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| What might appear to be some awful British military tattoo recording is actually swingin' UK modern jazz cut in 1956. |
As many of you know, when quickly flipping through records in well-packed discount bins you'll often only catch the top half of the sleeve before you're on to the next. Seeing the generic UK postcard-style image used as the sleeve art for Changing The Jazz At Buckingham Palace LP, I must've passed by it at least three times over the course of a month thinking it was either some corny Kenny Ball-style English dixieland revival business or a ghastly British military tattoo record which haunts discount bins all over the world.
Upon my fourth pass some weeks later, I finally picked up the record out of curiosity to see what sort of "jazz" this might be and nearly keeled over when I noticed the smaller print at the bottom listing Jamaica-born trumpet titan Dizzy Reece and British saxophone boss Tubby Hayes. Obviously, this wasn't more boring UK trad jazz foolishness but a sample of the much-more exciting modern stuff coming out of London clubs during the mid-50s.
From the line-ups and track listing it was immediately clear that this was a collection of music recorded in England for Tempo – the two tracks "Nicole" and "Hall Hears The Blues" by the Tubby Hayes Quintet (with Harry South, Dick Hawdon, Pete Elderfield and Bill Eyden) were lifted from the 1956 After Lights Out LP while the four Dizzy Reece tunes "Blue Bird," "Yardbird Suite," "How Deep Is The Ocean" and "Bluebird Number Two" (recorded as a tribute to the then recently departed Charlie Parker with Terry Shannon, Lennie Bush and Phil Seamen) came from the rarely seen Top Trumpets split LP with Jimmy Deuchar – compiled by Savoy for the U.S. market as a sort of introduction to the current state of British jazz as it was in 1956. Why the Savoy braintrust decided to go with a hokey postcard image provided by the British Travel Association on the cover instead of a couple of cool shots of rising UK stars Tubby Hayes and Dizzy Reese when they were looking their youthful best is still baffling all these years later. I'm sure if they'd heard what Savoy were planning, Tubby and Dizzy would've popped for a proper photoshoot themselves.
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| Tubby Hayes is mistakenly referred to as "Tubby Hall" |
Whatever money that Savoy Records boss Herman Lubinsky thought he was saving in slapping the stock image on the sleeve he lost in sales to jazz buyers flipping by the odd looking 'palace guard' record in the bins. And having the woefully uniformed H. Alan Stein pen the accompanying sleeve essay just added insult to injury. Savoy label house liner notes writer Stein, who provided the notes for just about every Savoy label album release during the 50s whatever the genre – admits he's out of his depth with contemporary British jazz. He confesses upfront, "this writer had not the opportunity of being present at recording time, nor has ever been to, or met any of the musicians here..." and then goes on to embarrassingly refer to Tubby Hayes as "Tubby Hall" throughout. It seems like he mixed up Hayes with session producer and Record Mirror columnist Tony Hall from whose "After Lights Out" album notes he was cribbing for his own essay. Even if Lubinsky wasn't interested in hiring someone familiar the artists to write the essay, he should've had the sense to keep a proofreader on the payroll who would've known something was amiss when the name on the front cover and label didn't match Stein's notes.
On the upside, you get to hear a young Tubby Hayes just starting to hit his stride as a bandleader getting loose in a relaxed mode over two lengthy jams as well as an early glimpse of 25-year-old Dizzy Reece's brilliance in the spotlight just prior to being paired with Tubby by producer Tony Hall for his Blue Note debut Blues In Trinity which followed in 1958 and then his classic, Star Bright with Hank Mobley the year after. Check out a few tracks from Changing The Jazz At Buckingham Palace below.
The original Tempo tapes were remastered for this 1957 Savoy release Changing The Jazz At Buckingham Palace by the legendary sound engineer Rudy Van Gelder with the runout groove bearing his familiar "RVG" stamp of quality. What's important to consider about Tempo label recordings is that many believe that the original Tempo master tapes held by Decca UK were destroyed back in the 70s. If that's true, it would call into question the source material for the numerous CD reissues of Tempo recordings, including Jasmine's 1982 vinyl repress of After Lights Out which sounds better than you might expect for a release thought to be a vinyl master.
Since this unique Savoy label Tubby Hayes/Dizzy Reece split configuration has never been reissued on vinyl, this 1957 pressing will become more sought-after as entry-level collectors of classic British modern jazz become aware of its superior sound quality and relative rarity. Generally speaking, overseas jazz wasn't such a hot commodity in North America during the latter 50s and neither Tubby Hayes nor Dizzy Reece were household names at time time, so it should come as no great surprise that Changing The Jazz At Buckingham Palace album wasn't a big seller for Savoy. Few copies would've been manufactured and a scant number sold without a second pressing so consequently there aren't many in circulation today, 67 years later. Admittedly, it's not the top-dollar best work of Tubby or Dizzy but this is still an enjoyable listen for fans of small combo British jazz of the mid-50s. And it's certainly not the sort of thing that typical turns up in dollar bins but it sometimes pays to take a closer look at those corny looking sleeves.
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