Simon Spillett

Saturday night television has long been allocated to the amateur. Years ago it would feature the sort of anodyne gameshow in which members of the public willingly made fools of themselves and amusing as programmes like The Generation Game were, all but relatives of those involved who possessed a VHS recorder were spared seeing them again. The contestants were by and large innocent and ordinary folk whose fifteen minutes of fame had stretched out to a whole half an hour and also featured a commercial break. Nobody took it too seriously and consequently the programmes remained harmless. No-one, save the presenters, had any sort of issues with ego mismanagement and even when the shows took on the guise of talent competitions, those taking part were genuinely pleased to be given a chance on the box.  If they didn't make it, their disconsolation was wholly private. Even the winners were mercifully humble and no-one ever punched the air, let alone one of the judges.

Then, piercing the skin of good taste came the X-Factor, Britain's Got Talent and the rest, first disarming the public and then diverting them into a worryingly quasi-religious allegiance. If the latter sounds unnecessarily heavy-handed please note that in a recent poll Simon Cowell emerged more famous than God, doubtless the position he'll take over in due course.

Acres of harsh print has been directed at Cowell, Cheryl Cole and all the others whose expertise facillitates careers for those offering the aural equivalent of toilet paper - functional and ultimately throw-away -  but having never followed X-Factor or Britain's Got Talent, and neither considering Jedward nor Susan Boyle to represent the Second Coming, my tangential brushes with their product have thankfully been rare.  I know who Cheryl Cole is simply because she stares out from every magazine cover in my local corner shop. I gather she also endorses beauty products. Indeed, I even saw her plastered in a bus shelter the other day - which ironically is probably exactly the situation she'd find herself in if she weren't famous.

But on Saturday night I mistakenly saw fifteen minutes of the X-Factor, and to my surprise was glued to the television in a curious combination of awe, blood-pumping anger and incredulity. An Irish teenager in a track suit was going through his well rehearsed motions, caterwauling into a microphone, brimming with chutzpah and doing his best to ingratiate himself with the panel of plastic automatons who comprise the judges.

Auto-tune would have exploded when applied to such awful pitching and the only way to contain the lad's ego would have been a lobotomy but, in an truly astonishing display of vocal depravity, young master O'Chav actually succeeded in winning the support of three out of the four judges. Only Simon Cowell spoke any sort of practical truth, advising the youngster that if one enters a singing competition it would be good form, if not merely good manners, to come equipped. When Cheryl Cole described the contestant as cute I could have vomitted. Unsurprisingly, news of his going through was greeted uproariously both by the crowd, a sort of spood-fed battery hen coop of screaming sycophants, and by his family, who duly rushed on stage and mobbed him.  If only the Broadcasting Complaints Commission were so pro-active.

Staggered by this spectacle, I then caught a re-run of the previous evenings episode of Ultimate Big Brother. Admittedly I found last years series oddly intoxicating and having never watched it before my interest took on a morbidly voyeuristic streak. However, since Channel 4 announced that the current series would be the last, I objected to watching the final drops of televisual juice being squeezed from an already bone dry concept. The final twist, that of adding an "ultimate" Big Brother line-up to close the proceedings, only adds to my rancour.

Indeed there is nothing whatsover to be gained from assembling a cast of has-beens, wanna-be's and should-know-better-but-my-career-is-flagging celebs, a fact highlighted by the small excerpt I inflicted on myself: an individual named Coolio strutted purposefully through "da" house leaving no-one in any doubt as to his alpha-male status, whilst a rubenesque figure called Nadia ceaslessly harangued him. Full to the brim with egotists, the house looked set to implode, or more accurately its housemates finish each other off, like Scorpions caught in a ring of fire.

Watching this, it dawned on me that the best way to end the series (and hopefully the whole idea behind it) would have been to not bother filming anything at all for the duration of the current housemates stay, duping them as they've duped us.

