Not to be confused with the former UK Prime Minister, Ted Heath was the leader of a famous big band that was especially popular in the UK during the 1950s. His orchestra also served as a kind of “day job” for up-and-coming British jazz musicians, allowing them to earn enough cash through radio work and recording sessions to subsidize their jazz ventures. Among the excellent musicians that played with Ted Heath’s band were Ronnie Scott and Don Rendell (tenor sax), pianist Stan Tracey and trumpeter Kenny Baker, all of whom were what you might call modernists. I thought I’d share this recording of St James Infirmary – a tune that the legendary trombonist Jack Teagarden famously referred to as “the oldest blues I ever heard” – not only for the fine arrangement, but because of the excellent trombone solo on it. There is no personnel listing but I’d bet my bottom dollar that the featured trombonist is Keith Christie, who played with Humphrey Lyttelton’s band for many years before leaving to join the Heath band in 1957; this track was recorded in 1959.
Archive for the Jazz Category
St James’ Infirmary Blues – Ted Heath Orchestra
Posted in Jazz with tags Big Band jazz, Keith Christie, St James Infirmary, St James Infirmary Blues, Ted Heath on June 19, 2025 by telescoperJazz 625 – Art Blakey and the Jazz Messengers
Posted in Jazz, Television with tags Art Blakey, Art Blakey and the Jazz Messengers, BBC, hard bop, Humphrey Lyttelton, Jazz 625, Lee Morgan on April 20, 2025 by telescoperThis just appeared on Youtube a couple of days ago and I couldn’t resist sharing it here. It is from a BBC programme in the series Jazz 625 and is presented by a chap called Humphrey Lyttelton, himself a trumpeter and bandleader. Although Humph is best known as a musician on the traditional side of jazz, he was very broadminded about music and extremely knowledgeable about more modern forms, as he demonstrated on his long-running radio show The Best of Jazz, which I listened to avidly as a teenager and which introduced open my eyes and ears to lots of new things including “hard bop“, which is the genre to which this belongs.
This programme was broadcast in 1965, at which time the BBC Television programmes were all in black-and-white so the recording has been “colourized”, and think the sound has been remastered too. It sounds great.
Anyway, the band featured here is Art Blakey and the Jazz Messengers. I was lucky enough to hear a couple of later incarnations of this group play live in the 1980s. There’s no need to run through the personnel or tunes because Humph does so in the recording. I will just add that the intro and outro are Thelonious Monk’s 52nd Street Theme.
Happy 85th Birthday, Herbie Hancock!
Posted in Jazz with tags Donald Byrd, Herbie Hancock, Jazz, The House of the Rising Sun on April 12, 2025 by telescoperProlific jazz pianist, composer, and arranger Herbie Hancock was born on 12th April 1940, which means that today is his 85th birthday. I’ve posted quite a few pieces of music featuring Herbie Hancock over the years so I thought I’d put up something a little different to mark his birthday in the form of this unusual but very cool version of The House of the Rising Sun, featuring Donald Byrd on trumpet, Hancock on piano, Kenny Burrell on guitar, Bob Cranshaw (bass) and Grady Tate (drums) and the Donald Byrd Singers. This track appeared on the album Up With Donald Byrd which wasn’t well received when it came out in 1964, but I like it!
P.S. I did a Google search for Herbie Hancock House of the Rising Sun and found this:
Fat Tuesday again…
Posted in Jazz with tags Fat Tuesday, Humphrey Lyttelton, Jazz, Paseo Jazz Band on March 4, 2025 by telescoperWell, it’s Shrove Tuesday, Pancake Day, Mardi Gras and Fat Tuesday which gives me four excuses to post this lovely old record made by Humphey Lyttelton’s Paseo Jazz Band in the early Fifties. That’s the band that featured Humph’s regular crew alongside a number of London’s marvellous West Indian musicians of the time, hence the abundance of percussion and the resulting infectious calypso beat. I’ve posted this before but the link died, so here it is again. Enjoy!
My Funny Valentine – Bill Evans & Jim Hall
Posted in Jazz with tags Bill Evans, Jim Hall, My Funny Valentine, Undercurrent on February 14, 2025 by telescoperThe Rodgers & Hart standard My Funny Valentine has been recorded well over a thousand times, with superb jazz versions by Chet Baker and Miles Davis among many others. This is one of my favourites, the result of a 1962 collaboration between pianist Bill Evans and guitarist Jim Hall on the album Undercurrent
Keith Jarrett, The Köln Concert – 50 years on
Posted in Jazz with tags Jazz, Keith Jarrett, The Köln Concert on January 24, 2025 by telescoperI was just reminded that it was on 24th January 1975 – 50 years ago today – that pianist Keith Jarrett played a live solo concert at the Opera House in Köln, West Germany. The concert was recorded and released on ECM Records as a double LP later that year. It went on to become the best-selling solo album in jazz history and the best-selling piano album ever. It’s a must-have for anyone interested in jazz.
