Simon Spillett

I've always been a sucker for jazz soloist with strings albums. Among my favourites in this much maligned sub-genre, Waiting Game by Zoot Sims, never seems to get a mention alongside the better known efforts by Getz, Clifford Brown and Cannonball Adderley, an oversight which, to my prejudiced ears (I've still to find a record by Zoot that I don't like) is a crying shame.

The album is, I think, one of Zoot's best, aided immeasurably by the arrangements of Gary McFarland. Recorded in 1966 for Impulse Records, the orange and black-spine imprint more associated with the searching sounds of John Coltrane, Pharoah Sanders and Archie Shepp, the recording is actually one part of a tale of three albums, which, since I've started, I may as well finish.

In the autumn of 1966 Gary McFarland was in London writing and conducting the score for the MGM film The Eye Of The Devil, a gothic horror romp with a big budget cast of David Niven, Deborah Kerr, Donald Pleasance, David Hemmings and the tragically beautiful Sharon Tate. The film flopped terribly upon release in 1967 and the scheduled soundtrack LP, intended to be issued on Verve, the label to which McFarland was signed, was advertised and then unceremoniously pulled.

McFarland was one of the best arrangers of his generation and his score for The Eye Of The Devil is both independently engrossing and at one with the on-screen action. Thankfully the resulting soundtrack has latterly been issued in full by the enterprising Film Score Silver Age Classics label (FSM Vol. 11 No. 1) and may still be available on Amazon or eBay. It's well worth a listen.

The list of musicians McFarland had enlisted to work on his score included the cream of the London session world at the time: Tubby Hayes, guitarist George Kish, harpist David Snell, bassist Lennie Bush and, as conductor, no less a figure than Jack Parnell.

Verve Records was keen to capitolise on the studio time afforded in London and, whilst there, using much the same personnel, McFarland recorded the album Soft Samba Strings (Verve V/V6-8682), a follow up to his hugely successful Soft Samba album.

Although on one level Soft Samba Strings is impacted kitsch (the soft pedalled, one handed piano lead is about as artless as Astrud Gilberto's singing - and equally as sexy), on another it is purely beautiful music. The range of themes, largely take from 1940s popular song adaptations of classical compositions by Ravel, Rachmaninoff, Tchaikovsky and Debussy, are uniformly charming and The Lamp Is Low (Ravel's Pavanne), on which there's a covert Tubby Hayes flute solo, ranks as one of the prettiest pieces of music I've ever heard.

Again, the Japanese thought it prudent to issue Soft Samba Strings as a limited edition cardboard sleeved CD in the early noughties, so go get bidding on eBay if you want one.

The final part of this album triptych brings me back to where I came in, Zoot Sims Waiting Game (Impulse A 9131), taped across two November days at CTS Studios, Wembley.

At the time of the recording Sims was visiting London as part of one of the Jazz At The Philharmonic tours, wherein he worked with both Teddy Wilson and T-Bone Walker, but whilst these live sessions (some have appeared on CD) noisily support the tenorists ever consistent reputation as Mr. Swing, Waiting Game remains a quiet classic.

Cursed with being somewhat in the shadow of Stan Getz, Zoot's ballad playing has never received the credit its due, and, whilst he possessed none of the profundity of a Getz or Ben Webster, Zoot nevertheless combined lyricism with a no-frills delivery to winning effect. Over the ten tracks of Waiting Game, with its programme of bossas and ballads, there is ample time to digest his methods, and the resulting album contains two performances which I consider to be definitive: Over The Rainbow, transformed by an incredible arrangement and McFarland's own heart-breakingly beautiful Does The Sun Really Shine On The Moon?

Japanese Universal-Victor issued the album on CD in 1998 and, like those discussed above, it may still be available out there on the net.

Tubby Hayes never brought his big band any further north than Manchester (the old Club 43) so when I was asked to guest with the Swingshift Big Band at Southport Melodic Jazz Club in 2006, I wasted no time in suggesting that I bring along my pad of arrangements from Tubby's band.

It was my first time conducting and fronting a big band (one press review compared my enthusiastic direction to Mr. Bean, arguably the most accurate critical comparison ever directed at me) but such was the success of the gig that promoter Geoff Matthews, Swingshift's musical director Phil Shotton and I have twice convened to repeat the exercise, once more at SMJC and also a sweltering night at the now defunct Rhythm Station in August 2008.

