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Lake Superior Ralph Laing looks at the development of British jazz during its days of mass popularity, and salutes a record company which over the last 20 years has created a comprehensive catalogue of the period. I have recently been heartened watching the excellent series The Voice on ITV Channel 4. For some time now I've been perturbed that jazz has become, like contemporary classical music, marginalized and over-complex, and was delighted to see that the pundits selected almost entirely jazz, blues and gospel performers as the founding parents of post-1965 popular singing. Jazz, as most people would recognize it, has been with us for around 80 years. For the first 50 years of this period it wove seamlessly in and out of the field of popular entertainment. Led by Miles, Coltrane and Ornette Coleman, jazz has subsequently gone down a much more cerebral and technically difficult path. Although it still attempts to court the popular ear with occasional rock and electronic fusions, its protagonists have rarely, if ever, achieved the mass appeal garnered by the Armstrongs, Basies, Ellingtons, Wallers, Holidays, Dorseys, Goodmans and Fitzgeralds of the past. This is not in itself a crime. The Arts boast many great names who eschewed popular acclaim. Jazz itself would be significantly poorer without the likes of Bix, Bird, Monk, Ruby Braff, Mingus and even Nina Simone, none of whom were exactly brilliant at courting public adulation. As far as I'm concerned all that matters is that the music we make today has the same immortality and exposure as Louis' Potato Head Blues, Hawk's Body And Soul, Basie's Whirlybird, Bird's Just Friends or Fats' Ain't Misbehavin'. Although hindsight is a wonderful leveler which has pricked many critical balloons not enough time has yet elapsed for objectivity on the recent past. It's not yet clear whether we have developed a music which has graduated to a new and significant level, or whether, by abandoning its popular appeal contemporary jazz has consigned itself to slow starvation. Since I believe jazz to be the greatest thing since the invention of food, I must admit to being a little worried. It is of vital importance to mainstream music that jazz is self-perpetuating and I believe it may be extremely dangerous to jettison the long association between it and the man in the street. It therefore seems essential that we make as much of the halcyon years of jazz available in recorded form as possible before we forget completely that it used to be the lifeblood of pop. Giles Petard's hugely ambitious Classics label, now nearing its 1000th release, has succeeded in reissuing virtually every American jazz track recorded between 1924 and 1953. Britain too, since the 1930's, has a fine pedigree in producing improvised music, and we must never forget that, between about 1950 and 1964 jazz and jazz-oriented pop (like the great Capitol Sinatra sessions) was the music of choice of much of the British listening public - certainly the majority of students. During the 1950's many of the most popular live musical events featured bands like Humphrey Lyttelton, Chris Barber and Ken Colyer. Over the last 30 years, however, much of Britain's best jazz recording has languished, deleted in the vaults of the giant musical conglomerates like Polygram. Two small reissue companies have been battling to correct all that. Mike Hazeldine's admirable Jasmine label has recently been releasing a diet of modern jazz output. It's quite astonishing that Tubby Hayes, for example, one of the most fertile musical minds that Britain has ever produced and who recorded prolifically had no studio re-releases available at all until Jasmine came along. Hazeldine has resurrected many of the finest formative recordings by Hayes, Victor Feldman, Jimmy Deuchar, Stan Tracey, Ronnie Scott, Don Rendell and Tony Crombie. However even Jasmine has some distance to go to rival its traditional and mainstream counterpart, LAKE Records. I have been writing liner notes for this company since 1995. While I am keen to guard my impartiality, I find it impossible not to be impressed by the achievement. Since I haven't seen anyone else congratulating LAKE publicly, I reckoned I would. Paul and Linda Adams were two well-kent names in the 1970's folk scene who launched the Fellside label, a vehicle for contemporary folk music, from their home in Cumbria in 1976. Having mastered the intricacies of issuing specialist albums and the tightrope economics involved in marketing to small, target audiences, Paul then made the climactic decision to diversify into his first musical love - jazz. In 1984 