Side One

1.        Before Six                Larry Frazier                            Impulse! 45-205 1962

2.        Funky Mama (Pt.1)  Lou Donaldson                        Blue Note 1868 May 1962

3.        The Wave                Lalo Schifrin                            MGM K13224 Oct 1962

4.        Camp Meetin'           Don Wilkerson                        Blue Note 1864 Jun 1962

5.        The Shampoo          Les McCann                            Pacific Jazz 350 1962

6.        Baby Lou                 Jimmy Drew                            Decca 31275 1961

7.        Chano                      Johnny Dankworth                  Columbia DB 4695 Sep 1961

Side Two

1.        Boss Tres Bien        The Quartette Trés Bien           Norman 541 1962

2.        Scootin'                    Sam Lazar                                Argo LP 4015 1962

3.        Creole Walk             Phil Guilbeau                    Atlantic 5025 Feb 1962

4.        Fire Down Below     Ted Curson                              Prestige 241 Dec 1962

5.        Lady E                     Tubby Hayes                           Fontana TL 5195 Jun 1962

6.        After Six                  Larry Frazier                            Impulse! 45-205 1962

In 1960, when the Miles Davis Quintet played the final date of their British tour on Sunday October 9th at the Kilburn Gaumont State, Davis played the entire show with his back to the audience. In fact he never introduced a song or even uttered a word. Miles had just released ‘Sketches of Spain’ and, with a band including the great Sonny Stitt, played songs off the ‘Kind Of Blue’ album. In the packed audience that night was aspiring trombonist and amateur club promoter Dick Jordan. Davis may have been unapproachable and aloof but the sheer talent he had displayed did nothing more than inspire Jordan.

At the time, the London jazz scene was thriving and divided into two very different playing styles. The traditional jazz scene was holed up at 100 Oxford Street. Jazzshows Ltd provided the club with the likes of Acker Bilk, Alex Welsh and the Mick Mulligan band featuring vocalist George Melly seven nights a week and an 11.30pm finish. Just across the road at The Marquee Club, a whole different scene was being served up. Although trad was catered for here, modern jazz was featured three evenings a week. Modernist dreams were fulfilled on Sunday evenings by Johnny Dankworth’s fifteen piece band that featured the multi-talented Alan Branscombe on piano… and when needed alto sax, tenor sax, flute and vibraphone! Alas this club closed at 11.30pm too.

If you wanted all night action then you needed to head to The Flamingo Club in Wardour Street. At the evening sessions, held three times a week, customers were advised to wear a collar and tie.  On Saturdays you could stay on for a session that ran from midnight to 6am but the atmosphere was dark and moody as Soho’s underworld figures converged on the club. The place to be though was Ronnie Scott’s in Gerrard Street, at the time the newest club, having been open less than a year and which had already established itself as the centre of London’s modern jazz scene. Scott himself, a tenor saxophonist of international stature, led his Quintet through four sessions a week, boasting a brilliant trumpeter in the form of Jimmie Deucher. Besides Ronnie’s band, the latest attraction in the club at this time was West Indian alto saxophonist Harold ‘Little G’ McNair. Sunday evenings featured Scott’s ex co-leader of the now defunct Jazz Couriers and a saxophonist of incredible talent, Tubby Hayes.

If Scott, Dankworth and Hayes were the masters of British modern jazz, Dick Jordan was a more than willing disciple. Dressed in smart American style modernist clothing acquired from Cecil Gee’s, Austin’s and Yeo in the Charing Cross Rd, he certainly looked the part. Finding those elusive records would prove harder. ‘My sister used to invite American GI’s that she’d met at The Lyceum over to our house for Sunday tea. Inevitably I’d talk to them about jazz and often they’d return with albums they’d picked up from the air base. American jazz was the best but hard to find. Dobell’s at 77 Charing Cross Road would get some but one place I used was the Soho Record Centre run by Alex Strickland on the corner of Dean St and Old Compton St, because they would order them for me.’

In January ’61, just three months after the Miles Davis gig, Dick along with his business partner Geoff Williams, opened a club called Klooks Kleek on the first floor of The Railway Hotel in West Hampstead. Don Rendell, a top British sax player headlined the first night and with an entrance fee of just 2s 6d, it was a club people could afford. By May ’62 the club boasted 3,000 members, which was a reflection of the quality acts they would present, players such as Dick Morrisey, Harold McNair and Tubby Hayes. One of their regular house bands, the Dave Morse Quintet boasted a gifted young pianist by the name of Brian Auger.

‘One evening in ’62 it was incredibly foggy. We got to the club and only about three people showed up. Tubby Hayes was due to play, and bless him, he turned up. It wasn’t really worthwhile him playing, so he had a quiet beer and waived his fee which he could easily have demanded. Good job really, as we had a new piano which wasn’t yet tuned. He wouldn’t have been able to tune his vibes…and he liked playing those! Ronnie Scott once played the club for nothing, he even paid his band. It felt like we were all in it together.’

Back in the West End, dance crazes such as The Twist to The Madison were taking over the dance floors at various sophisticated venues including the Saddle Room and the Peppermint Lounge. Modernists wouldn’t be seen at these places though; their clubs were usually unlicensed premises in dark smoky basements serving a chaste menu of Coca-Cola and hamburgers.

1962 proved to be a very popular year for a more soulful jazz sound. The Flamingo sensed this and in March ’62, they put on a band specialising in this style, the Blue Flames. Georgie Fame was given a Hammond organ to replace the piano he had been using and soon their act would imitate many of the sound styles on this album ranging from the flowing organ work of Les McCann to Jerry Butler’s soulful guitarist, Larry Frazier to the smooth vocals of Jimmy Drew, reminiscent of Mose Allison. It was during this year that Tubby Hayes got his second chance to play in New York recording the album ‘Return Visit’ and playing alongside American giants such as Roland Kirk. ‘Little E’ is taken from one of these sessions.

Collected here are some gems that mix the influential American sounds with a couple of slabs of British quality from labels such as Impulse, Blue Note, Decca, Prestige, Atlantic, Chess, Fontana and Columbia. This album captures the period just before rhythm and blues would begin to emerge as the dominant club sound, forcing clubs like Klooks to change their music policy in order to survive.

Paul ‘Smiler’ Anderson.