On Sunday January 17th, the band and I are returning to Southport's Royal Clifton Hotel for an afternoon concert of Tubby's music. In addition to the coup of hearing some of the best remembered charts from the Hayes band (Pedro's Walk, Parisian Thorofare, Night In Tunisia and Dear Johnny B.), there's a further coup in that the repertoire will include recently discovered charts which were never recorded by Tubby, including several numbers written for the Downbeat Big Band, formed by Jimmy Deuchar and Jack Sharpe in 1956,and something of a prototype of Hayes later larger units.

There is also an another added starter in the very attractive shape of vocalist Debbie Wilson, who will be on hand to perform an arrangement written by Tubby for his one-time girlfriend Joy Marshall.

Further details can be found at www.jazzinsouthport.co.uk and www.swingshiftbigband.co.uk/

London audiences can hear Tubby's Big Band revived at Ronnie Scott's on Wednesday February 3rd, when The Ronnie Scott's Jazz Orchestra under the direction of Pete Long combine to play an evening exclusively devoted to the Hayes legacy and, albeit a few days overdue, marking what would have been Tubby's 75th birthday.

See www.ronniescotts.co.uk for more details of times and ticket prices.

Finally, a series of new Hayes albums will be released this year, including newly discovered studio sessions for Blue Note(!) and a blistering live set by the Mexican Green-era quartet.

As the year draws to a close there's probably no better time to look back upon the state of the jazz scene in the UK in 2009 and to look ahead to what may lay in store as we enter the new decade.

Over the past twelve months I've seen, heard about and/or visited several jazz venues who have either reduced their presentations to once a fortnight (where they were once week), once a month (where they were once a fortnight), once every two months (where they were once a month) and so on. Those are the clubs that have survived. Others have simply faded from sight, an especially sad case of affairs where such long-standing ventures such as Herts Jazz (who closed after forty years) are concerned.

This week I visited a club which its promoter revealed was now possibly going to run annually, about as drastic a reduction as you can get ahead of shutting the thing altogether.

Consequently, as clubs reduce their presentations, work, already scarce, becomes rarer still, a situation which I've noticed with practical impact over 2009. My quartet has worked less than ever before and a great majority of my gigs have been as a guest soloist, another cost-cutting survival mechanism employed by cash-strapped jazz venues. The length and breadth of Britain, several of the clubs I'd hitherto visited annually I haven't visited at all. Some of this is my own fault, I admit, as I've been excluded from a number of venues in 2009 for reasons varying from my music being too aggressive to my having the temerity to point out on one gig that a certain musician wasn't able to play the music required of him. To this the promoters told me that - and I paraphrase - they didn't need my sort.  I wish I could say the same, but alas, I can't. Losing a single gig is losing one gig too many.

Amid all the clamour about a lack of a young audience for mainstream/modern jazz (from Southport to Southampton I've been asked if it's any different in the North/South/East/West), I think one very vital factor has been overlooked. Forget the audience, and even forget the musicians (we certainly have no deficit of young jazz players), what we need are younger promoters. In its valedictory press statement, Herts Jazz admitted that its committee was largely comprised of enthusiastic pensioners, who despite the best will in the world, had to balance a love of presenting live jazz with failing health and a jaded energy.

Elsewhere I have written about and discussed  (with such regularity that I'm afraid I have become a droning bore) the parlous state of  certain corners of British jazz. Whilst some musicians are garnering avid praise and setting down radically new music, often by fusing it with other genres and seeking to broaden the scope of what we call jazz, there remains a shameful neglect of important figures who, whilst they may not be new kids on the block, should be accorded more than mere lip service.

It's all very well dubbing Stan Tracey the Godfather of British Jazz, or hailing Peter King as the worlds greatest alto saxophonist (which I can't find reason to dispute), or citing Don Weller's authentic originality, or Bobby Wellins inimitable creativity and so on, but why, oh why aren't these performers working with a regularity that befits their status.

If anyone dares argue that these venerable figues have had their day, I'd counter that whilst they may well have emerged from a period in British jazz history in which there was a more healthy work load, they still have a very central place in the grass-roots of the current UK jazz scene. I'd hate to think that - horror of horrors - jazz should succumb to the same sort of ageist prejudice that is so prevalent in other areas of our daily lives.

