MIKE OSBOURNE (Osborne) – Outback (Turtle Records – TUR 300 / LP-1970)

Label: Turtle Records – TUR 300

Format: Vinyl, LP / Country: UK / Released: 1970

Style: Free Jazz, Free Improvisation

Recorded in London, 1970. Made in England.

Also CD released on FMR Records ‎– FMR CD07-031994 (Unofficial Release / 1994)

Artwork – John Eaves

Photography By – Geoff Collins, George Mallett, Jake Jackson, Tony Wimlow

Engineer – Robin Sylvester

Producer – Peter Eden

Executive-Producer – Mark Wastell

Matrix / Runout: (Side A etched) TUR 300 A-1

Matrix / Runout: (Side B etched) TUR 300 B-2

Notes:

Mike Osborne's name is printed as "Mike Osbourne" on this release.

A - So It Is ........................................................................................................... 24:44

B - Outback ........................................................................................................ 18:28

Personnel:

Mike Osborne – alto saxophone

Harry Beckett – trumpet

Chris McGregor – piano

Harry Miller – bass

Louis Moholo – drums, percussion

Mike Osbourne – Outback (Rare British jazz 1970 UK LP, released on the small independent free jazz label Turtle Records (home of similar rarities from Howard Riley and John Taylor) set up by producer Peter Eden, and packed with the super stars: Harry Beckett (trumpet), Chris McGregor (piano), Harry Miller (bass) and Louis Moholo (drums). The album soon is became know as an absolute classic and probably the most important record he made, with two tracks of impassioned playing of the finest order!

Absolutely major release in his short, but fiery career!

Early genius from British saxophonist Mike Osborne – his first session as a leader, recorded in the company of some of the greatest players on his scene! Osborne's got a strong vision here that's apparent from the first note of the set – a mixture of freedom and cohesive energy that resonates with the best modes of the ESP albums cut a few years before this one – stretching out with the new imagination that was setting the London jazz scene on fire at the start of the 70s. Osborne's alto is at the lead of a quintet that also includes Harry Beckett on trumpet, Chris McGregor on piano, Harry Miller on bass, and Louis Moholo on drums – and the sound is a mixture of some of the post-Blue Notes work of McGregor with bolder-blown trumpet/sax lines from Beckett and Osborne. The album features 2 long tracks – the stark, angular "So It Is", and the slower-building "Outback", which features some especially nice solos from Beckett.

_______ Out of print .   

© 1996-2016, Dusty Groove, Inc.

If you find it, buy this album!

THE MIKE WESTBROOK CONCERT BAND – Marching Song Vol. 1 and Vol. 2 (2LP-1969/2CD-1998)

Label: Deram – 844 853-2

Format: 2 × CD, Compilation / Country: UK / Released: 1998

Originally released in 1969 as two separate LPs: Deram SML 1047 and Deram SML 1048

Style: Big Band, Contemporary Jazz

Recording Dates: 31st March, 1st April, 10th April, 1969.

Engineer – Bill Price

Executive-Producer – Bernard Lee

Leader [Musical Director] – Eddie Harvey, John Surman, Mike Westbrook

Producer – Peter Eden

Amazing jazz masterpiece from 1969, originally released in two parts on Deram and presented here as a double- CD at a single price. Double album featuring Westbrook with Alan Skidmore, David Holdsworth, John Surman and a wild collection of brass-wielding legends. An anti-Vietnam piece that takes a remarkable journey from civilisation to war and its inevitable results. A powerful and evocative piece that features some excellent performances and magnificent solo-ing as the tension mounts...