he modestly tested the water with his first three albums. This year sees Lake's 20th birthday and its 200th release. The label which began as a modest medium for reissuing material by artists perceived by Paul Adams as being neglected by the major companies such as Ken Colyer, Alex Welsh and Sandy Brown (it was already eclectic within its remit from the start!) as well as current working bands (Harry Gold, Harlem, Chris Blount) has burgeoned into an encyclopaedic collection of British traditional and mainstream jazz from those surprisingly fruitful years when jazz was an integral part of our popular music. Classic Revivalists V New Orleans Purists To analyse how the LAKE catalogue has grown requires a brief look at how the jazz revivalist scene in the UK developed into the famed trad boom. After WWII there was a growing interest among many young people in jazz, primarily of the traditional variety. Amateur bands tentatively materialized and the early 1950's saw a great deal of youthful tribalism as these bands developed recognizable personalities. Even before the word mainstream was coined to describe the swing-influenced music towards which many of the more adventurous revivalists eventually gravitated, there were three distinct camps, each with its own fanatical following. Although not exactly bitter enemies, each was certainly wary and critical of the others' stylistic choices. The classic jazz advocates took their inspiration from the founding fathers of jazz and their repertoires were liberally laced with material from the Louis Armstrong Hot 5's and 7's, the King Oliver Creole Jazz Band, Jelly Roll Morton's Red Hot Peppers and numerous other seminal groups from the 1920's, like Jabbo Smith and Henry Red Allen. They had the largest fan base, and by far the most charismatic chieftain, old-Etonian Humphrey Lyttelton. Humph, who held court at Mac's Rehearsal Rooms at 100 Oxford St (to become Roger Horton's famed 100 Club), was the first of this new wave of young enthusiasts to record extensively for a major label. His approach was mirrored the length and breadth of the country. In Liverpool the Merseysippi band, Sandy Brown in Edinburgh, Mick Gill in Nottingham, the Second City Jazzmen in Birmingham and, in London, Mike Daniels, Steve Lane and Cy Laurie all modeled their repertoires and styles on the classic names. The New Orleans purists believed that the only true jazz was that which was being played around 1950 in New Orleans by the likes of George Lewis, Jim Robinson and Kid Howard. Unopposed as grand capo of this lot was the legendary Ken Colyer, who was famous for being the only Brit at the time who had actually lived and played in the Crescent City. Ken had signed up as a merchant seaman and jumped ship when he got to the USA; some months later he was jailed and deported for the offence, which simply amplified his mystique to his faithful followers. On his enforced but triumphant return to Britain in 1953 he teamed up with 5 other musicians. Their 1954 debut Decca album, New Orleans To London , (reissued by LAKE as their fourteenth album) was like no other sound in the history of jazz. The band's approach, an amalgam of the earthy George Lewis and the much tidier Wilbur de Paris band of the time, was quite unique. And although it didn't suit Colyer, who quickly left to be replaced by Pat Halcox, this unique sound was to form the basis of Europe's most popular traditional group over the next half century - the Chris Barber band. Their follow-up album, with Halcox, was entitled New Orleans Joys (recently reissued by LAKE as LACDD141/142) and influenced every young, aspiring British musician in some way. Using simple material new to the jazz world, like Bobby Shaftoe and The Martinique, the Barber band provided the template for hundreds of similar groups up and down the country, all with the identical shape of trumpet, clarinet and trombone, backed by a rigid rhythm section of banjo, bass and drums. Colyer had found Barber's approach too precise and polite. There was something more animalistic and raw in the New Orleans jazz he loved, and he spent his life searching to achieve his idea of perfection. With an emphasis on ensemble playing rather than solo strength, he quickly formed another group (containing a young West country clarinetist called Bernard Bilk) which much more accurately reflected his approach. He immediately recorded Back To The Delta for Decca and threw down the gauntlet to everyone else. Colyer was never to swerve from this chosen path, uncommercial as it proved to be, and until his death in 1988 he was the undisputed father of the UK equivalent of contemporary New Orleans jazz. He