Finally, I'd like to wish everyone who has supported my music this year a very healthy and happy 2010. I hope to see you at a gig soon.

I've always been slightly wary of those blogs which do nothing but act as a thinly disguised advert for their authors wares. You know that sort of thing: "I'd love to wish all our readers a wonderful new year and remind them that my new album The Ingratiating Sound of Mr. Obsequious is available from all good shopping malls" . I'd far rather talk about the really important things in my life; service station food, the misuse of the English language and albums which no-one has ever heard of, but for once I'm going to offer something which, whilst it might superficially resemble a plug, is actually more of an explanation.

On second thoughts, it's more of a progress report. It's no secret among those interested in such things that I'm writing a biography of Tubby Hayes, to be titled The Long Shadow Of The Little Giant. However, what does remain something of a mystery is how far I've got with it, or, as one especially loquacious gentleman said to me on a gig the other week, "will the bleedin' thing ever get published?"

Hitherto I've been a bit shy about my efforts, as if discussing things at length would forestall the results, but now, perhaps with confidence renewed by having recently passed the 300,000 word mark, I can safely say I'm in the home straits.

I started researching Tubby's life more as a hobby than a vocation, but as my own musical career took shape, it was rapidly apparent that what I was actually doing was piecing together the framework of a biography. Since labelling that first A4 document wallet back in 2004, I've accumulated an avalanche of material: letters, tapes, scrapbooks, e-mails, photographs, newspaper clippings, saxophone mouthpieces, posters, manuscripts. And, through a fortuitous and almost unreal sequence of events, I've also met and interviewed (and in some instances become good friends with) many people who knew Tubby well including one wife, one girlfriend, one of his children, many of his friends and even more of his colleagues, some of whom (with the same surreal sense that I alluded to in my tribute to Jeff Clyne) I'm proud to say have become my colleagues too.

There have been countless hours of interviews, longer still spent in painstakingly overturning the dusty pages of Melody Maker, Crescendo and Jazz News, and, above all, days and days of listening to Tubby. There have been times when my living room floor resembled armageddon at The National Jazz Archives and it's all got too much, but six years after starting the project I am as convinced of it being one of the most worthwhile things I've undertaken as I was nervous at phoning my first interview "victim", the wonderful Allan Ganley (and I couldn't have started with a nicer bloke).

Now, the book is close to completion, with a few remaining chapters to be written, and it has become a very different beast to that which I once naively envisaged. I was considering penning a brief study and have ended up writing a tome. The problem is that not only have I researched my subject in such detail that I've seen everything from his school photographs to his death certificate, but that Tubby's was a life all too often wrongly and badly documented. Unravelling fact from folklore, truth from rumour and a lifetime from a legend is something I've enjoyed greatly and when I enjoy something I have a peasant-like attitude to abstinence: writing a lot about Tubby only makes me want to write more.

Hopefully, when the book is published, readers will recognise this enthusiasm as genuine, but even more, I'd like to think that Tubby's music will be the ultimate beneficiary.

Having received so much unsolicited help with the book through the ever so immediate medium of the Internet it's particular fitting that in turn I might reverse the equation. The publisher to whom I'd intended my manuscript to go eventually turned me down and so, like a theme in search of a movie, I have a story in search of a publishing outlet. I'm reliably informed by my website statistics (surely no-one can spend all day Googling themselves, can they?) that my blog has some sort of readership. If there's anyone out there who either owns, knows someone who owns, works for, once had a relationship with a guy who did deliveries for, or can put me in touch with, a suitable publisher, please do get in touch. I think I may have the makings of a good book here.

Am I alone in being sick to the eye teeth of the current colloquial misuse of the word random?

Maybe it's my age? I'd prefer to think it's my horrified concern at a younger generations quick and painful transformation of the English language into a bastardised mutation based on whatever American TV shows that are foisted upon them.

My dictionary defines random as "haphazard: without aim or purpose. a. made, done, etc. at random".

It's a noun. Therefore sentences like "It was so random" (God, how many times have I overheard that recently?) and so on are as technically incorrect as they are grating.

I had the same sensation when, as a teenager in the late 1980s, the word wicked started to be applied to anything seen as good, cool, impressive or fashionable. It didn't stop me using it though, although in mitigation I might add that at the time I had then only just shed my one and only mullet and still wore white socks with my black leather school shoes. So from one former philistine to any (random) number of potential others, please, let's call time on this one.

