I’ll pretend a spell check error, but I suspect I have always thought them one and the same, my “fact” based on reading Richard Cook’s Jazz Encyclopedia (as a book!?) some years ago, and most US jazzers under 60 seem to have gone to college there. Bit like UK rockers of a certain age and art school.
Most jazzers, with exceptions obviously, seem to be renegades from classical music training, taught to read music as they gained their chops. Rock and pop people are usually, with about the same proportion of exceptions, self-taught and either don’t read or have learned to read music later in their careers.
Jazz is probably the least lucrative branch of music to make a living at, so a quite large proportion of them earn their crusts teaching.
There were LOADS more jazzers self-taught in the pre-70s era. Amazingly, Mike Westbrook – known for his prog-jazz big band writing/recording in the late 60s – was self-taught and I’m reading lots of mentions of similar stories from the likes of Ronnie Scott and sax man Peter King (currently reading his autobiog) at the moment.
To my mind, tough as it surely was at the time, there’s something exciting and noble about the 40s-60s British jazzers nearly all learning their thing by ear/on the job, usually inspired by records. And, of course, American jazz visitors were very rare in Britain thanks to what was effectively an MU ban, prior to Ronnie Scott’s club negotiating a kind of special arrangement from 1961 onwards. Brit players were awe of Americans largely because they so rarely saw them, saw ‘how they did it’, aside from all the mythology/romanticism about America culturally.
I was just re-reading Ian Carr’s wonderfully written 1973 book ‘Music Outside’ and he states that it was only when, with Nucleus, he visited America for the first time in summer 1970 (playing Newport fest and the Village Gate) that he felt himself free of the canard that Americans were ‘superior’ to British musicians.