In his long and absorbing liner note Simon Spillett laments the fact that he was too young to have ever heard this group live. Since it was one of the mainstays Ernie Garside’s fabulous modern jazz club (we didn’t think of it then as hard bop) in Manchester I was able to hear the band live several times a year. As far as I can recall, I never missed a performance and I am delighted to be able to add this superb CD to my collection of programmes by the group. It’s incredible to think that the music, sounding as fresh as it ever did, is 57 years old. The recorded quality is acceptable.
The JIB (Jazz In Britain) label has done well by Rendell-Carr with their previous Blue Beginnings (JIB-20-M), a brilliant showcase recorded a year earlier when Colin Purbrook was the pianist. But Michael Garrick, pianist on the current issues of the time, was a giant amongst British musicians and he crucially out-classed Purbrook.
Garrick was the root of this wonderfully satisfying quintet, and the group also had the benefit of distracting Michael from the only blemish in his career, his fondness for the dreadful poetry-and-jazz idiom. His role on the new album is perfection, and he is the band’s Duke Ellington (My Funny Valentine and When I Fall In Love are piano trios).
But that’s not to detract from the others here. Don Rendell, whom I interviewed a few times for this magazine, had the greatest reputation in the band and it was only his reticence and modesty that prevented him being recognised as, with Tubby, the finest of our tenor players. Don was the Hank Jones of the tenor, a graceful and intelligent improviser who, despite a wonderful ability on the horn, never used it to show off. Don’s Jazz Six of 1957 had been a marvellous but unheralded group (Wheeler, Ronnie Ross, Courtley and Moule on Nixa).
Ian Carr was a remarkable musician, again a great jazz improviser, but also a much decorated and technically gifted trumpeter, with a most attractive sound on flugel. He was also an eloquent broadcaster, and many youngsters must have learned from him in his radio role.
Dave Green, then in his early 20s, the sole survivor today, was already the bass player of choice and is now consolidated as our most versatile player of the instrument. As Spillett points out, some of Tomkins’ best recorded work is here. I am always suspicious when a reviewer says “Buy it.”
But buy it.
Discography
CD1: Blues By Five; Jonah And The Whale; The Sixth Seal; Shades Of Blue; Hot Rod; No Blues (65.55)
CD2: Garrison ’64; Promises; Ursula; Autumn Leaves; When I Fall In Love; My Funny Valentine (63.56)
Carr (t, flh); Rendell (ts, ss, f); Michael Garrick (p); Dave Green (b); Trevor Tomkins (d). Highwayman, Camberley, 10 November 1965.
Jazz In Britain JIB-44-M-CD