It was with great sadness that the British jazz community learned of the sudden and totally unexpected death of bassist Jeff Clyne earlier this week, aged 72.

Other online obituaries have already outlined Jeff's enormous contribution to jazz in this country, but suffice to say that in a career stretching back over half a century his impressive CV  included stints with The Jazz Couriers, an appearance on the seminal Stan Tracey recording of Under Milk Wood, avant-garde adventures with John Stevens Spontaneous Music Ensemble and opening up the roads of fusion and jazz-rock with Nucleus and Turning Point. Latterly Clyne had devoted much of his time to education, imparting fifty years of jazz wisdom to a new generation of young performers.

On a personal note, I got to know Jeff about five years ago and since that initial meeting we've occupied the same stage together several times, as well as sharing some wonderful social times. Indeed, Jeff was above all, a beautiful human being, kind, warm, enthusiastic and with that rare quality of total humility coupled with a formidable musical gift. If I write that, alongside his artistic gifts, Jeff was at heart an "ordinary bloke" it isn't at all meant to imply any sort of mundanity. Rather, he was a supreme example of a world-class musician who never lost sight that it is people and not isolated egos that make music. Indeed, Jeff would sometimes call me for no other reason that to hear how I was doing, something I never really got my head around. Hang on, this was Jeff Clyne, he of Milk Wood, The Couriers and all that, the guy who played on one of my favourite albums, The Couriers of Jazz.

Jeff and I played together at several venues through the last few years, the odd private function (I once played a seventieth birthday party with Jeff, Allan Ganley and Brian Dee and I still marvel at the tales these three legendary figures exchanged in between the background chatter), the 606 club, Ealing Festival and, most often, the Coach and Horses in Isleworth, a gig run by his close friend, drummer Trevor Tomkins which Jeff appeared at with almost residency-style frequency and which, with supreme irony, he had taken on after the original bassist Phil Bates had become too ill to perform. Close to forty-eight years earlier, Clyne had also taken over from Bates in the Jazz Couriers.

I heard the news of Jeff's passing just as I was editing a chapter of my biography of Tubby Hayes in which I drew heavily upon an interview I'd conducted with him in 2007, detailing his time in Tubby's quartet during 1959 to 1961. He made a great interviewee, commenting time and again on his apparent "luck" at finding favour with Tubby. What Tubby heard, as indeed did all of Jeff's musical colleagues, was an accuracy and sense of time rare among British bassists of the era. In fact one of the last times I spoke to Jeff it was concerning the discovery of a recording of Tubby's quartet from 1959, which I was able to send to him, and which he was delighted to hear for the first time after fifty years.

But Jeff never became a misty-eyed nostalgic. "I've always wanted to be up with what's happening" he once told me and he was just as enthusiastic about the latest young players and the diversity of today's jazz scene as he was when recalling how he'd once moved effortlessly from Blossom Dearie's trio to the Spontaneous Music Ensemble in the space of a single evening.

There's tons of Jeff on record and I'm not going to close with a potted discography but rather with a nod to a few of my favourite performances of his: Blossom Time at Ronnie's with Blossom Dearie, Experiments with Pops by Gordon Beck's trio, Split The Difference by Splinters and, of course, Tubby's Groove by Tubby Hayes.

Jeff Clyne (29th January 1937 - 16th November 2009)

Driving between gigs last week I revisited an album which I was very kindly sent by my good friend, the Canadian jazz enthusiast Tom Davis.

Over the past five years Tom and I have been collaborating on the forthcoming Tubby Hayes discography, which once upon a time was intended as a appendix to my biography of Tubby, but which will now be published as a separate volume.

Hayes fans will already know of the slim but valuable discography compiled by Barbara Schwartz, published in 1990, which was the basis of Tom's initial research.  Our combined efforts (and Schwartz was gracious in sending me all her files on Tubby) have led to a manuscript of fairly hefty proportions, as we soon discovered that Tubby appeared on a veritable heap of recordings that fall outside the original remit of documenting solely his work in the jazz field. Nevertheless we've ploughed on and, once in a while, this trawl for information has led to some surprising discoveries (Tubbs is on Charlie Drake's My Boomerang Won't Come Back! Not many people know that) . One lead we followed fruitlessly for a few years was that Tubby had recorded a rock 'n ' roll album with Tony Crombie, the former Club XI drummer who, with his band The Rockets, was among the pioneers of rock music in  the UK.