You don’t need me to tell you why as the whole concert is available for your listening pleasure here:
Speak Low
Posted in Jazz with tags Art Taylor, Donald Byrd, John Coltrane, Paul Chambers, Sonny Clark, Sonny's Crib, Speak Low on January 19, 2025 by telescoperIt’s been a while since I shared any music on this blog, so here’s a favourite track of mine from the late Fifties. The tune, Speak Low, which was written in 1943 by Kurt Weill and rapidly became a jazz standard. The following is an instrumental version but it’s worth mentioning that the lyrics were written by Ogden Nash, a man much more known for humorous verse than for beautiful love songs.
Anyway, this version is from a great album called Sonny’s Crib recorded in 1957 by a band led by pianist Sonny Clark and released on the Blue Note label in 1958. Clark was an excellent piano player but he’s not as well known nowadays as he should be, largely because he died very young (in 1963, at the age of just 31, from a heart attack caused by a heroin overdose). I bought the album on vinyl when I was still at school, perhaps 45 years ago, and I still have it. This particular track has also featured in many “best of” collections.
Alongside Sonny Clark (piano), the sextet contains John Coltrane, no less, on tenor sax who, just a couple of weeks before, had recorded the album Blue Train as leader, also for Blue Note. Coltrane does plays a prominent role in this track and indeed in the whole session. There’s also fine Curtis Fuller (trombone) and Donald Byrd (trumpet), Art Taylor (drums) and Paul Chambers (bass). Credit must ago to Rudy van Gelder for producing that very distinctive Blue Note sound that does justice to the great musicians that recorded for the label.
Santa Claus is Coming to Town – Bill Evans
Posted in Jazz with tags Bill Evans, Gary Peacock, Paul Motian, Santa Claus is Coming to Town on December 13, 2024 by telescoperWell, just back from the Department Christmas dinner, I find myself filled with the festive spirit (or more, accurately, wine) so I thought I’d share a seasonal piece of music. As regular readers of this blog (both of them) will know, I listen to quite a lot of jazz. In the course of doing that it has often struck me that there can hardly be a tune that’s ever been written – however unpromising – that some jazz musician somewhere hasn’t taken a fancy to and done their own version. Louis Armstrong turned any amount of base metal into gold during his long career, but here’s a record I could scarcely imagine before hearing it. It’s Santa Claus is coming Town recorded in 1964 by the great Bill Evans on piano in a trio with Gary Peacock on bass and Paul Motian on drums. As far as I know this is the only Christmas tune that Bill Evans ever recorded, but I think it’s great. Enjoy!
Sixty Years of A Love Supreme
Posted in Jazz with tags A Love Supreme, Acknowledgement, Elvin Jones, Jimmy Garrison, John Coltrane, McCoy Tyner, Psalm, Pursuance, Resolution, Rudy Van Gelder on December 9, 2024 by telescoperOn 9th December 1964 – exactly 60 years ago to the day – John Coltrane (ts), McCoy Tyner (p), Jimmy Garrison (b) and Elvin Jones (d) got together to record at Rudy Van Gelder’s Studio in New Jersey. In a single session they created what is probably Coltrane’s masterpiece, A Love Supreme, an album that proved immediately popular and influential when it was released in 1965.
A Love Supreme represents a sort of musical culmination of everything this quartet had achieved and it’s not surprising that they abruptly changed direction soon after making this record. They had said everything they could say in this format. Coltrane’s next great album, Meditations, recorded in 1965, features the same musicians (with the addition of Pharaoh Sanders on tenor sax and a second drummer, Rashied Ali), but it’s much freer in style.
A Love Supreme consists of four sections: Acknowledgement, Resolution, Pursuance and Psalm. As you might imagine from the titles, it’s a deeply spiritual piece. Acknowledgement is based on an 8-bar theme underpinned by a four-note phrase played on the bass that fits the phrase “a love supreme”. Coltrane impovises rather meditatively on this theme, then the group chants “a love supreme” in unison while Elvin Jones elaborates the rhythm in complex double-time. The second movement, Resolution, is based on a different 8-bar theme and Coltrane’s playing and interplay with Jones is much more agitated but it’s in Pursuance that he pulls out all the stops. Harmonically, Pursuance is a blues but it’s taken at a fast tempo and Coltrane plays with the harsh, strangulated tone he had developed by this time. After all this frantic activity he imbues the final section, Psalm, with a radiant solemnity, as he pours out an incredibly beautiful solo, with Elvin Jones providing a perfectly judged accompaniment, the rise and fall of his drum rolls showing wonderful control.
Anyway, these are just words. It’s much better just to listen to the music, as I have done twice already this evening. Enjoy!
This Year’s Kisses
Posted in Jazz with tags Billie Holiday, Lester Young, This Year's Kisses on December 6, 2024 by telescoperI’ve been out all day on a secret mission so, in lieu of a proper post, I thought I’d share this classic record by Billie Holiday and Lester Young.
In the Dark 