The reason I've rounded so harshly on X-Factor and Big Brother isn't to illustrate their shortcomings, plain for all to see,  but to contrast the quality of "entertainment" on offer to a TV viewer last Saturday. Redeeming all these sins was BBC-2's coverage of the John Wilson Orchestra and guest vocalists at the Proms, celebrating the music of Rodgers and Hammerstein. Real music, real musicians, real television, real entertainment, sat like an oasis of good taste amid a sea of rubbish.

The only real problem with such genuine talent is that it has no marketing spin-offs, no merchandise and no self-aggrandizement. You can't, to my knowledge, buy a BBC Proms X-Box game. You can however purchase an interactive version of X-Factor, which I may just go out and buy. If it's truly interactive I will have many happy hours telling Cowell, Cole and co. exactly where to go.

Barely had my words about the late Martin Drew and Chris Dagley been posted below then we were dealt yet another blow with the death of Jack Parnell, a figure whose musical eminence stretched far beyond the boundaries of jazz. You could well remember him as the director of the famed ATV orchestra or as an honorary "Muppet", or as Britain's first real drum star back in the late 1940s hey-day of the new Ted Heath Orchestra. I remember him as the always amusing and courtly gent who accompanied me on a couple of my solo gigs in Norfolk. After one gig he raised himself off the drums and rounded on me. "I think you need a younger man", he said with a twinkle in his eye. However the fascinating anecdote-laden chats we'd have before and after the gigs made me realise that Parnell's experience, both as a performer and a conductor, was irreplaceable. He was walking history (his sacking Tubby Hayes after the young sax star demanded an extra pound a week was one such story, told with genuine regret) and anyone seeking to flesh out the bones of his musical reputation could do well to check out the compilation of his early 1950s big band (Big Band Swing) that EMI-Gold put out a few years ago. It's going for a snip on Amazon, but on it you'll hear the priceless talent of the band at near its peak. Their take on Dizzy Gillespie's The Champ is a worthy epitaph.

Fortunately jazz history doesn't always die with those who make it and a new book by Bill Birch mines a rich and vibrant seam which might have otherwise gone undocumented, that of the Manchester modern jazz scene between the late 1940s and the early 1970s.

Long awaited and much anticipated, Keeper of The Flame is the ultimate labour of love. A professional photographer, Birch's enthusiasm for his subject is tangible on every one of its 328 pages. Not only has he assembled a fascinating anecdotal retrospective of the cities jazz life but he has unearthed a formidable collection of concert programmes, flyers and posters which make the reader marvel not only at the glut of talent that both passed through and stayed local to Manchester during the era but at the regularity with which the finest of jazz artists graced its concert and club stages.

Best of all however are the photographs, most of which are previously unpublished. Birch is a photographer of the William Claxton/Francis Wolff class and his images of visiting American stars and indigenous talents alike bring the period to life in startling clarity. Reproduced on the finest quality paper, the photos fairly glow with atmosphere and range from a stunning set of the Count Basie band on stage at the Free Trade Hall to more intimate images from clubs like the Oasis and Club 43, the cities jazz mecca. The rugged Zoot Sims is seen in characteristic flight, as is the cherubic young Tubby Hayes and Birch's candid images of the interactive jams between visiting Stateside players and their British counterparts make one wish that sight had sound. The non-performing pictures capture just as much, never more so than in Cleo Laine's smouldering gaze on one backstage shot, which lures out of the monochrome to bridge forty-odd years. Good too to see the inclusion of several local heroes, such as saxophonists Brian Smith and Gary Cox and pianist Joe Palin, all figures once central to the cities jazz activities. In summary the book is a highly impressive and expertly compiled anthology which jazz fans will find a mandatory purchase wherever they hail from.

Keeper of The Flame - Modern Jazz In Manchester 1946-72 is available direct from Bill Birch. To order a copy, please e-mail; birchiano@talktalk.net

Here's a photo which Bill might not have seen. Tubby Hayes at The Club 43 on September 14th 1952 (copyright: Simon Spillett)

It is with the heaviest of hearts that I write this entry. British jazz has received a titanic, tragic and utterly cruel double hammer blow with the deaths this week, barely 36 hours apart, of both Chris Dagley and Martin Drew.