was never to appeal to the mass audiences which the Barber band (and as we shall see others) reached. But on a good day the best of Colyer's bands could play profoundly well, with beautifully integrated ensemble work and the same rough but insistent swing of the NO originals. LAKE's first licensing deal was to acquire the rights for Colyer's Decca material. Paul, something of a Colyer fan had to start somewhere and felt that there were vaults full of material which the major companies were ignoring. But he quickly decided to widen the label's appeal by contracting for Barber's Decca recordings from the same period. Although sales were hardly likely to precipitate Paul and Linda into the Fortune 500, they were sufficient to fund another licensing move. Another small reissue label, Dormouse, had a deal with Pye whose Nixa label was prominent in the 1950's jazz scene. When Dormouse folded LAKE picked up the Pye contract - which brings me back to the story of tribalism. The Dixielanders The third and final gang were the dixielanders. Ever since Muggsy Spanier's 1939 recordings this ever-so-slightly slicker version of traditional jazz had appealed to many better schooled musicians. Unlike the other camps which were made up almost exclusively of young amateurs and semi-professionals, there were five professional Dixieland bands touring Britain's dance halls - Joe Daniels, Harry Gold, Sid Phillips, Freddy Randall and latterly Mick Mulligan, a fugitive from the classic ranks. The Dixieland style is based on the music of white Chicagoans like Muggsy, Eddie Condon, Bix and Bud Freeman, and was tidy enough to serve in the dancing establishments as an alternative to the larger touring dance bands. This bunch were viewed with grave suspicion by the other two gangs, who criticized Dixieland for being too slick, too brash and soulless. Of course much of this was sour grapes, as many of the dixielanders had fine techniques and good taste, and could do lots of things the young revivalists couldn't. As the decade went by one Scotsman incongruously named Welsh was to destroy these daft shibboleths. The Scots Connection For some unaccountable reason the Scots take easily to jazz. The group which Valaida and Louis Armstrong chose as accompanists in the 1930's was the Scottish Billy Mason band; on Benny Carter's 1930's London sessions the most prominent soloists were Tommy McQuater, Duncan Whyte, George Chisholm and Andy McDevitt; and Chisholm appears again on the 1938 Fats Waller London session with fellow Scots Alan Ferguson and Ian Shepherd. Around 1950 (and contrary to perceived opinion, which sees the city as conservative and politely Luddite), Edinburgh produced a group of musicians who were to garner many of the critical jazz laurels over the next 20 years. Alex Welsh and Archie Semple both earned their Chicagoan spurs around the Scottish jazz clubs before first Semple headed south to join Freddy Randall, and then Alex followed to reunite the musical partnership. Welsh and Semple were joined by trombomist Roy Crimmins, and, with a rhythm section propped up for the next 20 years by pianist Fred Hunt and drummer Lennie Hastings, the resulting band was considered by fellow musicians of all persuasions to be astonishingly good - good enough once and for all to destroy any artificial boundaries. Edinburgh's Royal High School produced an equally important group of players, headed by clarinetist Sandy Brown, his musical twin, trumpeter Al Fairweather and pianist Stan Greig. Alex Welsh played first class Chicago-style jazz. Sandy and Al - to both of whom a bronze plaque is dedicated in the city's Usher Hall - began as dedicated followers of the classic school. Sandy most obviously evinced a huge creative talent allied to a fine technique and quickly grew into the most admired player in the entire British trad scene. Unlike most of their contemporaries during the 1950's Sandy and Al recorded a large body of original compositions, several of which, like Fairweather's haunting Big Bill and Brown's African Queen, became European jazz standards. As the decade progressed Sandy's playing became more and more individual until, by 1960, all bar the spirit of Johnny Dodds and Sidney Bechet had vanished to be replaced by one of the most original and thrilling clarinet sounds in the history of jazz music. As part of the Pye licence LAKE acquired both Alex and Sandy's finest early recordings. From Dixieland To Duke, Music Of The Mauve Decade and The Melrose Folio are amongst the finest Dixieland albums in British jazz, and could well be the best examples of Chicago-style jazz ever made outside the USA. Sandy's Sidemen and McJazz both show the