Innovations in British Jazz

[maygar]

Got this from santa, it has been mentioned elsewhere, but perhaps deserves a thread of its own. I'm about a quarter through, and it is not brilliantly written, but seems very well researched and puts things in a framework. I'm not old enough to have been in that 60s scene, but enjoy the music, (Dean, Coxhill, Evan Parker, Brotherhood...) and the book helps me understand where they were coming from and how it all evolved. It had a terrific free cd of Mike Osbourne too.
It is good to see that someone has taken the time and care to document this essential period. Apparently there is a vol 2 in preparation, to bring the story up to date.

[Bev Stapleton]

I find this book incredibly useful for piecing together that period; there's not much out there otherwise. As you say it could have done with some proper proof reading. There are places where the text disappears mid-sentence.

I like all the photos of the album sleves too. Some I recall seeing in the 70s.

I came to jazz via the British jazz-rock of the 70s and its nice to see the likes of King Crimson, Soft Machine and Henry Cow get due mention in a jazz book. Where I found it most useful was in tracking the pre-1970 period which I knew little about; and the 'avant' scene which I never really followed.

Very much looking forward to volume 2.

Incidentally, I never knew Santa was a jazz fan.

[tonym]

That sounds good.

Again I'm not old enough either to be familiar first hand with what was going on around that time. But what is interesting to me is how this is something the British do very well. By that I mean how we can take something from another country/culture and add a unique flavour or eccentricity to it (Jonathan Meades writes about this brilliantly).
After all we are a bit of a magpie nation aren't we?

This era of british jazz seems no exception from what I've heard on record. And unless you scour the back issues of Jazz UK, I can't think of many other places it's being documented.

Cheers and all the best, tonym

[maygar]

Bev, if my stocking is anything to go by, Santa is one hip cat !
I like all the album cover photos too. He seems to give Stan Tracey due credit, rarely done in print. I was also pleased to see people like John Renbourn get a passing mention, as someone like Mclaughlin was very much from the same mould, they just choose different directions at some point.
The magpie comment is interesting, it is perhaps the 'Island Mentality' which means that once something is absorbed into England it becomes slightly isolated and develops its own style.
But the same period was very fertile jazzwise throughout Europe, there were good things happening in France and Germany that I know of, it was just a time when jazz wasn't getting much press, as rock swept all before it.
Great to see the balance being reset !

[Bev Stapleton]

maygar,

Just out of interest, where are you posting from? Or have you left your 'location' blank deliberately?

I'm intrigued by the sort of music you talk about so enthusiastically.

[maygar]

Bev,
I'm posting from Paris, been here for 10 years now, but am originally from London. I started listening to jazz at the end of the 70s, and have fond memories of Dudu Pukwana, John Stevens, Elton Dean... but also remember the paucity of interest in such people, there was one pub gig with Evan Parker and Derek Bailey amongst others where there were as many players as spectators.
John Stevens did gigs for a while in a place he called the Bird's Nest, which was the basement of a chinese takeaway!
But the scene picked up with that boom in the 80s, all the Shephard, Pine stuff, but those older players didn't get that much benefit from it. Wickes book makes me wish I was a few years older and could have been there at those Brotherhood gigs in Ronnies' Old Place !

[Bev Stapleton]

Sounds like we are of the same vintage. My first jazz concerts were Stan Tracey on his '76 'Under Milk Wood' tour (with speaker), Harry Miller's Isipingo and El Skid with Dean and Alan Skidmore (if you don't count things like Henry Cow, Lol Coxhill solo with candles! or Nucleus which I saw while at University).

Are you aware of this pair of books, issued from Paris by a French enthusiast:

* Simply Not Cricket 1964 - 1994
* Simply Not Cricket No 2 1995 - 2000
Catalogue Du Jazz Britannique - Philippe Renaud

It appears to be a discography. There's an interesting interview at this site which is a good source for jazz books:

http://www.jazzscript.co.uk/books/cricket1.htm

Interview is at:

http://www.jazzscript.co.uk/extr.cricket.htm

[maygar]

I had seen the reviews on that site, and thought the books looked interesting, I will have to get my hands on them. My first gig was Oscar Peterson, I was 15. After that my interest in the music hopped all over the place in a very unstructured way, I used to like Morrisey Mullen, and so checked out an early Dick Morrisey album, which put me onto all that Brit hard bop scene. A guy I knew at work then took me to a Pukwana gig, and bingo, I felt at home! All that period, Harrys Miller and Beckett, etc is really my thing, and I only recently found a more modern 'equivalent' in terms of the enthusiasm provoked, and that is the wide range of music centered around William Parker / Hamid Drake.

I never got the chance to see Harry Miller live, must have been great !

[Bev Stapleton]

'Twas indeed a marvellous concert - though I remember being disappointed as Keith Tippett couldn't make the gig (I was coming to this from King Crimson and Centipede). I can't recall who played instead.

I saw Morrissey-Mullen at Aberystwyth whilst visiting a friend there c.74 or 75. A bit too funky for my tastes.

I can see what you mean about the parallel with Parker/Drake - I've only touched on it but there seems to be that freewheeling, endless permutation and re-permutation that characterised that 70s scene.

Now maybe if Parker and Drake could get parts on the next Limp Biscuit CD...

[maygar]

ah, why not !

I agree that Morrissey Mullen were a bit too funky, but always great value for money. Noel Mccalla who sung with them for a while is very good too, and at the time they had Pete Jacobsen on keyboards. But once again it provided an unsual springboard into other things. Parker/Drake reversed the process when I saw the 'Inside Songs Of Curtis Mayfield' concert it made me get back into Mayfield, and other soul singers of the era.

[Bev Stapleton]

I actually bought the recent Morrissey-Mullen compilation 'Everything Must Change' a couple of months back. Enjoyable record though very much of its time. I think I'm a little less worried by funky these days!

[maygar]

They were always high calibre, improvising funk, as opposed to something limp like Level 42 or SpyroGyra, and Jim Mullen is one of the best guitarists around, for my money.

[Bev Stapleton]

Yes, I have a few of his more recent discs. I saw a great concert with him and Dave O'Higgins a few years back - storming version of 'Ramblin''

I also remember him in Kokomo! Nice record!

[maygar]

I have now finished this book, and as a conclusion I think it is useful to put the diverse elements of the jigsaw in place, but suffers from the authors incoherence, and the amount of typos etc. At one point Wickes states "This group were mostly undisputatious to a man" Firsty undisputatious doesn't exist (its one of several home-made words he comes up with) and then secondly, 'to a man' is inclusive, it implies the totality, so cannot be used with mostly.
This sort of thing actually makes reading the book very tiring. So, the research was well done, and very thorough, but needed a real writer to make it readable.

[RogerFarbey]

Wickes' book, though indispensible, is not necessarily the best one of its ilk, which in my opinion, remains 'Music Outside' (so named because jazz in the UK was seen as a 'Cinderella' of the arts at that time and probably still is) by Ian Carr published in 1973 and out of print for many years. However, it does command ridiculously high prices second hand (last seen on Amazon for over £100 I think - it cost £3.00 new!). An excellent book which deals with all the major British players from the late 60s, early 70s and has a terrific discography at the end.
Pity it is reprinted.

[maygar]

I'd like to get the Carr book, but not at any price !

It would be good if was not only reprinted, but updated, after all, 1973 is a long time ago !

[Bev Stapleton]

There's a copy in Nottingham library! I read it about 20 years ago and have seen it on the shelves since!