Memories
Milneburg Joys
Wabash Blues
When I Leave The World Behind
Chinatown, My Chinatown
St James’ Infirmary Blues
The Entertainer
Kinklets
Harlem Rag
Swipsey Cakewalk
Paper Moon
Sweet Georgia Brown
Yellow Dog Blues
Tiger Rag.
Ken Colyer (trumpet and vocal), Sammy Rimington
(clarinet), Geoff Cole (trombone), Johnny
Bastable (banjo), Ron Ward (bass) and Pete
Ridge (drums)
rec. Dancing Slipper, Nottingham, c.1963
There’s a great deal of live
Colyer material now available and quite a
lot of it emanates from the Dancing Slipper
in Nottingham where a progressive attitude
was taken regarding the recording of live
concerts. This particular disc bears the rather
swanky subtitle of The Allan Gilmour Tapes,
whose homemade gear captured many, many hours
of music.
Not all of the Guv’nor’s
greatest moments were live and I confess I’ve
listened encased in catatonic boredom to some
of the more interminable excesses unaccountably
preserved on disc. Fortunately there is better
news to report from this date, which was given
circa 1963.
The front line was completed
by the young Sammy Rimington and by Geoff
Cole. The former exhibits his fluent and effortless
George Lewis derived playing, weaving in and
through the ensembles with precocious brilliance
if not yet much personal stamp. His most characteristically
Lewis-like solo comes on Sweet Georgia
Brown. Geoff Cole, very slightly under-recorded,
proves a thoughtful and supportive and collegiate
player, whose perceptive understanding of
his role is unburdened by too many solos.
Colyer himself plays with fine note placement
and generates plenty of drive, not least on
the disc’s title track, Memories. The
clipped incisive lead pushes Milneburg
Joys ever onwards, enlivened by a brief
Cole trombone break, even though I find the
rhythm section just a touch leaden here.
When I Leave The World
Behind is one of the standout tracks,
swinging mightily, with Rimington’s arabesques
weaving breathlessly through the contrapuntal
ensemble. St James’ Infirmary Blues is
a standard but not one that the Colyer band
much embraced; the leader takes a muted solo
and sings. Whilst this was an unusual selection
the rags were very much part of the Colyer
band repertoire. The Entertainer may
be a rag but here it’s ragged - but Kinklets
is much better. One of the best examples of
Colyer’s subtlety can be heard in Yellow
Dog Blues, where he also takes a vocal,
Rimington stretches out and we can hear one
of several of Johnny Bastable’s banjo solos.
Swamped though we are with
live Colyer material this one has much to
offer. Paul Adams’s notes are astute and there
is an evocative black and white picture of
the band in action at the Richmond jazz festival.
Jonathan Woolf
Swamped though we are with
live Colyer material this one has much to
offer. ... see Full Review
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