incredible power of Sandy's clarinet as he forged his inimitable style. Both, too, demonstrate the extraordinary melodic creativity which he and Al consistently demanded. Humph was the only other leader at the time regularly to use original compositions - an attitude he learned from the iconoclastic Australian Graeme Bell. But no-one had ever dreamt of filling an entire traditional album with new tunes. To the astonishment of the traditional jazz world in 1956 Sandy's Sidemen consisted entirely of Al Fairweather original numbers; and in the following year the hugely influential McJazz contained another 10 originals by Sandy and Al. Skiffle and the Trad Boom Traditional jazz had been the music of choice for many college students from the start of the 1950's and as the decade progressed its appeal was dramatically to widen. Jazz clubs sprouted like mushrooms. Several of the younger bands took the risk of becoming professional - Humph, Cy Laurie and Mick Mulligan were amongst the first - followed by Barber, Colyer, Terry Lightfoot, Acker Bilk, Kenny Ball and Alex Welsh. London agents like Lyn Dutton found more and more demand for their bands not only around Britain but also in the German and Scandinavian jazz clubs. The agents would send newly formed bands on European 2-month residencies (Dusseldorf and Hamburg were favourite) with the fairly sensible object of knocking them into shape. The conditions of these residencies would have given the trade union movement apoplexy. The hours were typically 9p.m. to 3a.m.. The band had to play 20 minutes on and 10 minutes off continuously for 7 hours! Despite the huge enthusiasm of many of the young musicians which made the epic nights tolerable, the only good things to come out of the drudgery were tight bands with iron lips (or fingers). The Colyer and Barber bands hit upon the wheeze of performing 2 or 3 sets a night with half the band, allowing the others a welcome 40 minute breather. The cut-down trios and quartets would sing negro blues, spirituals and folk songs accompanied by guitar, bass and drums (most bands had players who could double on these instruments). For want of a better name they called this music 'skiffle'. Both Colyer and Barber incorporated a couple of skiffle tracks on their first Decca albums - Colyer himself sang on his album, while Barber's banjo player, Lonnie Donegan, handled the vocals. These 1954 skiffle tracks received polite interest on their release. Yet some 3 years later Donegan's recording of Rock Island Line inexplicably soared to the top of the hit parade. Do-it-yourself skiffle groups mushroomed throughout the country, from Aberdeen to Penzance. Every second teenager bought a guitar or plucked a tea-chest single string bass. The craze lasted a couple of years before fizzling out. But there were two lasting legacies. Firstly many of these elementary groups progressed to provide the genesis of what was to become the beat movement. Secondly skiffle brought a huge tranche of young listeners to the trad jazz groups which featured them. The sizeable jazz audience had already pushed Humph's Bad Penny Blues to the top of the hit parade and Chris Barber's Petite Fleur came next. Three bands in particular started to pull the largest crowds - Barber, Acker Bilk and and trumpeter Kenny Ball. Barber's unique sound, born on the 1953 New Orleans To London Decca album, became the prototype for amateur bands throughout the country. Acker Bilk, a delightful, unspoilt West countryman, began his long career with Ken Colyer then gently eased his own band into the tidy, banjo-driven sound proving so popular everywhere for Barber. A fine clarinet player and natural showman, Acker dispensed his insouciant vocals and folksy humour to legions of fans. Kenny Ball, like Alex Welsh, had been a dedicated Dixielander and had served the highly demanding apprenticeship in Sid Phillips band. Seeing the growing popularity of traditional jazz he decided to try his luck as a leader, and within 3 years of forming his band, found himself at the top of the charts with Midnight In Moscow. Pye Nixa had succeeded Decca in issuing Chris Barber's recordings. Nixa also, by 1958, had Bilk, all as a result of a licensing agreement with Record Supervision Ltd (more of this later), and, by 1960 Kenny Ball. Thus LAKE Records now had the rights to issue nearly every traditional jazz recording made in Britain between 1953 and 1959. To complete this stage of the LAKE grand design, Paul and Linda looked at the traditional section of small specialist labels such as Esquire and others. These labels had been pro-active in the earliest days of the revival, and had recorded many groups