Eventually it was discovered that Tubbs did indeed play on a few of the Rockets singles, sometimes together with Ronnie Scott - sort of a Jazz Couriers Go Pop scenario - but there was then the question of a mysterious album recorded for Jeff Kruger's Ember label around 1959/60 by The Little John Anthony Band, Teenage Dance Party. (Ember EMB 3302).

Crombie was closely associated with Kruger (it was the Flamingo boss who suggested a sudden cash-in on Rock 'n Roll in 1956) and as Anthony John  was the drummers real name, the connection seemed plausible. Tubby was rumoured to have been on the recording, something that Kruger himself remembered, but finding the album was nigh on impossible. Finally in the spring of this year, a copy turned up on eBay, and we were able ascertain exactly who the tenor saxophonist was. As suspected, it was indeed Tubby Hayes.

Recorded during a purple patch for Tubbs (the nearest recording date under his own name being the marvellous Tubby's Groove) the Teenage Dance Party album isn't nearly so bad as it may initially seem. Titles like Teen Beat Special,  Let's Jive Honey and Boppin' and Hoppin'  might fill a prospective listener with dread, but the best way to describe the music, indeed Hayes playing on the album, is sort of modern jazz meets rhythm and blues.

Tubby does the odd bit of growling and squealing but there's nothing vulgar about his playing, indeed there are plenty of vintage Hayesian licks to make him instantly recognisable as a spectacular jazz saxophonist. The arrangements (for a quintet with guitar, piano, bass and drums) are actually neat little jump band charts, all expertly played, even though Crombie and Hayes apart the personnel is unknown (Kruger's records were always a discographers nightmare).

So, if you're eBaying at any time and you're looking for a bit of rare Tubby, you could do worse than try and find this record. It's by no means a world beater, but it still contains enough great playing from Tubby to make it worth your while.

I had the very great pleasure of playing at Ronnie Scott's for two nights last week, as part of the 50th anniversary celebrations, taking my place in the Ronnie Scott's Big Band to accompany the list of special guest artists who descended on the club to help mark the half-centenial.

Among the guests were veteran jazz vocalist Jon Hendricks, Simply Red megastar Mick Hucknall, Texas front-woman Sharleen Spiteri,  trumpeter Guy Barker, singers Lianne Carroll and Ian Shaw, former Pop Idol winner Will Young, venerable tap dancing star Will Gaines and Monica Mancini, daughter of Hollywood song-writer Henry.

The evening (for which an entire day was devoted to rehearsals with the various guests) ws full of memorable moments, chief amongst which for me was the incredible performance by Jon Hendricks, a mere 88 years old, but gifted with the energy and enthusiasm of a man sixty years his junior. From his very arrival at the soundcheck he was a joy to be around, introducing himself to each and every member of the band with a handshake and a smile, and keen between numbers to tell us about his long and eventful career (particularly his first gig - with Art Tatum no less - and his close friendship with Thelonious Monk).

Hendricks hit the souncheck running, scatting chorus after chorus on Straight No Chaser, then taking the rhythm section through a hilarious Get Me To The Church On Time. Best of all was his ressurection of an all-but forgotten Frank Sinatra song September of My Years.

On the gig, Hendricks preceded this with a reminiscence about his younger years, when as one of the founding fathers of vocalese (inspiring everyone from Georgie Fame to todays rap artists) he eschewed singing ballads. "I was a hip young jazz singer who didn't sing that stuff"  he said with self-mocking deprecation, but remarked that at nearly ninety he was in a reflective mood.

With a voice ravaged by age, but with definitive feeling, the ensuing rendition of September of My Years traded in deep poigniancy to an almost unbearable degree and brought a tear to the eye and  the audience to its feet. A true survivor, Hendricks is a rare breed and the riotous finale (with two of his daughters) on Jumpin' At The Woodside proved this in winning style.

At eighty-four dancer Will Gaines did much the same thing, tapping like a man possessed to a hastily busked Seven Steps To Heaven. Monica Mancini sang a brace of classy songs (with husband and ace drummer Greg Field at the kit) including a samba-dressed Charade, whilst perennial pop-pleasers Will Young and Mick Hucknall combined genuine enthusiasm for the music at hand with more mainstream kudos.

