Dippermouth Blues
All The Girls Go Crazy
Maryland My Maryland
The World Is Waiting For The Sunrise
Uptown Bumps
Blame It On The Blues
Creole Song
Chrysanthemum Rag
Snag It
Thriller Rag
Black Cat On A Fence
The Old Rugged Cross
Walking With The King
Home Sweet Home/Auf Wiederseh'n Sweetheart
Old Riley
Down Bound Train
Stack O' Lee Blues
Muleskinner Blues
Ken Colyer (trumpet and vocals); Ian Wheeler
(clarinet); Mac Duncan (trombone); John Bastable
(banjo); Dick Smith (bass); Mickey Ashman
(bass); Ron Ward (bass); Colin Bowden (drums)
rec. 1956
Here we have the Classic
Colyer band which sees us over the period
from bassist Dick Smith’s departure and Ron
Ward’s arrival – an event that took place
between the March and November 1956 recordings.
Dippermouth Blues brought back memories;
it was one of the first jazz records I ever
heard, enshrined in a Scrapbook of British
Jazz LP and saw Colyer nestling alongside
Fred Elizalde, Spike Hughes, Nat Gonella and
newer upstarts such as Chris Barber and the
Mulligan-Melly ensemble. Its vibrant, unrelenting
drive always appealed to me though not I think
so much to Lake’s Paul Adams who is lukewarm
about these March tracks. Apart from The
World Is Waiting For The Sunrise which
I have to agree is too motoric and unyielding
I rather like the vigour and single-mindedness
of them – raw and hot. Even Bowden’s Vesuvian
drumming appeals.
Then we have the Club
Session with Colyer, a supposedly all-live
concert date – which actually consisted of
two sessions at the Railway Hotel in West
Hampstead, one with audience and one without
and the latter having applause dubbed in.
The band stretches out here with Colyer’s
focused and lyrical lead to the fore and with
Wheeler’s tightly coiled vibrato and terse
acrobatics adding immeasurably to the success
of the dates – and indeed the band. The Colyer
band specialised in Rags, as Lake has had
many occasions to remind us – and Colyer’s
decisive note placement was also a tonic in
this kind of thing. The easy shifting front
line patterns and solo spotlights, with dependable
Mac Duncan’s underpinning strongly featured,
were well worked out by now, and the band
sounds entirely convincing in its chosen milieu.
The last four tracks feature
the Skiffle band. There’s an element of cowpokery
in Down Bound Train but Stack O'
Lee Blues is much better and acts as a
kind of analogue to recordings by such as
Bechet and Champion Jack Dupree. Lake has
retrieved a number of Colyer’s Skiffle sides,
not least those with Alexis Korner – here
he’s joined by Bastable, Ashman and Bowden.
The transfers sound first
class and as usual Lake’s notes set the biographical
scene very well. A final note to collectors;
these tracks were previously issued on LACD
1, 6 and 7. This disc now replaces those out-of-print
titles.
Jonathan Woolf
CD Reviews
LAKE LACB241 [68:16]