Chris was killed on the A40 in the early hours of Wednesday morning, whilst riding his motorbike home from his regular gig at Ronnie Scott's, a lonely and isolated death for a performer whose music breathed the most potent of life. He was 38 and yet had already amassed a CV the breadth and diversity of which was a tribute to his all-round ability. Straight-ahead jazz, vocal accompaniment, funk, pop and big band all fell into his orbit and his lithe, alert and devastatingly accurate playing enlivened every setting in which it featured. We worked together only infrequently, always at Ronnie Scott's, where latterly he'd become the house drummer, yet another appointment that speaks clearly of his all-encompassing musicianship. The last time was on July 4th, when he was a hasty replacement for the Ronnie Scott's Jazz Orchestra's regular drummer. This was the one and only time in which I played with Chris in this context, but with his ride cymbal at my right ear and prodding snare accents underpinning the brass, I was immediately aware of how the terrific energy he generated could power a band of sixteen musicians just as readily as it powered the clubs resident All-Stars trio. Even when we weren't working together, if we bumped into each other at Ronnie's we'd exchange the perfunctory pleasantries expected of musicians and such was the case on the the last time I saw him in the backstage office. We got talking about his time with the All-Stars and he explained how lucky he felt to be at the club, concluding that the past three years had been "living the dream". Now the dream is over. He leaves a partner and three young children, to whom I extend my deepest condolences.

Over the past few years, either for this blog or for various jazz periodicals, I've written a good  share of obituaries, some for musicians I knew well, others for those I'd admired from afar, and yet none of those words were as hard to write as those I am writing now, because in marking the passing of Martin Drew, I'm not simply conveying facts and figures or outlining a career path but saying goodbye to someone who I considered not only as a colleague and an inspiration but as a true friend.

Martin suffered a heart attack on Monday night and passed away on Thursday afternoon, aged 66, and as I write I am still struggling to come to terms with the fact that he is gone, and in the hours since learning of his death, try as I might I have not been able to order my thoughts into anything near as cogent as I'd normally expect, so much so that what follows is more or less a stream of conscious reminiscence of Martin and not a historical account of his life and times. I'll leave that for writers who'll do a far better job than I.

After Buddy Rich, Martin Drew was the first jazz drummer whose name I knew. As a child, I used to watch re-runs of the Oscar Peterson shows filmed for the BBC during the 1970s, when that corporation had a far more enlightened attitude to the arts than now, and I soon grew used to both the sight and sound of the bands drummer, who I also learned equally quickly was British, a fact that even as a young boy I gathered was rather unusual in international jazz circles. Later still, when I began playing the saxophone in my late teens, I went to see the Ronnie Scott sextet at a local theatre and marvelled not only at Martin's tremendous presence and contribution, but at those of the entire band, little dreaming that all the members were to have such a deep impact on my own musical endeavours a few years later.

This worship from afar continued until 2004, when promoter Brian Benton suggested I put together a quartet for a gig at the Herts Jazz Club in Panshanger. "You've got to get Martin Drew", he said, a suggestion I took with a terrified pinch of salt, until I realised he was serious. To be truthful, I wasn't wholly unprepared for the baptism of fire; my fascination with up-tempo bebop had already taken hold and it was two of Martin's albums that set down a formidable challenge; Got A Match, his tribute to Ronnie Scott, and Celebrating the Jazz Couriers, dedicated to Ronnie and Tubbs. These became my daily workout, and I'd play along to them trying to emulate the ease and confidence that Martin inspired in players like Mornington Lockett and Nigel Hitchcock. When he joined my quartet proper, following that first gig, I told Martin that his albums had been my Bible, a fact which he modestly deflected by suggesting I listen to someone else. The real trouble was, where do you go after Martin Drew?

