ELTON DEAN / ALAN SKIDMORE / CHRIS LAURENCE / JOHN MARSHALL – El Skid (Vinyl Rec. – VS 103 / LP-1977)

Label: Vinyl Records – VS 103

Format: Vinyl, LP, Album, Black Label / Country: Germany / Released: 1977

Style: Post Bop, Contemporary Jazz, Free Improvisation

Recorded at Riverside Studios, 25th and 26th February, 1977, London.

Design [Cover] – John Fewster

Photography By – Bill Triance

Recording Engineer By – John Gill

Produced – Manfred Schiek

Written-By – Skidmore (tracks: A1, B2) / Dean (tracks: A2, B1)

Original German Pressing

Vinyl Records / Labelcode: LC 7284 / Schlüterstraße 53, 1000 Berlin 12, W. Germany

Matrix / Runout: (Side A Etched) A VS.103 A PF

Matrix / Runout: (Side B Etched) A VS.103 B PF

A1 - Dr. Les Mosses  (A. Skidmore) ................................................................. 8:28

A2 - First In The Attic  (E. Dean) .................................................................... 12:45

B1 - That's For Cha  (E. Dean) ....................................................................... 10:55

B2 - K And A Blues  (A. Skidmore) .................................................................. 9:32

Personnel:

Elton Dean – alto saxophone

Alan Skidmore – tenor saxophone

Chris Laurence – acoustic bass

John Marshall – drums, percussion

Elton Dean is probably still best known for his contribution to Soft Machine, where his fuzzy, amplified alto grafted a jazz sensibility onto that band's organ driven psychedelic fusions. Like many of his peers (Lol Coxhill, Nick Evans, Gary Windo, Keith Tippett) Dean flitted between prog rock fusion, post bop jazz and free improv with ease, and he still does. On this long unavailable 1977 date, he teams up with tenorist Alan Skidmore (with the able support of bassist Chris Laurence and Soft Machine drummer John Marshall) for a straightahead acoustic blowing session on four original tunes, and mighty fine it is too.

Skidmore has long acknowledged his debt to John Coltrane, but he tempers the sheets of sound approach with passages of gutbucket bluesiness, recalling his tenure with John Mayall. On the opening "Dr Les Mosses" he sounds more like Sonny Rollins, delivering a concise, melodic solo over the breakneck tumbling swing of the rhythm section, paving the way for Dean's extended skyscraping alto excursion. Laurence contributes a furiously funked duet with Marshall to encouraging shouts from Skidmore...

The tenorist Alan Skidmore peppers the ballad swing of "First in the Attic" with urgent, doubletimed low register flurries, sparking off Laurence and Marshall into explosive commentary; Skidmore settles on a phrase, modulates it, moves to another or breaks out into keening high register lines, but keeps his ear firmly on the changes. Dean's influences are harder to pinpoint; his smeared phrasing, sometimes vocalised tone and quicksilver runs recall Eric Dolphy, Ornette or even Jackie Mclean, but only fleetingly; Dean is his own man. "Thats for Cha" features Dean on his saxello and Skidmore on soprano but despite its attractively Monkish melody fails to ignite, though the rumbustious blues of "K and A Blues" closes proceedings with things back on track.

The somewhat dry, close miked recording sucks the air out of things a little, but this joyous, unpretentious music is much bigger than that; these four fine musicians sound like they're enjoying themselves, and its infectious. Recommended.

(Review By Peter Marsh, 2002, BBC Review)

http://www.bbc.co.uk/music/reviews/4bdp/

If you find it, buy this album!

COE, OXLEY & Co. – Nutty On Willisau (2LP-1984)

 Hat Hut Records – hat ART 2004 – side A / side B

Label: Hat Hut Records – hat ART 2004

Format: 2 × Vinyl, LP / Country: Switzerland / Released: 1984

Style: Contemporary Jazz, Free Improvisation

Recorded live at Jazz Festival Willisau, Switzerland, on August 28, 1983.

Producer – Pia & Werner X. Uehlinger

Liner Notes – Art Lange

Recorded By – Peter Pfister

Sealed 1984 2LP Original Housed In A Die Cut Box

A  -  Some Other Autumn ......................................................... 17:12

        Written-By – Tony Coe

B1 - Nutty ................................................................................... 9:42

        Written-By – Thelonious Monk

B2 - A Time There Was ............................................................ 12:43

        Written-By – Robert Cornford

C1 - Bub Or Run ......................................................................... 8:10

        Written-By – Tony Coe, Tony Oxley

C2 - Body And Soul .................................................................. 10:16

        Written-By – John W. Green

D1 - Re: Person I Knew ............................................................ 14:20

        Written-By – Bill Evans

D2 - Gabriellissima ..................................................................... 8:10

         Written-By – Tony Coe

TONY COE – tenor saxophone, soprano saxophone, clarinet

CHRIS LAURENCE – double bass

TONY OXLEY – drums, percussion

 Hat Hut Records – hat ART 2004 – side C / side D

 Tony Coe

Chris Laurence

Tony Oxley

Tony Coe's 1983 Willisau Jazz Festival appearance with bassist Chris Laurence and drummer Tony Oxley is nothing less than a shattering performance -- every expectation or impression of the versatile Coe is laid to waste in this set of focused, innovative, time- and genre-blurring jazz tunes. Whether self-composed, such as "Some Other Autumn" or "Bub and Run," or classics such as Bill Evans' "Re: Person I Knew," John Green's "Body & Soul," or Thelonious Monk's "Nutty," Coe applies the same concentration to getting all he can from the trio format. And, as Art Lange suggests that Coe's band owes a bit to the Sonny Rollins-led trios of the late '50s, there is also a debt to the Steve Lacy trios of the late '70s and 1980, as well as Albert Ayler's earliest trio in 1959. Coe's phraseology as a saxophonist is original: He clearly loves Coleman Hawkins, Rollins, and Coltrane, but his sense of tone and embouchure is his own. Choosing Oxley as a drummer in this setting was wise: in stark contrast to the usual place of the drummer in a piano-less trio, Oxley is a bit of a minimalist, acting as a dancer on the stage, playing just enough, often enough to gather from his rhythms the place of silence within them. Laurence, on the other hand, given his background in classical music as well as jazz, is a maximalist: He and Coe go toe to toe on any number of compositions here, warring for dominant chromatics in "Nutty" and "Some Other Autumn." They slip over one another, playing asymmetrical lines at acute intervals in "Body and Soul," and weave a Moebius strip of gorgeous single line dynamics in "Re: Person I Knew." The final result, when Oxley comes at last crashing through the duo, sounding as if the wood and metal of his kit were splintering apart, is one of profound musicality and sonic empathy. These performances are offered with emotion to spare and a technical excellence only a music professor could critique with any acuity. Nutty is a joyous ride through the musical heart of Tony Coe.

Review By Thom Jurek

If you find it, buy this album!