There will inevitably be some high-brow tongue-clucking about the inclusion of names like Hucknall and Young. Indeed some might wonder whether Ronnie would now recognise the club that bears his name, but then Ronnie's was always a magnet for those who love jazz but whose careers as performers have taken them on far more commercial routes. Not for nothing did Jimmy Hendrix once jam there, and there have always been a share of pop stars in the crowd content to be hauled on stage, most recently Beyonce.

To those die-heard purists, it may be worth mentioning that Ronnie Scott's ongoing survival as - let's face it - a tourist friendly night club at the heart of one of the busiest cities in the world, must to a great degree be based on meeting ever steepening practical costs, something with which Ronnie and partner Pete King would doubtless have sympathised.

Ronnie's former partner Mary was there to recount some of her memories as were his daughter Rebecca and Pete King's son Chris. Their heartfelt words were in strong contrast to the few awkward moments foisted upon the audience (and the band) which occurred when some of the less-likely guests were on-stage. As for actor Adrian Dunbar's attempt to recreate Ronnie's legendary stand-up routine, the least said the better. Ronnie wasn't alone in realising that accuracy applied as much in between the music as during it. Paraphrasing Ronnie's jokes is like misquoting Shakespeare: the import is the same but somehow its the very choice of words which are inextricable from the humour.

After the party ended, another one started, in the shape of the Ronnie Scott's All-Stars final set. Nominally headed by the wonderful tenor saxophonist Alex Garnett, the numbers were bumped up from quartet size by the addition of, variously, trumpeter Freddie Gavita, tenor saxophonist Brandon Allen, Monica Mancini, Lianne Carroll, Ian Shaw, soul-jazz diva Natalie Williams and yours truly. As added starters, and smack in the old Ronnie's tradition of visiting American jazzmen, were trumpeter Jay Phelps and tenorist Jerry Weldon from Harry Connick's big band who were in town. It resulted in one of those magical after-hours sessions that as a would-be jazz musician you once dreamed of and as a real-life jazz musician you encounter only once in a very long-while. To that end, I'd imagine Ronnie would have been smiling. Happy Birthday Ronnie!

It was one of those weeks last week when I found myself away from home over several nights, fulfilling engagements across the country, seeing far too much of the inside of a soulless Premier Inn and by necessity forced to find something to do during the off-hours. This is a situation not unknown to freelance jazzers. As such I have spent a fair few hours in towns and cities the length and breadth of the UK, rolling in near to the close of business and left with little alternative but to wander about waiting to go about my work when everyone else around me is going home from theirs.

It quickly dawned on me that the "enjoyment" of this peculiar pass-time (and it is just that) greatly varies from location to location.  For example, over the past few weeks I've been variously bored, charmed and perplexed by the places in which I've ligged about before my gigs. When the logistics mean overnight stays are part of the deal, things become even more profound.

This week I spent a very enjoyable day in Norwich, which I'd never visited before, with the obligatory stops for lunch and coffee as well as the ready chance to spend more money than I was about to earn on the gig that night (I found a jazz CD shop with a sale on) , before moving onto Coventry. The former I liked enormously, with its blend of historic character and modernity (it's a great shopping centre and Debenhams are considerably the richer for my visit) but Coventry, with its 1960s concrete shopping malls seemed woefully dated, even with all the latest outlets squeezed in, like a writ-large anachronism.

Hour after hour of foot-fall in Britain's shopping centres (Dartford to Darlington, I've shoe-horned myself into many a multi-storey car park) has led me to a rather alarming conclusion. A few years ago the press started a Grumpy Old Man frenzy about how the UK was being overrun by American-style coffee houses (and yes, an Americano is basically a big ordinary coffee with a silly name) but my little road trips of recent weeks have led me to believe that in fact it's not Starbucks, Costa, Cafe Nero or any of the others who are slowly but steadily taking over the nations high streets but Waterstones the book shop. Did I really count three in Norwich?

For those nay-sayers who worry about the decrease in literacy, this can only be good news.