Working with Martin across the past six years has been an education, experience and, at times, a pressure I would never trade for anything and his help, encouragement and commitment were crucial to me in every way. And, somewhere along the way, my idol became my friend, again a transition that I wouldn't change for anything, as that's when you really start to get to know someone. Not only did we play and record with my quartet, but we worked with Peter King, Tommy Whittle, Derek Nash, Vic Ash and Danny Moss and I soon learned that Martin really was the ultimate "drummer for all sessions" - the kind of player who could move effortlessly between the more mainstream end of things towards the most complex of post-bop. This adaptability ensured that his international career - the core of which was his thirty years with Oscar Peterson, a coup taking British jazz to the very highest level - blossomed accordingly and his CV boasted everyone from Michael Brecker to Paul McCartney, a tribute to his eclectic tastes. The groove, energy and propulsive carpet he set beneath a soloist was unequalled, and whilst I sometimes didn't always see what he saw in certain approaches, I respected him immensely. On our last meeting he told me how much he had enjoyed watching some of the recent coverage of the Glastonbury festival and singled out Luke Flowers, drummer with Corine Bailey-Rae for special praise, again showing how his ear for good music refused to recognise critical pigeon-holes.

Martin was an enormous practical support to me too, a very real pro-active believer in a business sometimes jealously over-guarded. In fact, it was he who, very early on in my fledgling career, telephoned several promoters to let them know that he thought I was worth checking out. This resulted in my first  festival bookings and in a truly philanthropic gesture I recall him twice getting a gig for himself and not booking his own Jazz Couriers but a quartet featuring myself. It was through this ingenious piece of subterfuge that I first worked at the Bulls Head in Barnes and Jagz in Ascot, venues where Martin and I would later work together with some regularity.

Despite his musical brilliance and superlative "time" (you really could set your watch by him), it was through getting to know Martin off-stage that I truly grew to love him. An individual for whom the term "larger than life" could well have been coined, Martin was a one-off. In later years his weight ballooned so much so that the very sight of him created a sizeable impression but he had always been a man of hefty opinions, ready to let you know his thoughts, in detail and at length.

Our gigs together rarely ever deviated from this time-honoured pattern; Martin would be always the first to arrive. He'd then ask you which way you'd travelled and had you eaten. He'd then suggest an alternative route, let you know how bad the M&S sandwich he'd eaten at the motorway services was and so on, before launching into a paean of praise for his latest discovery on YouTube, a medium of exploring music that latterly captivated him. It could be anything from Bob Berg to Aretha Franklin, or some unknown bass guitarist from Detroit or a classic Elvin Jones solo he'd suddenly re-discovered. Come the gig, he'd invariably play his arse off and he was always the last one to leave, packing what we all believed was the heaviest drum kit in the world into the most cumbersome traps cases ever built. In the early days with my quartet, if Martin had liked the gig he'd call the next day and leave a message, something like: "Hi Simon, it's Martin Drew, ten to three on Tuesday the 6th and I just wanted you to know you're a mother****er!" There will never be higher praise than that.

The gigs were made doubly entertaining when Martin's old Ronnie Scott band mate John Critchinson was aboard. In fact, as the jazz press were quick to latch onto, my first quartet had reassembled the final rhythm section used by Ronnie Scott, and to my delight I was consequently hurled into a crash course education on all things Ronnie Scott. The rhythmic "lock" of Critch, Andy Cleyndert and Martin had marked the Scott band out as something special and none of the magic had been lost in the intervening few years, something which happily also applied to the social aspects of the band; Critch and Martin had a repartee rivalling Waldorf and Astoria, and the stream of Schatt-isms (that's Ronald Schatt) that followed their usual greeting of "Hello 43" "Hello 22" never failed to delight. In fact the last time I witnessed this mix of surrealism, Goon-ery and downright quirky humour was at a pre-gig meal shared between Vic Ash, Critch, Martin and I. Martin arrived late and I'll never forget the ceaseless ribbing as Vic, John and I attempted to split the bill equally. I soon realised that Frith Street was a sort of spiritual home for these men and when Critch and Martin were in the mood to swap Ronnie stories, I was reduced from a fellow musician to a wide-eyed school-kid, eavesdropping on his heroes.

