'To Rodney From Ronnie'

From 'The BritJazz Team'

BritJazz has now closed but it would be fitting to give a sincere and heartfelt 'send-off' to our leader, Rodney Pledge, and say thank you for all the hard work he has put in over the years to make this blog the success that it has been.

And who better to do the musical honours than Rodney's hero, Ronnie Ross.

The BritJazz contributors have scoured the five corners of the earth (yes, we found another one), listened to hours of radio tapes, delved into the dusty archives in the cellars and searched through those boxes of James Last lps in Charity Shops throughout the land and come up with this musical Rossfest.

This is the 'seldom heard' Ronnie Ross, the session man supreme playing in some surprising company at times.  Some Rodney will know of, some he might even have heard before but we hope that there is just something that comes as a surprise. He is present on all tracks but it might only be just a chorus amongst the dross and maybe right at the end of the song but he is there and he does solo, I guarantee.

So thank you Rodney for your immense contribution to BritJazz from all of us here, good luck and Lang May Yer Lum Reek.

FLAC from lps and cds with a 'cover picture' and some basic track detail.

From Rodney:-

After a momentary flash of puzzlement (not a post I had passed for publication!), I cottoned on and felt only immense gratitude for the kind gesture and words above. So I've been the "leader" for the past six years, have I? There was me thinking I was at best a helmsman but more likely a deckhand. The folks to really take credit are those in the engine room, who supplied all the music and artwork (occasionally including me, I admit).

It has been a great source of enjoyment for me, I must say, to travel on the BritJazz voyage. Sad I feel that it has to come to the final mooring but maybe for the best on the "quit while you're ahead" principle? They'll be plenty of new ideas for jazz blogs coming along I'm sure - as well as those currently running, some of which I hope to remain moderately active on.

Some of the Ronnie Ross material here I am familiar with of course but most of it I rarely hear, and some not at all, ever. I do remember the announcement about him playing the tenor with John Miller whereas it's clearly an alto - but I shouldn't be quibbling. Many really nice bits to surprise so a fine compilation which I will treasure and intend to listen to many more times. Thank you, fellows, for the admirable hard work.

"Lum reek" sounds as if it might be quite rude but I won't try to find out what it really means in case it's even worse than I suspect.

All the best to everybody here, on both BritJazz blogs,  and thank you all for the magnificent support, of all kinds.