101. Hooray! . . . 6:24

        trumpet solo: Dave Holdsworth

        alto solo: Mike Osborne

        crowd sounds: Bill Price

102. Landscape . . . 15:25

        flute solo: Bernie Living

        bass duet: Harry Miller, Barre Phillips

        sax duet: John Surman, Mike Osborne

103. Waltz (for Joanna) . . . 5:50

        soprano solo: John Surman

104. Landscape (II) . . . 0:39

105. Other World . . . 8:23

        trombone solo: Paul Rutherford

106. Marching Song . . . 11:30

        tenor saxes: Nisar Ahmad Khan, Alan Skidmore

Composed By – Mike Westbrook

201. Transition . . . 5:12

202. Home . . . 7:35

        trombone solo: Malcolm Griffiths

        bass duet: Harry Miller, Chris Lawrence

203. Rosie . . . 6:36

        trumpet solo: Dave Holdsworth

204. Prelude (Surman) . . . 4:43

        woodwind: Bernie Living, Mike Osborne, Alan Skidmore

205. Tension (Surman) . . . 4:33

        saxophone duet: John Surman, Alan Skidmore

        trombone solo: Malcolm Griffiths

206. Introduction . . . 5:58

207. Ballad . . . 2:26

        alto solo: Mike Osborne

208. Conflict . . . 10:44

        tuba solo: George Smith

209. Requiem . . . 0:52

210. Tarnished (Surman) . . . 5:56

        soprano solo: John Surman

        alto solo: Mike Osborne

211. Memorial . . . 2:22

        drums solo: Alan Jackson

Composed By – Mike Westbrook except traks 204, 205, 210 by John Surman

Mike Westbrook – Piano

Dave Holdsworh – Trumpet, Fluegelhorn

Kenny Wheeler – Trumpet, Fluegelhorn

Greg Bowen – Trumpet

Tony Fisher – Trumpet

Henry Lowther – Trumpet

Ronnie Hughes – Trumpet

Malcolm Grifiths – Trombone

Paul Rutherford – Trombone

Mike Gibbs – Trombone

Eddie Harvey – Trombone

Tom Bennellick – French Horn

Martin Fry – Tuba

George Smith – Tuba

John Surman – Baritone, Soprano Saxes

Mike Osborne – Alto Sax, Clarinet

Bernie Living – Alto Sax, Clarinet

Alan Skidmore – Tenor Sax, Flute

Nisar Ahmad Khan – Tenor Sax

John Warren – Alto, Baritone Saxes, Flute

Brian Smith – Tenor Sax

Harry Miller – Bass

Barre Phillips – Bass

Chris Lawrence – Bass

Alan Jackson – Drums

John Marshall – Drums

The first time I had a chance to hear this album before about thirty years.  I was blown away then and nothing has changed in the meantime. If you like free blowing big band jazz give this a listen. You will not be disappointed.

If you find it, buy this album!

MIKE OSBORNE: TRIO / QUINTET – Border Crossing (1974) + Marcel's Muse (1977) – CD-2004

Label: Ogun – OGCD 015
Format: CD, Compilation, Digipack; Country: UK - Released: 2004
Style: Free Jazz, Free Improvisation
"Border Crossing" recorded live at the Peanuts Club, held at the "Kings Arms", Bishopsgate, London, E.C.2 on 28 September 1974.
"Marcel's Muse" recorded in London on 31 May 1977
Executive-Producer – Hazel Miller
Mastered By – Martin Davidson
Mixed By, Edited By – Keith Beal (tracks: 1 to 4)
Producer – Keith Beal (tracks: 1 to 4), Ron Barron (tracks: 5 to 8)
Recorded By – Ron Eve (tracks: 5 to 18)

The saxophonist Mike Osborne is pungent, sweet-and-sour, occasionally anguished tone might twinge some teeth, and almost all the material here represents a spiky, free-jazz exploration of idiosyncratic originals.

 

In his heyday from the late 1960s to the end of the 70s, alto saxophonist Mike Osborne was one of the most distinctive saxophone voices in Brit-jazz (and when you are talking about a school that included Elton Dean, Evan Parker, Dudu Pukwana, Alan Skidmore, etc., that is really saying something). This is two of his five albums as a leader for Ogun together and complete on one CD. "Although having retired from the music scene for well-documented health-related reasons over 20 years ago*, Osborne is still the greatest alto saxophonist ever to come out of Britain (that of course being separate and distinct from all the great alto players who came into Britain, such as Bertie King, Joe Harriott, Dudu Pukwana, Bernie Living, Ray Warleigh and Ntshuks Bonga) and this album of highlights from one of the trio ’ s many continuous performances at Stockwell ’ s Peanuts Club of the early-to-mid ‘ 70s is the unassailable proof of that assertion. He came out of Jackie McLean and Eric Dolphy via Ornette, but Osborne quickly found and established his own level of intensity, never better documented than here. As the three musicians move from tune to tune, the intensity of the music is stoked up to such a degree that side two of this album in particular is an emotionally exhausting adrenalin rush of music, easily up there with Ornette at the Golden Circle, Osborne, Miller and Moholo existing in absolute and blissful telepathy as they threaten to break all manner of sound and space barriers. This record, more than most in the Ogun catalogue, is urgently in need of reissue.
– (Text is from 2004)

*Note: Illness prevented him working from 1982. He died on 19 September 2007.

