Now I'm not short of CDs and, if I had any sense, I'd stay away from the stall but, sense has never been my strong point and, once again, I was drawn irresistibly towards it. I fought hard against forking out the princely sum of a pound and I almost made it until, at the very end of the table, my resistance crumbled.
Sandy Brown' McJazz & Friends Featuring Al Fairweather & Dick Heckstall-Smith was too much to resist.
I'd heard Brown and Al Fairweather at the City Hall, Newcastle back in the mid to late fifties when these sides were recorded and was impressed and yet never got around to buying any of their albums. In those pre-CD days bands rarely toted merchandise around with them which, upon reflection, must have limited their announcements in between tunes to, "and the next number is...".
So I handed my pound coin over in exchange for the above CD.
If I've ever spent a pound more wisely I can't remember when. Even the time (and the only time!) that I backed a 33-1 winner was mere peanuts in comparision to this investment.
Brown and Fairweather are simply magnificent. Dill Jones, Diz Disley, Cedric West, Major Holley and Stan Greig are just some of musicians who turn up on various tracks adding to the overall swing. Heckstall-Smith (on soprano), at this stage of his turbulent career was less outré than in later years and the tracks with Brown on clarinet are reminiscent of the King Jazz recordings by Mezz Mezzrow and Sidney Bechet. Brown was a better clarinetist than Mezzrow and Heckstall-Smith didn't have the, to my ears, unpleasant vibrato that was Bechet's trademark.
The album which came out on Lake LACD58 is now long deleted but there are copies lurking out there via the various online hawkers and hucksters. Worth hunting down.
A further thought - a recreation of the Sandy Brown, Al Fairweather band at a future CJP? Lance
No comments :
Post a Comment