the length and breadth of the country. In its Delving Back series Lake was now able to release the very first recordings by Barber, Bilk, Ball, Brown and George Melly plus a host of lesser names - like Dave Carey, Bobby Mickleburgh, the Christie Brothers Stompers, Les Jowett, Cy Laurie, the Merseysippi and Yorkshire Jazz Bands, Mick Gill, the Second City Jazzmen, Eric Silk, Brian Wooley and Mike Daniels - all of whom were active in the formative years of British jazz. By 2001 LAKE was issuing its 150th album, and, with the exception of the Lyttelton Parlophones which are licensed to Humph's own label Calligraph (available from LAKE), it could boast a comprehensive ownership of all traditional British jazz from WWII to 1959. Mainstream It was only natural that some of the more adventurous of the revivalists, like jazz itself, would spread their stylistic wings. During the 1950's many of the finest American jazz recordings were being produced by the survivors of the swing era. Musicians like Buck Clayton, Ben Webster, Buddy Tate, Ruby Braff and Vic Dickenson were making strong impressions on Humph, Bruce Turner, Alex Welsh and Sandy Brown in particular. Unaffected by popular opinion as always Humph led the way. His band, which began the 1950's as steadfastly revivalist gradually metamorphosed into the Kansas City-style swing group which he led by 1957, and which he continues to front today at the age of 82. In 1957 Bruce Turner left Humph to form his short-lived but influential Jump Band; Sandy Brown and Al Fairweather followed suit and Alex Welsh, although always true to his Chicagoan roots, happily incorporated Johnny Hodges and Buck Clayton riffs into his repertoire. Acker Bilk, too, as the exigencies of the trad boom disappeared, would drop the dominating banjo and adopt the same non-denominational approach as Alex. LAKE's next foray, having exhausted the 1950's vaults, was to unearth a series of fascinating private recordings. The American AFM and the British MU had been bickering since 1933, and no American jazz groups had been allowed to play in the UK for 20 years. Very occasionally a solo artist was granted a special permit to play 'variety'. Hence we had legendary visits from Louis, Fats, Benny Carter and Coleman Hawkins, all of whom except Louis made brief recordings with British accompaniment before their much grudged permits expired. But we had never, ever heard an American band since 1933. Twenty years later this insanity became so patent that the MU had to loosen its dictatorial grip and tolerate a limited number of American groups. Thus we began by travelling to Ireland to hear Stan Kenton. Then, mirabile dictu, we had a British concert hall tour by the Armstrong All Stars (on a revolving stage). The tempo gradually increased, and over the next decade there were concert hall appearances by Basie, Ellington, Condon, Teagarden, JATP, Dizzy Gillespie, Bechet, Clayton and many more. This was wonderful stuff - the 1956 Basie concerts were among the highlights of my musical life - but excessively formal. Those of us lucky enough to have visited the USA knew that jazz music was most likely to be inspired in the relaxed club settings to which it was most accustomed - like Condon's, the Lighthouse, Jimmy Ryan's and the Metropole. Thus, when in 1964 it was announced that the Manchester Sports Guild had negotiated for Henry Red Allen to tour British jazz clubs with a British accompaniment, this heralded the most important political breakthrough we had ever seen. Allen was followed by Pee Wee Russell, Big Joe Turner, Earl Hines, Ruby Braff, Wild Bill Davison, Buck Clayton, Dickie Wells and a host of others. For the first time not only could we hear the finest American mainstream soloists in a relaxed setting, but also for the first time British musicians had the chance to play in the premier league. And how it lifted their game!! Each of these tours started and finished at the MSG premises and many were recorded. To my personal delight, since I attended many of these sessions, LAKE acquired the best of the tapes recorded by Paul Spinks and, by negotiating with the musicians has issued several of them. The results are a fascinating window into the 1960's British jazz scene. The Americans' own favourite was the Alex Welsh band, and LAKE has produced live albums of Welsh with Pee Wee Russell, Bud Freeman and Peanuts Hucko, plus a fine Teddy Wilson session with the Dave Shepherd Quintet. Denis Preston and Record Supervision By 1959 jazz was obviously a serious business and a lot of credit can be laid at the door of Denis Preston, a flamboyant independent record producer. In the early 1950s the major labels