...Despite his illness and an increasing spiral of drinking and drug-taking, Ossie was able to hold things together for periods, largely due to the emotional, and financial, support of the ever-loyal Louise. Schizophrenia is perhaps the most destructive of any mental illness. Over time, the personality and the individual’s capacity to function deteriorates usually to the point where long-term care is required. That would prove the case with Mike Osborne. And yet, from 1975 even into the early-80s, Ossie produced some of his most remarkable work. Working with Hazel and Harry Miller and their Ogun record label resulted in Border Crossing with his trio with Harry and Louis and three years later in the quintet album, Marcel’s Muse, featuring Marc Charig on trumpet and the highly talented Jeff Green on guitar. There were also two albums with Stan Tracey, at the time in his most experimental phase. Both Tandem and Live at Bracknell are exceptional pieces of work and better yet are planned for reissue soon...
_ By Duncan Heining



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HARRY MILLER'S ISIPINGO – Which Way Now (1975, Re-2006)

Label: Cuneiform Records – Rune 233
Format: CD, Album; Country: US - Released: 2006
Style: Free Jazz,  Free Improvisation, Contemporary Jazz
Recorded at Post-Aula, Bremen, Germany on November 20, 1975.
Coordinator [Release Coordination] – Steven Feigenbaum
Design [Cd Package] – Bill Ellsworth
Painting [Cover Painting] – Ellie Payne; Photography By – Jak Kilby
Producer [Concert] – Gisela Steppat, Volker Steppat
Recorded By – Dietram Köster, Jürgen Kuntze, Klaus Schumacher, Peter Schulze
Remastered By [Tube] – Michael King, Miki Dandy
Technician [Transfer From The Original Tapes] – Christoph Romanowski

Which Way Now features over 70 minutes of music from a beautifully recorded radio concert from November 20, 1975; it sounds as if you are in the room right with the band!
Since Isipingo only released one album during their lifetime, this release dramatically extends their legacy and like Cuneiform's important and historical work with the Brotherhood of Breath, brings this important, hugely enjoyable, nearly-forgotten music to a new audience.

The remarkably large and intersecting jazz and progressive rock community of late-'60s and early-'70s England is enough to give any discographer nightmares. But within that group a few key players came together more often than most, including a contingent which had escaped South Africa's apartheid. Harry Miller was one such artist, an in-demand bassist who appeared on albums by King Crimson, saxophonist Elton Dean's Ninesence and pianist Chris McGregor's Brotherhood of Breath. Miller is underrepresented as a leader, so Which Way Now is a particularly welcome rescued archival live recording, highlighting Miller's considerable skills as composer and bandleader.

Recorded for Radio Bremen in 1975, Which Way Now features Miller's Isipingo sextet. It's a refreshingly vibrant acoustic jazz album, recorded at a time when most of his peers were pursuing the carrot of fusion. Combining traces of his African roots with a more open-ended improvisational aesthetic, it also strongly reflects the influence of jazz icon John Coltrane. Four extended pieces ranging from 15 to 21 minutes show Miller's ability to provide maximum freedom and avoid compromise. Pervasive rhythms that only occasionally dissolve into total freedom also keep them completely accessible.

The performance was recorded less than a month before another South African ex-pat, trumpeter Mongezi Feza, passed away in December, 1975 at only 30. A sharp-toned player who left a small but fine body of work, Feza is perhaps best known for his work on singer/songwriter Robert Wyatt's early records. Here he's at his best on the mid-tempo, modal "Eli's Song, where his own sense of construction combines with a certain abandon. He's matched by Mike Osborne, who may be an altoist, but is clearly informed by Coltrane's assertive stance.

The spirit of Coltrane may loom over this session, but the presence of pianist Keith Tippett takes it to a different place entirely. The best-known and certainly the most prolific player of the bunch, Tippett has always leaned towards more complete freedom. Here he isn't exactly reined in, but he remains within a sphere of smaller diameter, creating an outré space underneath the soloists that, oddly enough, meshes perfectly with Miller and South African drummer Louis Moholo's insistent pulse.

Trombonist Nick Evans' solo on the fiery title track interacts boldly with Tippett's sparse accompaniment, manifesting the kind of chemistry that's honed from years of working together. This shared chemistry amongst the entire sextet is, in fact, what makes Which Way Now so exciting from beginning to end. Whether acting as a tag-team rhythm section partner with Moholo and Tippett or delivering provocative solos, Miller clearly had the makings of a musical giant—which makes it all the more sad then that, like Feza, Miller's life was cut short prematurely in 1983 at the age of 42. Still, Which Way Now is a welcome reminder of just how vibrant the UK improvising scene was—and continues to be.

