★Jazz In Britain
On The Road
Limited edition CD & download album from Danny Thompson’s group fusing jazz with folk music. The triple CD comes in an 8-panel digisleeve with 28 page booklet detailing the complete history of the band and illustrated with photos and images mainly from Paul Dunmall’s archives.
When asked “is it jazz or folk?” about his band Whatever, Danny Thompson replied “well, it’s Whatever!” Hence the name. When Danny started Whatever, a trio with reed player Tony Roberts and guitarist Bernie Holland, and in…
Further Shadows: Essays on British Modern Jazz 1950-1975 (Book + 2CD)
Further Shadows: Essays on British Modern Jazz 1950-1975 presents an eclectic overview of perhaps the most vibrant era in the music’s development in the UK, a time when modern jazz consolidated its base, got buffeted by the fads of early rock and roll of R&B, found itself battered by Beatlemania and even faced an onslaught from pernicious forces within its own ranks. Covering fifteen years in which the schools of cool, hard bop and the avant-garde each fought for primacy, these pages record the …
An Unexpected Pleasure (Rare Live And Studio Sessions 1958-1972)
Double CD Edition, comes with a 36-page booklet. Every national jazz history has its unrepeatable figure. Britain's is Tubby Hayes, and this is the deepest single drop into his archive that anyone has yet managed - thirty-six performances, every one of them previously unissued, drawn from ten different settings across fourteen years. He was called the Little Giant, and both halves of that name did real work. Barely taller than the tenor he carried, Hayes was a professional at fifteen, a member o…
And the birds sang...
On And the birds sang…, Larry Stabbins revisits two of his deepest musical friendships, paring everything down to duets with Keith Tippett and Louis Moholo‑Moholo, where tenderness, ferocity and crooked song coexist in fiercely alive, small‑room intensity.
In Concerts
On In Concerts, Mujician - Keith Tippett, Paul Dunmall, Paul Rogers and Tony Levin - are caught across 17 years of pure, pre‑verbal improvisation, four voices moving as one organism, forever searching and sometimes touching the truly uncanny.
Keith Tippett: Mujician
Bomb! 328 pages hard-cover book, large format + 2CD of previously unreleased recordings. Keith Tippett (1947-2020) occupies a singular place in the history of British improvised music - a pianist of extraordinary range whose work moved fluidly between free jazz, large-scale orchestral composition, and solo improvisation of rare depth. Born in Bristol and trained first as a chorister, Tippett arrived in London in the late 1960s and rapidly established himself as a central figure in the city's cr…
Quintessence
A remarkable document finally surfaces after nearly 40 years in the NDR archives. John Taylor - the piano master of dense, orchestral voicings and skittish melodic invention - captured here in 1987 with the full NDR Radio Symphony Orchestra conducted by Dieter Glawischnig. All music written and orchestrated by Taylor himself. This is the logical conclusion of everything the man stood for musically - from Azimuth to Johnny Griffin's band to this luxurious symphonic setting. Stan Sulzmann on sopra…
Tebugo
"This is special for me. Evan Parker and Paul Rogers have given their permission for this release. I asked Evan if he would write some notes but he wants me to do it – my memory of the gig. That was 33 years ago (1992), so I don’t remember much. It was at the old Vortex on Stoke Newington Church Street; I must have been sitting with Candy on a little table in front of the low stage. A Marantz cassette recorder in front of me and a cheap mic stand with a single stereo mic in front of that. The ma…
What Say We Play Today?
Limited edition album by Tony Coe’s Axel featuring Tony, Gordon Beck, Phil Lee, Chris Laurence and Bryan Spring. Recorded during the Camden Jazz Festival at the Shaw Theatre in Euston, London in 1977. Featuring wonderful compositions from Tony, Phil Lee and Gordon Beck, who contributed the brilliant title track. The single CD comes in a 4-panel digisleeve, with a 20 page booklet containing notes from Dave Gelly, John Wickes, Chris Laurence and Chris Searle.
In 1975, Tony Coe formed a co-operativ…
Pay Now, Live Later
Limited edition CD & download retrospective of the pianist Gordon Beck’s musical journey from the 1960s to 1985 from a trio and quintet of Beck, Dave Green and Spike Wells plus Ray Warleigh and Iain Ballamy. The single CD comes in a 6-panel digisleeve, with a 20 page booklet written by Simon Spillett, incorporating memories provided by Iain Ballamy, Dave Green, Liam Noble. The cover art for both sleeve and booklet are original drawings from the brilliant Alban Low.