I also learned very quickly that Martin was a committed family man, devoted to his wife Tessa, always quick to praise his children and an utter misty-eyed softy whenever he mentioned his grandchildren, which was at every possible opportunity and which never ever failed to charm. But he was no soft touch and there were those who found him difficult, usually it has to be said because of their own shortcomings and not Martin's. I've seen him upbraid cloth-eared sound engineers, dismiss punters with nonsensical opinions and tear into people who showed no respect, all signs of a man who believed passionately in his art.

Once in a while I travelled with Martin to and from gigs, something I immediately learned was another truly unique experience. One summer we were booked to play at the Brecon Jazz Festival and Martin duly agreed to pick me up. He arrived promptly, re-programmed his sat-nav and off we set, westward ho. It was then that I realised that Martin was a man who more than appreciated the recent advances of in-car technology. In fact his car was like buzzing and beeping Tower of Babel; there was the satellite navigation system, issuing insinuating directions, the oscillating speed camera detection unit, a mobile phone operated hands free, air-con on full blast and, invariably, some loud and heavyweight music on the CD player. On the trip to Brecon we had Michael Brecker at full throttle and by the time we got to the venue I was exhausted!

I am so pleased to be able to say that Martin and I worked together often during the last eight months, both with the quartet and with Vic Ash, with whom we toured in celebration of Vic's 80th birthday.  It was on the final gig of this tour, in Dorking on July 1st, that I last saw and played with Martin. As he sat, a familiar figure packing away his drums, a process always interupted by engrossing conversation, little did I know that I would never again get the opportunity to work with him, to feel the thrill of his signature accompaniment and delight in his company. This fact has yet to sink in, as I'm sure it has with all the musicians on whom Martin sprinkled his magic. Above all, I can't quite believe that I will never see my friend again. I can see his grin, picture his wristwatch hanging off the hi-hat stand and visualise the miniature pair of sticks he always wore on a chain around his neck. And I can hear his roaring tones as he'd count us out of a drum solo as well as I can hear the delicacy he could bring to his brush work on a ballad. British jazz will never see his like again, and I extend my sincere condolences to Tessa and their children and grand-children. Martin Drew was an amazing man who swung like no-one else and I'm so glad that he gave us his time in our time. God bless you Martin x

It was with great sadness that I learned yesterday of the death of trumpeter Harry Beckett, a key figure in British jazz since the 1960s and a musician with whom I had the great pleasure of performing several times. This loss is compounded by the recent passing of another cornerstone player in post-war British jazz, the baritone saxophonist Harry Klein.

Both men's obituaries in the national papers will doubtless fill in the facts and figures of their respective careers, but here I'd like to add a little about what they and their work meant to me.

Harry Beckett's chuckle-toned trumpet was without doubt one of the most distinctive local jazz voices and the times that I shared a bandstand with him always contained what one critic dubbed "the sound of surprise". Both rhythmically and harmonically, Harry was a one-off, a school all of his own, with perhaps only Kenny Wheeler matching him for skittish originality.  There are plenty of albums on which to encounter his playing but my favourite remains Flare-Up, a suitably volcanic set from 1970 which features a band chock-full of the young turks of British jazz of the day; Osborne, Skidmore, Taylor et al. Alongside the burn out intensity, it also contains a performance which embodies Beckett's other side, Where Fortune Smiles, the wistful lyricism of which could well rival that of Miles Davis.