_ By JOHN KELMAN, Published: August 12, 2006



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CHRIS McGREGOR'S BROTHERHOOD OF BREATH – Travelling Somewhere (Live-1973) – 2001

Label: Cuneiform Records – Rune 152
Format: CD, Album; Country: US - Released: 2001
Style: Free Jazz, Big Band
Recorded January 19th, 1973 at Lila Eule, Bremen, Germany.
Coordinator [Research And Release Coordination] – Steven Feigenbaum
Design – Bill Ellsworth
Engineer – Dietram Köster
Liner Notes – Mike Fowler
Mastered By [Premastering], Edited By – Matt Murman
Photography By – Jak Kilby
Producer – Peter Schulze

Travelling Somewhere consists of a concert recorded by Radio Bremen (Germany) on January 19, 1973, one week before the Chris McGregor & the Brotherhood of Breath show in Switzerland that would be released on Ogun in 1974 as Live at Willisau.

Personnel : Harry Beckett: trumpet; Mark Charig: trumpet; Nick Evans: trombone; Mongezi Feza: trumpet; Malcolm Griffiths: trombone; Chris McGregor: piano; Harry Miller: bass; Louis Moholo: drums; Mike Osborne: alto sax; Evan Parker: tenor sax; Dudu Pukwana: alto sax; Gary Windo: tenor sax.


BBC Review:

Ex-pat South African pianist McGregor made an immeasurable contribution to British and European jazz in the 1960's and 70's with his Blue Notes, a group of black South African jazz musicians whom the white bandleader hand-picked after hearing them perform at the 1962 Johannesburg Jazz Festival.

Opportunities for a mixed race group in South African being limited, to say the least, McGregor and his crew left their troubled homeland in 1964, and did most of their performing and recording in voluntary exile during the next twenty-five years. Several years after arriving in London with the Blue Notes, McGregor also assembled the Brotherhood of Breath, an ambitious avant garde big band which incorporated various members of the Blue Notes, along with the best of Great Britain's young jazzbos. McGregor struggled to keep the Brotherhood of Breath alive, and it performed sporadically over the years, with a revolving cast of musicians.

This CD documents an exceptional early live performance of the band, when they were at their creative peak. Perhaps because the United States has always been considered the ultimate repository of jazz talent, drummer Louis Moholo, alto saxophonist Dudu Pukwana and trumpeter Mongezi Feza have never really received critical attention commensurate with their abilities, but they were arguably as good as many of their more famous American counterparts. Put them together in a band with the young Evan Parker, Mark Charig, Gary Windo, Mike Osborne, Harry Beckett and Malcolm Griffiths (among others) and give them the energetic direction and compositional abilities of McGregor, and you have something very special.

Later editions of the Brotherhood might have been more sleek and refined, particularly in their studio incarnations, but there's an exuberant energy and density to these 1973 performances, recorded for Radio Bremen in front of a live audience, which at times reaches an almost ecstatic intensity. It's almost as if the Sun Ra Arkestra had been reconstituted in a parallel African reality.

Several pieces, particularly Pukwana's "MRA" and McGregor's "Do It," have the infectious and distinctive township highlife sound, the product of the cross-pollination of jazz and African dance rhythms. A seemingly simple, riff-based piece like "MRA' allows group members considerable latitude, as they improvise against the dominant riffs and develop counter-rhythms and melodies seemingly at will. The ragged collective improvisation periodically dissolves into chaos, only to reinvent itself and rise triumphantly from its own wreckage.

McGregor's "Restless" opens with the leader stating the quirky, Monkish theme on piano, and then showcasing Harry Beckett's eloquent trumpet and later, Pukwana's fiery alto sax. McGregor's "Ismite is Might" has the whole band wailing a slow, sonorous gospel dirge, which soon segues into "Kongi's Theme," a march-like piece with a stomping, second-line New Orleans beat. McGregor's "Wood Fire" starts with another Monkish figure, but soon extends into a freeform harmolodic mingling of multiple melody lines and patterns, making it clear that McGregor had absorbed some important ideas from Ornette Coleman. The title piece, another of McGregor's compositions, is primarily Pukwana's vehicle, as the band establishes a traditional swing groove with Pukwana's alto skittering and screeching over the top. Imagine Jimmy Lyons holding down the first alto chair in the Count Basie band, and you'll have some idea of this track's peculiar charms.

Cuneiform is to be commended for rescuing these tapes from the Radio Bremen archives, as the band's performance here is not just an important historical document, but even thirty-some years after the fact, a representation of some of the most vital and life-affirming big band jazz ever played by anyone, anywhere.

_  By Bill Tilland, 2002
http://www.bbc.co.uk/music/reviews/2bdp



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