employed in-house producers, but Preston formed his own production company, contracted the artists and secured licensing agreements with various labels principally Pye Nixa (the Jazz Today Series), during the 1950s, and EMI Columbia (The Lansdowne Jazz Series) during the 1960s. He also set up Lansdowne Studios, one of the major London studios still today. He recruited a formidable stable of bands - Humph, Sandy Brown, Barber, Colyer, Terry Lightfoot, Acker Bilk and Alex Welsh (Kenny Ball and The Clyde Valley Stompers had a separate deal with Pye). Given a liberal rein, particularly by Columbia, Preston recorded them all while they were at the zenith of the boom and at their most assured. Tragically, as the 1960's progressed, trad jazz was replaced in the affections of the British public by the many innovative beat groups spawned by the skiffle craze, and slowly but surely the Jazz Today and Lansdowne albums were deleted from the catalogues. Preston sold his Record Supervision catalogue initially to Phonogram which in turn became Polygram, who steadfastly withheld affordable licences. LAKE Records have been dripping water on the Polygram stone now for 19 years to no avail. Until now. Polygram was acquired by Universal and sense began to prevail The best news I received in 2003 was that LAKE finally convinced Universal to license all outstanding Record Supervision sessions. Their initial release of 7 CD's early this year, 2004, are a feast for all traditional style tastes. At the height of their popularity we have Barber and Bilk. LAKE has chosen a collection of Chris' EP's issued at the time to feature individual front line members of the band, and collected these under the title of In Barber's Chair. Acker's release presents us with the full splendour of Mr Acker Bilk And His Paramount Jazz Band - in other words it is heavily engineered and was at the time subjected to the intense marketing influence of Peter Leslie, bowler hats, waistcoats and all! Both CD's uncannily recreate the rather manic, good-time atmosphere which Preston and his engineers (one of whom was the legendary Joe Meek) sought to achieve. True to his roots, Paul has chosen one of Ken Colyer's Lansdowne albums next. This Is The Blues features clarinetist Sammy Rimington who had just joined the band, and who was to prove himself to be the finest of all the George Lewis-inspired players. This, Ken's third or fourth recording for Lansdowne, is probably his finest studio performance since he threw down the gauntlet in Back To New Orleans. But for me the true nuggets are in the remaining two releases. Humph's I Play As I Please, recorded in 1957 was every bit as much a challenge to the trad jazz public as that which Colyer had set three years earlier. Completely forsaking traditional roots, IPAIP is an unashamed swing album, much more akin to the sort of music emanating from a Johnny Hodges small group than anything else. It smacked us all between the eyes. Those of us with catholic tastes applauded his bravery, and wondered at the guts it must have taken to forsake the (so it seemed at the time) safe pastures of trad, with its millions of fans. For me it is one of the classics of British jazz and its reissue is long, long overdue. LAKE's final release in the first Preston batch is an absolute beauty. Denis Preston saw the potential for some chamber jazz recordings and he turned to the Scots. In addition to producing some of Alex's finest albums (we all eagerly await LAKE's reissue of Echoes Of Chicago) he selected Welsh, Semple and Fred Hunt to join bassist Jack Fallon in what was to prove one of British jazz's lovelier moments. Night People is coupled by Paul on CD with an exquisite trio recording by Semple alone with Hunt and Fallon. Originally titled Jazz For Young Lovers, it captures Archie at his most heart-wrenchingly beautiful. Missing from our catalogues for 35 years, its re-release by LAKE deserves a knighthood. LAKE prospect There is little doubt that the next two years are going to be excessively busy for LAKE. At least another fifteen CD's are scheduled from the Record Supervision vaults. Many of these, like the Alex Welsh and Brown/Fairweather All Stars albums, have never seen the light of day since deletion, and the original copies have been fetching large sums in auction. There is also much material from Colyer, Bilk and Barber, plus the best of Terry Lightfoot's work. On top of all of this I am able to break some news which will come as a welcome surprise to every musician who trudged the British club circuit in the 50's and 60's. The Dancing Slipper in Nottingham was one of the principal Midlands venues for touring bands. Run by