NEW RELEASE FROM DUSK FIRE RECORDS

Neil Ardley's NEW JAZZ ORCHESTRA - Camden '70 Live at The Jeanetta Cochrane Theatre, London WC1 - Tuesday 26th May 1970

Buckingham, UK; June 10th 2008

Riding high on the success of its Valentyne Suite (Vertigo 1969) release, jazz rock act Colosseum embarked in the summer of 1970 on a major UK tour.

To best showcase the album's full force, the band took Neil Ardley's New Jazz Orchestra (NJO) on the road with them. It was a decision based on mutual synergy: the NJO had already played on one track on Valentyne Suite, Butty‘s Blues, and Colosseum members Jon Hiseman, Tony Reeves, Dave Greenslade and Dick Heckstall-Smith had all played previously with Ardley's big band.

Released on Dusk Fire Records this July (2008), Camden '70 (DUSKCD105) bears testament to the potency of this gathering of modern British jazz talent of the day in a debut record of a mid-tour concert at the Jeanetta Cochrane Theatre during London's Camden Jazz Festival.

Colosseum and the NJO by now had played Croydon's Fairfield Hall, Birmingham Town Hall, Lanchester Polytechnic and London's Queen Elizabeth Hall and were going on to play Portsmouth and Brighton.

"It would have been pointless trying to ignore the Colosseum connection, even if we'd wanted to so Dave Greenslade and Clem Clempson stayed on board for this show, too,” reflects NJO member and now Observer jazz critic and writer, Dave Gelly in the album's extensive booklet notes.

Between the NJO's first album, Western Reunion (Decca, 1965) and second, Le Déjeuner sur l'Herbe (Verve, 1968), Neil Ardley's writing had matured to a point where it was showing serious signs of outgrowing even the highly flexible instrument that the orchestra had become. Under his guidance, the band was now also playing new music by a whole crop of young composers - Mike Taylor, Michael Garrick, Howard Riley and Michael Gibbs among them.

The line-up on this session was substantially the one that had recorded Déjeuner, although there were a few significant absentees including Ian Carr, who was by now touring the world with his pioneering jazz-rock band, Nucleus.

The programme that night was essentially the orchestra's current concert set and drew heavily on Le Déjeuner sur l‘Herbe, which was still current and selling well. Of the eight numbers on the album, seven are included here (tracks 5 to 11).

Stratusfunk, the usual opener, is a blues piece by George Russell and most likely featuring orchestration here by Paul Rutherford. Tanglewood ‘63 by Mike Gibbs follows: Gibbs had settled in London in 1965 and by 1970 had become a leading voice in the jazz-rock movement, of which this is a pivotal example. Shades of Blue is one of Neil Ardley's early compositions, and something of a British jazz classic.

Rope Ladder To The Moon is by Jack Bruce, who played bass on Déjeuner. It appears on his 1969 album Songs For A Tailor. Michael Garrick's Dusk Fire was also the title piece of a Rendell-Carr Quintet album, as well as appearing on Déjeuner.

John Coltrane's Naïma was arranged for the orchestra by Alan Cohen; Nardis, by Miles Davis contains some characteristic Ardley scoring; Study, a short piece by Spanish guitarist Andres Segovia, was arranged by Mike Taylor with additional orchestration by Neil Ardley.

Mike Gibbs' Rebirth is happy, even triumphant in this setting and Ardley's fetching arrangement of Mike Taylor's Ballad is followed by grand finale, Le Déjeuner sur l'Herbe.

"Even after all these years, I don't think people realise what a revolutionary piece this was. And still is - because no-one has really followed it up. What Neil Ardley did here was present a whole new way of composing for the jazz orchestra," observes Gelly in his notes.

"Jazz composers all pay lip-service to Ellington, but Neil is one of the few who could actually bring off the kind of fortuitous perfect moment that Duke regularly drew from Cootie or Tricky Sam."

Last up on this 78 minute set is the drole National Anthem and Tango. Ardley wrote quite a few musical jokes and parodies, and this is one of them.

Camden '70 measures the extraordinary capabilities of a talent pool the like of which was not to be seen again in a jazz orchestra. This release (DUSKCD105) marks the recording's debut and, together with notes from Gelly and sound engineer Martin Mitchell (on the master tapes restoration) and period images, makes for a truly exciting addition to the jazz and jazz rock afficianado's collection.


ENDS

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Issued June 2008 by Singsong Entertainment Publicity. Contact: Peter Muir T 00 44 (0)(1296 715228

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