However, by far the greatest revelation occurred not in the town but out on the road. Bastion of roadside cuisine for several generation of travelling musicians, Little Chef recently underwent a culinary facelift under the watchful eye of a TV chef whose name (and hairstyle - that's generally how I recognise them) currently escapes me. Having not seen the programme I wasn't sure if this transformation was for real, or merely for a bit of fly-on-the-wall TV of the kind that keeps Hugh Fearnley-Whatshisface and the others busy between book signings and endorsements, but alighting at one familiar off-road stop in Essex I was surprised to see that the traditional menu was but a memory. Gone was the wall-to-wall stodge-up which has fueled many a jazzers journey through the arterial routes of this land (whilst ironically doing the opposite to his or her body), replaced by a far more balanced range of comestibles (afternoon tea with scones and jam!) and I suspect  the revamp may have even extended to the staff as I was greeted as "Sir" - something that I only usually encounter with the uncious people in my bank. 

My passion for British jazz of the 1950s and 1960s is well known and fortunately we now live in the era when much of this once rare and little known music is available at the touch of a mouse. When I first got interested in the subject during my late teens you had to beg, borrow - I stopped short of stealing - and try your damndest to hear the output of labels like Tempo, Nixa and Polygon.

Trawling through the record reviews in my father's old copies of Melody Maker from the early 1960s was a fairly torturous business back then. Where could I hear all this music? Among my first - very lucky - purchases was a 12" LP on the Ember label celebrating the tenth anniversary of the Flamingo Club. The Flamingo's boss Jeff Kruger had branched out into record production in the late 1950s, at the same time as embarking on a brief career producing movies on the tightest of budgets, and the Ember label was a useful off-shoot to document the artists who appeared at the club.

Through deals with labels like Decca and Tempo (effectively one and the same) bands such as the Tony Kinsey Quintet and The Jazz Couriers got releases out on Ember, whilst Kruger's ongoing patronage of drummer Tony Crombie resulted in albums as disparate in aims as The London Jazz Quartet and The Man From Interpol.

Kruger's back catalogue has never been well handled. Ember was resuscitated (under the distinctly less that promising banner of Fat Boy Jazz) in the late 1990s and issued a few very dodgy sounding re-releases by Tubby Hayes, the Couriers and Annie Ross, as well as a promising double CD, titled Jazz At The Flamingo (FBB 911), which contained all the music on that old 12" together with a some added starters. The remastering was shoddy, arbitarily shearing off a few bars here and there in order to placate the desire for bumper playing times. But, at least the music was out there.

A couple of years back, the Ember catalogue was marshalled by Acrobat Records and the few titles they released by Ronnie Ross, Carmen McRae, Tony Kinsey and The Jazz Couriers looked promising indeed: extensive new notes (albeit penned anonymously), some contemporary photos and, overall, a more respectable treatment of these period pieces (The Couriers CD was still pretty naff though, with more mastering screw-ups and Ronnie's priceless announcements hacked out). Then the Acrobat stopped performing and collectors were left wondering what would happen next.

Well, a new double CD has just been released by the Fantastic Voyage label, titled The Flamingo Collection (FVDD 025) documenting 36 tracks culled from the Ember archives, and my reason for including it here is simply that I think it's one of the best samplers of British jazz from this era thus far available.

Much of the music on the earlier Ember issues is included, ranging from the Kinsey quintet to the British Jazz Trio, but, as ever, the highlights are the saxophonists. Tubby and Ronnie are there, as are Tommy Whittle, the already distinctive Bobby Wellins, Art Ellefson, Harold McNair, Harry Klein, Don Rendell and Ronnie Ross.

There's also some uncharacteristically hard-toned Vic Ash tenor with Vic Lewis in 1959 and a glimpse of Benny Green, proving himself to be much more than the pedestrian player-writer that critics would allow. His solo on All-Star Special (partnered with Rendell and Jimmy Skidmore) is bebop to the letter.

There's lots more to discuss in this pocket-guide to British modern jazz (not least of which are the wonderful Eddie Thompson trio numbers - now he really was world-class) but to conclude this overview, let me add that no personnel or recording data is included so for new collectors there'll be an element of guess-work involved in identifying some soloists. However, the sleeve essay, by one Guy Yarwood (the name alone makes me suspect he's moonlighting) is well written, erudite prose and adds greatly to what I think is a bargain release. I suppose for those who you who go for the Gilles Peterson way of things, this is sort of a Pre-Impressed version of British jazz.