Viv Rodd on keys. Myself on Saxes and Flute. Bob Tinker on Trumpet and Flugel. Terry Rodd on Drums. Pete Kubryk-Townsend on Bass.
I had to emulate a lost-sounding Alpine Horn for the intro of this one. I used the Soprano Sax. Maybe it came off, maybe it didn't. But I enjoyed trying.
This the sort of music we wanted to sing. (At the time!) In this case, Folk music, with the addition of a little jazz flute. The jazz flute thing was almost incidental and did not occur often. I didn't blow flute too much in those years. But it was basically our kind of music. If we had been on the ball we would have gotten hold of the actual recordings...we had (and squandered) plenty of opportunities! In the end it was down to my mum to do the job...holding a tape recorder microphone in front of the 'speaker of her radio! How sad is that? In the early 70s we did so much radio work it was almost a joke...and all we had to do was ask the engineers for tapes and we would have had the lot. As it is...
We really could not put our hearts into these recordings. They were our agent's idea of what we should be doing to enable his bi-annual retreats to the Bahamas; he happened to own Major-Minor records!. For us they were - at best - a fun experience.
This is another of the sessions where my mother was the unpaid and unsung recording engineer!
Bob Tinker held the baton for this recording, which was engineered at a jazz festival.
From some radio programme. This is another one recorded by my mother, using the highly technical method of holding the microphone in front of the loudspeaker! (Just in case you are wondering about the quality).
I had to play parts of this tune as if we were on a dance gig back in the 20s! I wasn't around at that period, so was relying on vague memories of stuff I had heard over the years. At the very least we all had a bit of a giggle about it!
David Jacobs was one of the true gentlemen of the BBC.
John is a musician's musician. Apart from myself on the alto sax, he played everything else, including the drums
Ths one (for its sins) made it on to "Juke Box Jury"
Jazz Poetry was rampant back in the 60s. You don't hear of it very much these days. This is a pity...at least it is for jazz musicians. In Jazz Poetry we go where the words take us, whenever and however we feel it, with no pre-conceived notions or arrangements. This, really, makes it one of the purest forms of jazz. If I were a customer, however, I'm not so sure I could sit through more than a couple of minutes of the stuff, but as a musician I'll play it until my lip gives out!
More of the same album!