This one week festival was presented by the London Borough of Camden in association with the indefatigable Jazz Centre Society. Due to personal circumstances, I was only able to attend on two nights but unbiased reports were that it was an unqualified success with the big bands of Mike Westbrook and Chris McGregor carrying off the honours.
On Monday Bobby Hackett was featured in what was his first purely jazz performance in this country. (He came over once to back singer Tony Bennett.) He was backed appropriately by Commodore, a sextet led very tastefully by Dick Sudhalter. Their rhythm section, with pianist Keith Ingham, bassist Peter Ind and drummer John Cox, was lively if not always organised and Sudhalter, clarinettist Paul Nossitter and trombonist Keith Nichols, were stylistically ideal for the visiting firemen. Hackett has never been a major player but he has a most beautiful tone and a turn of phrase that is always arresting. Although uncharacteristic technical lapses were apparent on the night, his improvisational talent had not diminished and this, coupled with his excellent choice of material ensured an evening to remember. Danny Moss guested with customary skill on tenor, although singer Susannah McCorkle never quite overcame her nerves, singing less well than is normal for her. Nossitter weighed in with a vocal that was out of place in any concert concerned with jazz (or even music) but leader Sudhalter played so delightfully in rapport with his main guest that any shortcomings were forgotten. Their trumpet ‘duets’ were especially effective but, as the publicity handout had predicted, it was bound to be ‘Bobbv’s evening’.
To couple the Fairweather/Brown All Stars with Brotherhood of Breath may appear a programming error. In fact, it was hugely successful and Sandy Brown reminded us how much better than his rivals he had been in the ‘Trad’ boom vears – not that his band ever really came into that category. Time has not dimmed his talent or that of his sidemen. Pianist Stan Grieg played a short boogie section and the present incumbent of the stool, Brian Lemon, produced his shapely Wilsonism for the remainder of the set. Trombonist Tony Milliner’s diffused phraseologv still makes him an intriguing player, while trumpeter Al Fairweather played with a fire and authoritv that almost tempts me to say better than ever’. Finally, there was the leader’s broken-down and slightly fractured clarinet, so full of jazz spirit as to make him a master in any company.
It is this same spirit that makes the often highly disorganised Brotherhood of Breath such a power in big-band music throughout the world. The band has very fine soloists in trumpeter Harry Beckett, saxophonists Mike Osborne and Evan Parker, trombonists Radu Malfatti and Nick Evans and in Dudu Pukwana, Mongezi Feza and the leader it has three major league players. But the Brotherhood’s great strength is its collective placing and at the Roundhouse, where all the concerts of the Camden Festival took place, it paraded its power as well as its versatility. It contrasted unison section work with free expression from the remainder of the band, played tight behind one or more soloists, freaked out in totally collective all-ins and generally made full use of the leader’s simple but memorable riff tunes. The rhythm team of Harry Miller and Louis Moholo sounded like a four-piece unit and they drove the band superbly. In his band parts McGregor was partialiy inaudible from where I sat although he did compensate for this with probably the best solo of the evening.
All shades of jazz opinion were catered for throughout the week. Neil Ardley offered Biformal From Bali, assisted by Barbara Thompson; Stan Tracey was reunited with Bobby Wellins, then placed in the brilliant group, Tentacles. S.O.S., a group that teamed John Surman, Mike Osborne and Alan Skidmore, shared an evening with Nucleus. An excellent week closed with a Piano Conclave featuring men of the calibre of Martial Solal, Gordon Beck, Joachim Kuhn, Wolfgang Dauner and George Gruntz.
