JJ 09/66: Prince Lasha – Insight

‘From the beginning, everybody played extremely beautiful – right up to the top standard’ – so says Prince Lasha in the liner note of this record. Strange to say, everybody cannot by any stretch of the imagination be said to include the Prince himself. If this is the best he can do (surely it cannot be?) he would be laughed off the stand of any self-respecting British jazz club. For what little there is of his solo work here is unbelievably bad. On Nuttin’ Out Jones he is incapable of sustaining any kind of idea, and his phrases are short and totally devoid of any relationship to one another. On Just Friends he struggles through making constant references to the original melody, clutching straws in the wind. On Out Of Nowhere he does not solo at all, and on Body And Soul his playing is con­fined to a brief theme statement at the beginning and end.

Fortunately, all is not lost because his British ‘accompanists’ play extremely well. John Mumford is excellent, as is Chris Bateson, who takes a gem of a solo on Just Friends. This last is a very good track, as it also contains an exciting and well-developed solo by pianist Mike Carr, a fluent and swinging pianist who, on this showing, deserves an album of his own. Although two bassists are present on every track, it is only on Just Friends that they are separately audible (at least in the mono version – perhaps the stereo is better in this respect). David Snell is quite heavily featured on harp, but I am still uncon­vinced that this is a suitable instrument on which to play jazz solos.

Why Prince Lasha elected to play so many standards I do not know. He would do much better sticking to avant-garde music. In his case, the latter is indeed the refuge of the untalented.

*Hear Prince Lasha’s Insight.

Discography
(a) Nuttin’ Out Jones; (a) Out Of Nowhere; (b) Body And Soul (20 min) – (b) Impressions Of Eric Dolphy; (c) Everything Happens To Me; (c) Just Friends (21½ min)
(a) Chris Bateson (tpt); John Mumford (tbn); Prince Lasha (alt/f); David Snell (hp); Stan Tracey (p); Rick Laird, Dave Willis (bs); Joe Oliver (d). England, 1966.
(b) as (a) except Jeff Clyne (bs) replaces Laird; Tracey omitted.
(c) as (a) except Mike Carr (p); Bruce Cale (bs) replace Tracey and Laird.
(CBS BPG 62409 32s. 2d.)