an enthusiastic, one-armed promoter called Bill Kinnell (known affectionately to us all as Foo), the Slipper was a permanent fixture throughout the entire trad revival, and only finally closed in the early 1970's. The sound system at the Slipper was provided by an electronics enthusiast called Allan Gilmour. He was a delightful man with a large moustache and he adored jazz. With the permission of the bands (and I never heard of one refusing) he recorded every session at the Slipper from the early 1960's onwards. Covering every band which ever played the club circuit, this treasure trove of over 1000 hours of well-balanced material has been kept private for 35 years. Sadly Allan died recently and LAKE has entered into an arrangement with the estate to issue the best of the library. As you may suspect there is an enormous amount of listening to be done; but, knowing Paul (the inventor of the 36-hour day), the release of the first Slipper material is reasonably imminent. And there we have it. By the end of 2004 we can confidently predict that some 90% of the studio recordings made of British traditional and mainstream jazz during its halcyon years will be covered by the LAKE catalogue. This is an astonishing achievement, even for a specialized field of music. All I can do is to encourage readers to dip into the best of the LAKE albums, and hopefully derive as much pleasure from listening as the musicians gained from playing. Ralph M. Laing 2004 The editor has suggested that I dip my toe in exceedingly hot water by selecting what I think were the evergreen recordings from these relatively golden years. Since I suppose I've already mentioned several in my homily to LAKE, I've agreed to name my personal top 20 CD's. I don't expect anyone to agree exactly. But one thing's for sure. If it's not on my list, it's almost certainly in the LAKE catalogue. I have attempted to be brutally honest. I've also imposed a ceiling of 1968, which disqualifies several fine albums cut later, like Keith Smith's Up Jumped The Blues. Out of deference to readers who are familiar with the original albums I have used original titles. However, since it is possible to squeeze as much as 2 LP's on to a single CD, this means that the LAKE CD will contain more material than the LP title. Thus, for example, the Sandy's Sidemen CD also includes the Everybody Loves Saturday Night and Festival Hall EP's. The preponderance of LAkE albums in my list is not a sign of my venality. It really does reflect how complete is LAKE's coverage of the period. So here goes. There is no order other than a vaguely chronological one:- 1. Humphrey Lyttelton's Parlophones Vol. 2 The first hugely influential British (Calligraph) revivalist band 2. Ken Colyer/Chris Barber-New Orleans To London (LAKE) The recording that spawned a sound 3. Ken Colyer-Back To The Delta (LAKE) Colyer nails his colours to the mast 4. Sandy Brown-Sandy's Sidemen (LAKE) ) World-class traditional clarinet in ) a delightfully fresh package 5. Sandy Brown-McJazz (LAKE) 6. Alex Welsh-Melrose Folio/Dixieland To Duke (LAKE ) The first British Dixieland recordings which sounded American 7. Alex Welsh-Music Of The Mauve Decade (LAKE) 8. Acker Bilk-The Nixa 'Jazz Today' Collection (LAKE) Perhaps the most enduring of the trad boom popular recordings 9. Humphrey Lyttelton-I Play As I Please (LAKE) A classic of British mainstream 10. Kenny Ball-Kenny Ball & His Jazzmen 1960/61 An under-rated trumpet player who, as evinced here, recorded some fine traditional jazz 11. Al & Sandy/Al's Pals (LAKE) Our 2 most inventive players bid an affectionate farewell to trad and move on 12. Alex Welsh/Archie Semple-Night People (LAKE) One of British jazz's lovelier moments 13. Bruce Turner Jump Band-Jumpin' For Joy (LAKE) Our cleverest and most authoritative swing group 14. Ken Colyer-This Is The Blues (LAKE) Fine NO jazz with no apologies 15. Wally Fawkes' Troglodytes (LAKE) Humph's erstwhile partner teams up briefly with the inspired trumpet of Spike Mackintosh 16. Brown/Fairweather-Dr McJazz/Incredible McJazz (LAKE) Surely the most inventive pair of British jazz albums ever 17. Chris Barber- 18. Alex Welsh/Pee Wee Russell (LAKE) A lasting memento of British jazz's coming of age 19. Acker Bilk-In Leipzig (LAKE) Acker emerges from the trad chrysalis 20. Alex Welsh-Dresden Concert (Black Lion) A concert recording which captures the astonishing swing this band generated and features the huge talent of Roy Williams
Issue March 2004 by Singsong Entertainment Publicity Contacts: Peter Muir tel 01296 715228 peter@singsongpr.biz Pat Tynan on 01895 636935 pat@singsongpr.biz
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