Contributed by Azule Serape.
Alan Dean sings a wordless vocal unison line very much in the style of Buddy Stewart in that same 1948 period but the results are not as bad as you might fear.
It's interesting to hear this early British bop with the front line of dance band swing musicians mixed in with the new emerging stars like Tommy Pollard and Ralph Sharon. Tommy plays vibes throughout the Sextet titles rather than his usual piano.
The second group heard here on the last five tracks, The Alan Dean Be-Boppers, was the forerunner of the Club X1 group which was later to take bebop several steps forward in Britain and which will feature here in due course.
Front and back cover scans.
Reg Arnold - trumpet
Kenny Baker - trumpet
Hank Shaw - trumpet
John Dankworth - alto
Aubrey Frank - tenor
Ronnie Scott - tenor
Tommy Pollard - vibes
Ralph Sharon - piano
Pete Chilver - guitar
Jack Fallon - bass
Joe Muddell - bass
Norman Burns - drums
Laurie morgan - drums
Alan Dean - vocals
01 Galaxy
02 I Can't Get Started With You
03 First Gear
04 Confirmation
05 My Baby Likes to Bebop
06 Disc Jockey Jump
07 Fallonology
08 Jack Fiddles While Norman Burns
09 Oop-Pop-a-Da
10 Disc Jockey Jump
11 Gaberdine and Serge
12 First Gear
13 Gone with the Windmill
14 Barbados
15 Elevenses
16 Ool Ya Koo
17 Galaxy
Label: Esquire S337 12"
Recorded: 1948 1949
Lineage: LP>FLAC
Thanks for the early British Modern Jazz ... I wonder what Kenny Baker made of it! ... Baron
ReplyDeleteAbsulutely new to me ! I am very curious and thank you kindly for opening my ears to British jazz beyond Dixieland.
ReplyDeleteMore wonderful British jazz history. Many thanks.
ReplyDeleteThanks Azule for the interesting Alan Dean album.
ReplyDeleteTHE ALL STAR SEXTET WITH ALAN DEAN - MY BABY LIKES TO BEBOP
ReplyDeleteI am very fond of the bebop era, so many thanks for this one.
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Most of this album is on the Bebop In Britain box, but not all, so I finally burnt and listened to it. Excellent early bop! According to the liner notes, this was the first UK bop-oriented group to play the clubs. But apart from being historical, it also makes for a very pleasant listen.
ReplyDeleteKenny Baker was a powerful trumpeter, but he was clearly the least bop-inclined of the three trumpeters here. Reg Arnold, who belonged to an older generation, had picked up much more of the bop language, but the one who had mastered it completely here is Hank Shaw. Although it should also be said that the session on which he is present is a year and a half later than the earliest material featuring Reg Arnold, and that was a lot of time in those days.
Aubrey Frank was another musician rooted in the fading Swing era, but he is also good here, with a broad booting tenor sound in the tradition of the Swing era giants. Strangely enough the present sessions were the last recordings of both Frank and Arnold, but I suppose that soon the new breed of true boppers was taking over the scene.
If one finds Alan Dean's prominent vocal role odd, one has to keep in mind that this was part of a trend in the US in the late 40s to try to popularize bop. You had for example Dizzy Gillespie's big band witch Joe Carroll and Diz himself, Charlie Ventura's Bop For The People band with Jackie Cain and Roy Kral, and Gene Krupa's big band with Dave Lambert and Buddy Stewart. Eventually it never really caught on with the general public, but Dean's role is in line with that trend, and he is not so bad at all.
On "Oop-Pop-A-Da" a second singer is heard in addition to Dean, but he is not identified in the notes. This is also the track where Tommy Pollard plays accordion!
The liner notes mention that, based on the background figures used on "I Can't Get Started", someone must have heard a Dizzy Gillespie big band air-check in 1947. While that is possible and the Gillespie band had also toured Europe a few months before, those background figures were used already on Gillespie's January 1945 small group recording of the tune with Don Byas on tenor. This was Gillespie's first leader session, and produced bop classics such as "Good Bait" and "Salt Peanuts". Surely this classic session cannot have been unknown in British bop circles and is a prime suspect for providing the source.
Thanks again for this intriguing album, Azule Serape!
https://cjoint.net/?kx1ugy2856
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