The Endangered Species
In 1980 Bobby Wellins was commissioned to write a suite of music, which he called ‘The Endangered Species’ because, in his words: “Some years ago there was an oil spillage which washed ashore in Bognar Regis where I live. The guillemots were being pulled out in a dreadful state. One reads about such things, but to see for oneself a bird's life being taken away from it is quite horrific. Their lives are short enough anyway. It brought home to me very directly the damage we are inflicting on ourse…
Antibes '62
Jazz in Britain are pleased to announce the forthcoming release of a stunning previously unissued live recording of the legendary saxophonist Tubby Hayes and his quintet live at the Antibes Jazz Festival in July 1962. Hayes' band including trumpeter Jimmy Deuchar, pianist Gordon Beck, bassist Freddy Logan and drummer Allan Ganley were the UK's representative on a starry festival bill also featuring US stars Jimmy Smith, Dizzy Gillespie and Fats Domino, drawing rave press reviews and the admirati…
The Buds of Time
This is the first ‘lost’ album Jazz In Britain has discovered. We’ve released albums that were only previously released on vinyl, or even cassette tape, ie never on CD, or albums produced from sessions by groups that never made a record, or we’ve included unreleased tracks that never made it only albums… but this is a real first for us. In 1979 Tony Coe and Bob Cornford composed pieces for an unusual, and unrepeated, combination of a six-piece jazz ensemble (two reeds, bass trombone, piano, perc…
Journey To A Destination Unknown
2025 stock This is the story of a life's journey to a destination, not only unknown, but wildly unexpected – filled with excitement, achievement and love, but also pain and struggle. Barbara Thompson, the daughter of an eminent lawyer, was born with a restless creative urge that her conventional education in music could not satisfy. It was when she discovered jazz that she found the freedom she had been seeking. But for a woman, the almost entirely male world of the jazz musician was a dangerous…
Variation and Creation: The Story of PAZ
Five years in the making and representing the twenty-year story of a pioneering British jazz-rock fusion band with strong Latinesque influences… whose alumni over that period included over thirty well-known British jazz musicians… but a band you might not have heard of… or have any of their eight albums… we have finally come up with ‘Variation and Creation: The Story of PAZ’. The album was produced in cooperation with the families of Dick Crouch and Geoff Castle, the heart of the of the band ove…
The Complete Spontaneous Event: Live 1967-1969
This tracks on this album were recorded between 1967 and 1969 and include all the tracks on the five sessions Ray Russell’s Quartet recorded ‘live’ for Jazz Club in that period. Those sessions included compositions from Ray’s first two albums he made as leader for CBS – Turn Circle and Dragon Hill. Just six tracks from these sessions were previously released on very limited edition vinyl as Spontaneous Event by Jazz In Britain in 2000. That album attracted particular interest on its release, it …
The Lantern Tree
For the last couple of years Jazz In Britain’s output has largely consisted of CDs around the 75 minute mark, either single, 2 or even 3 disc releases. However, we have quite a lot of items in our archives which come up well short of the magic 75 minutes but, in our opinion, are well worthy of release. With this in mind, we have decided to launch a ‘budget’ series of releases which will come in gatefold digisleeves with simple artwork and no booklet. CDs and downloads will both be at the same p…
Progress
On download, streaming and CD for the first time ever, the only Gyroscope album ‘One, Two, Three… Go!’ ever released, expanded with live and studio recordings from the archives plus a wealth of first-hand information about the band and many previously unseen images. Produced with the support of Gordon Beck’s sister Jude and the approval of the band members or their families.
Compiled from studio, live and rehearsal session recordings, made in 1973 and 1974, from the tape archives of Ron Mathewso…
Homage To Caledonia
The Bobby Wellins Sextet on limited edition compact disc, in a 6 panel digisleeve, including a 16 page booklet with sleeve notes written by Spike Wells and Pete Woodman plus an array of photos and publicity from the time as well as new images. Compiled from recordings of the first two concerts of the autumn 1979 tour by Bobby’s regular quartet augmented by Lol Coxhill and Bryan Spring, the CD includes the only complete ‘small ensemble’ recording of the Culloden Moor Suite released to date, along…
The Complete Fingers Remember Mingus
For the first time ever, the complete recording sessions for the Spotlite vinyl album ‘Fingers Remember Mingus’ expanded with bonus tracks. The original album sessions, and the extra tracks, were all recorded between 1979 and 1983. Co-produced by Jazz In Britain with Dave Green, who formed and led the Fingers quartet and who provided most of the recordings from his own tape archive and wrote new notes to complement the 24 page booklet which compiles contemporary reviews and articles about Finger…