Harry was a very likeable man, with an infectious laugh, a host of interesting anecdotes and a personality which never seemed to take anything too seriously. I remember his delight in telling me that after shaving his head Kenny Wheeler had mistaken him for American trumpeter Eddie Henderson! The only time I ever saw him look troubled was on the last gig we played together at the tail end of 2009. His chops were rough and the magic was not there, so much so that he graciously opted out of playing the last set. A lesser player would have let vanity get in the way.

Harry Klein was another self-effacing man, a fact I discovered when he used to drop into some of my London gigs. We'd sit in The Spice Of Life or The Princess Of Wales in Primrose Hill and he'd regale me with tales of Stan Kenton, Stan Getz and Joe Harriott . On one especially memorable afternoon tenorist Stan Robinson dropped by and I sat fascinated as they swapped Tubby Hayes stories, with Harry concurring that Tubby was "far in advance of us all". When I suggested that Harry had scored a few aces himself, he modestly replied that he was "lucky". "I found a baritone mouthpiece that could take a tenor sax reed and there weren't many baritonists around" he opined, an unduly understated assessment of his high-achieving career.

In latter years Harry abandoned the baritone in favour of his original horn, the alto, declaring that he ended up with one arm longer than the other from lugging the bigger saxophone across the UK. Eventually he deserted music and became a film and television extra and over the years I spotted him in everything from Eastenders to The Singing Detective. However, his finest hours were as a musician and perhaps his best came in 1960 when he recorded the album The Five Of Us with the Jazz Five, the band he co-led with long-time cohort Vic Ash. The group had toured opposite Miles Davis that year, mightily impressing the usually non-plussed trumpeter, and delight in that coup permeates the record. Klein's fruity toned improvisations, making their signature curlicue routes through the changes, are as distinctive as those of many a more celebrated jazz player and still sound impressive.

Harry Klein b. December 25th 1928 d. June 30th 2010

Harry Beckett b. May 30th 1935 d. July 22nd 2010

A small man reeking of TCP accosted me on a gig last night and with punctillious gestures thrust a letter into my hand.  I thought I'd share its contents here. 

I'd never played a gig in Liverpool until last Tuesday night. There hasn't been any real reason for this exclusion from my never-ending merry-go-round of one-nighters - I'd just never been asked to do a gig there, but Tuesday's jaunt has convinced me that Liverpool has one of the best and most atmospheric jazz venues I've ever visited.

Located conveniently in Parr Street, near the city centre, Parr Street Studios has a rich history as a location for recording, with artists such as Elton John, Coldplay and Black Sabbath all documenting their music within its walls. One of the studio rooms has now been transformed into a performance space, whilst upstairs boasts a boutique hotel, but on Tuesday nights the club venue becomes the home of Parr Jazz, an enterprise headed by saxophonist and flautist Geni Lamb.

The format for these evenings is loose and relaxed, matching the ambience of the venue itself, which, with its warm lighting,  comfortable seating, performance-friendly ergonomics and cosy ante-rooms is the very model of the perfect jazz club.

The guest artist plays two sets, after which there's welcome chance for sitters-in to cut it with the resident band, nominally headed by Lamb, who unlike some jazz-playing promoters opts for a modest and telling contribution to each evening. The quality of the accompanying musicians is first-class: guitarist  Tony Ormesher has long been one of the North-West's finest jazz talents (he'd certainly tip the balance if he upped and left for London), with a gift for sympathetic accompaniment which is equally matched by his formidable improvising skill. Veteran bassist John McCormick is solid as a rock (he jokingly referred to himself as "a Northern Danny Thompson" on Tuesday - forget the joke as it's a spot-on assessment of his ability) and drummer Danny Ward serves up the finest of time playing, tastefully delivered.

For a visiting soloist, this team is a dream to work with and represent the very opposite of the Russian Roulette approach to accompaniment which once in a while can make the job very hard.

Added to such fine musicianship are the superb acoustics. After blowing  through the distorted, inadequate or just plain useless PA systems one encounters at some jazz clubs (big and small), it was a delight to play unplugged to a room which, for once, I didn't have to blow my lungs out to fill.

