Shellac number 4 Alan Dean and his Be-Boppers - Barbados/Gone With the Windmill

At last, a British 78! Alan Dean was possibly the first British bop vocalist although I suppose a case could also be put forward for Terry Devon with the Tito Burns Sextet or Frank Holder with the Dankworth Seven. All were in at the ground floor (or should that be the basement?) of the, then, new music.

The four sides I have by Alan Dean and his Be-Boppers (sic) indicate that Alan Dean (vocal); Reg Arnold (trumpet); Johnny Dankworth (alto sax); Ronnie Scott (tenor sax); Bernie Fenton (piano); Pete Chilver (guitar); Joe Muddel (bass) and Laurie Morgan (drums) were on their way to absorbing the lessons learned by Scott and Dankworth on their legendary transatlantic trips to New York as part of 'Geraldo's Navy'.

The beauty of the 10" 78rpm record was that they only ran for around three minutes so the soloists had to put up or shut up in just one or two choruses and, even though it has been years since I've played any of these discs I can still remember a lot of the solos. The downside for the musicians of course was that when the band played live the audience expected to hear the solo played exactly as they'd heard it on record. Back in the day most of the boppers couldn't remember what they'd had for breakfast let alone a solo they'd played six months previous. Ted Heath reportedly told a player, who'd said that he couldn't remember his solo, to buy the record and learn it!

Once again good old Jeavons provided the cover. The five digit phone number gives a clue to the date. Lance

Barbados