Finally, although extra-musical, I'd like to mention the hospitality. Not only did Geni look after us beautifully, we got to sample the clubs food, which, suffice to say, filled a gap very well indeed.

All in all the Parr Jazz nights offer a great forum and deserve continued success and I, for one, am looking forward to my next visit.

Check out  www.myspace.com/metrojazznight  and  www.parrstreet.co.uk

It's no secret that once upon a time I was a student of a great British jazz veteran, the clarinettist and tenor saxophonist Vic Ash. For about two years during my late teens I lugged my first leaking, cheap old saxophone round to his house to set about learning something of the art of making music your living, and within a short time Vic had changed my attitude to a lot of things, usually through nothing more than doing what he does best; being a first class musician.

Back then, I'd make the odd "sitting-in" appearance with Vic at various local jazz venues, coping better with the not always successful results because Vic thought I had "something". I'm not sure what he heard back then, but somehow, through a long-winded and not always easy journey I got a slippery foot on the rung of the jazz ladder and started the daunting climb upwards.

During this time, Vic and I didn't see much of each other - he was busy with the BBC Big Band and I was busy tearing all over the UK trying to make a name for myself. News of this must have reached Vic as one day he turned up at one of my gigs to hear how I was getting on. Since then, we've done a fair few gigs together, promoters liking the master and pupil angle and Vic and I enjoying the chance to blow together in public.

Over my time as first a pupil and then a friend of Vic's I've seen him pass a few milestones. 65th, 70th and 75th birthdays have all come and gone, and with the publication of his autobiography  I Blew It My Way (compiled from interviews Vic gave to me), he now has the distinction of being a legend in print as well as performance, but I'm especially pleased to be on-board for what amounts to a short tour celebrating both his 80th birthday and 60th year in the music business.

Five of the gigs are with the collaborative quintet that we have headed infrequently over the past couple of years, featuring John Critchinson on piano, Alec Dankworth or Andy Cleyndert on bass and Martin Drew on drums, whilst the remaining four feature Vic and myself with various local accompanists. What matters most however is that one of our great jazz veterans is out and about and getting his music heard, an especially timely event in the wake of the recent passing of several of Vic's former colleagues, Jeff Clyne, Pete King, John Dankworth and Ken Baldock.

I'm hoping that whether they're hearing him with the quintet or as a guest soloist jazz audiences will come out and help Vic celebrate this latest milestone. They'll hear a liftetimes musical experience from a musician I'm immensely proud to both know and work with.

The dates are;

April 27th - Marlow Jazz Club

April 30th - Fleece Jazz, Colchester (quintet)

May 9th - Stratford-Upon-Avon

May 20th - Stoke-on-Trent

June 12th - Howden Jazz, Yorkshire (quintet)

June 14th - Portsmouth Jazz Club (quintet)

June 27th - Jazz On A Summers Day Festival, Lamport, Northants (quintet)

June 28th - West Ruislip Golf Club

July 1st - Watermill Jazz Club, Dorking (quintet)

For more information please visit the diary page.

Unfortunately my quartet's appearance at the new South East Essex Jazz Club in Rawreth on Thursday March 11th has been cancelled. I understand that all future jazz events at the venue have also been cancelled.  For further details please visit www.seejazzatthechichester.org/

Due to a high percentage of spam postings I am now closing my guestbook. My thanks to all of those who have posted welcome comments, but, like so many things in the cyber-world, an otherwise innocent undertaking has been sabotaged by those with nothing better to do than..er...sabotaging innocent things. And so it's farewell to the daily task of deleting hyperlinks from Ukranian hookers, performance enhancing drug peddlers and illegitimate ring tone providers. And no more invitations to online casino's. Or introductions to Russian brides. Whatever did pissed people do at three in the morning before all this started?

For those who visit the website and have something other than the above to bring to my attention, you can of course use the contact page. As always, I look forward to hearing from you!

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.