Everybody Loves Saturday Night, Too Bad, Something Blues, Tree Top Tall Papa, African Queen, Special Delivery, Nothing Blues, Africa Blues, Black Six Blues, Blues Stampede, Fifty-Fifty Blues, Nobody Met The Train, Stay, Swiss Kriss, High Time, Look The Other Way, Candy Stripes, Mouse Party, My Neck Of The Woods.

I was too young to be in at the beginning of the British traditional jazz revival, in fact I didn't catch the bug until near the end of the Trad boom, hence I almost missed Sandy Brown. I first came across his name as the clarinetist on a 45 put out by Johnny Mortimer and his Band (the Paramount Jazz Band less Acker Bilk, said to have been their idea of revenge for Acker releasing "Stranger on the Shore" without them). I was very taken with him; strong playing, woody mellow tones, unique phrasing. I sought for more, only to find that the only tracks I could get were odd ones on Pye's Golden Guinea Jazz Britannia album. At last I have caught up with him.

The CD comprises of tracks laid down for the Tempo label 1955-56, when Sandy was just emerging as a force on the British jazz scene. A few years back I caught up with Sandy again when I picked up a pack of cheap CDs at the Warehouse called: '72 Jazz Classics' and found that of the 72 tracks, Sandy appeared on 5 of them. This is the first album I have that has Sandy on his own, though considering the line up of the band includes top jazzmen Al Fairweather, John RT Davies (or Sheik Haroun of Wadi el Yadounir as he was with the Temperance Seven), Graham Burbridge and Stan Grieg,'on his own', is perhaps not the best choice of phrase, but Sandy is definitely the main feature. Of the 19 tunes, Sandy wrote 6 of the first 11, and trumpeter and schoolmate, Al Fairweather, wrote the final 8 tunes

If you have never heard Sandy Brown play, you must; he is wonderful, just wonderful. The front line players all complement and enhance each other and the whole band (in all various line-ups) swings along very well. The style does alter on the later tracks and moves somewhat from traditional to mainstream, this is especially noticeable on 'Look The Other Way' which has much orchestrated syncronised playing by the front line. "Stay" features Diz Disley playing an electric guitar as part of the front line. As the rest of the band are playing traditional jazz, it does not fit. Disley's guitar does fit in better on 'Mouse Party', where he joins Bob Clarke on violin in a Hot Club of France style number. The other 'experimental' number is 'My Neck Of The Woods' where Dick Heckenstall-Smith joins the band playing a very nice soprano sax. The tune starts well, but then dissolves into a discordant mess, shame really as I like the soprano sax.

But forget the mismatched tunes, there are only two of them. Listen to 'African Queen', 'Fifty-Fifty Blues' and all is forgiven.

Sandy's mainline of business was building sound studios and acting as an acoustic consultant. If he had been less dedicated in this line of business and put more effort into promoting himself and his Jazz Band they could have been one of the top Trad bands around. Maybe he just didn't fancy having to persuade them all to wear kilts and bonnets in order to up-stage Acker Bilk!

Geoff Boxell, New Zealand 31 July 2000

Dippermouth Blues, Riverside Blues, New Orleans Hop Scop Blues, Come Back Sweet Papa, Bluin' The Blues, Hesitating Blues, Willie The Weeper, Original Dixieland One Step, Royal Garden Blues, Weary Blues, South, London Blues, Jenny's Ball, Muskrat Ramble, I Ain't Gonna Give Nobody None Of Mt Jelly Roll, West End Blues, The Soldier's Lament, Tin Roof Blues, If You See Me Coming, Mahogany Hall Stomp, Get Out of Here And Go On Home

Anyone who has had anything to do with British traditional jazz will know of George Webb's Dixielanders, even if they have never actually heard them. The band saw its foundation at the Vickers Armstrong Armaments factory in Crayford, Kent during Wolrd War Two. Through a twisting series of coincidences the band was formed from a collection of jazz fans who learnt their music from records, and decided to try and play jazz for their own amusement. Soon their playing became well known and many young people were drawn to hear them and not a few, such as Monty Sunshine, went away to buy instruments and to start playing traditional jazz themselves. Their base was the Red Barn at Barnehurst, Kent. Today there is a plaque outside that proclaims that in 1941 George Webb's Dixielanders was the first band in England to play New Orleans jazz. Whilst some may dispute the claim, none will deny the influence that the band had in its short life from 1941 to 1948.

The tracks on the CD are from sessions in 1943, '45, '46, and '47. Having heard the band for yourself, you realise why they were such a key to the British jazz revival. The band changes from a 2 cornet lead a-la-king Oliver, to single cornet played by a young and vibrant Humphrey Lyttelton from 'West End Blues'; both styles are very attractive and true to the style of the jazz masters they were following. The sound quality varies from crude to reasonable. The first four tracks are from a small non-commercial run recorded in very primitive conditions that included someone have to lie in front of the drums to stop them 'walking' across the lino floor. The recording conditions for the remaining tracks improve, but all the tracks on the CD come from records rather than master tapes. If top gun sound engineer Paul Adams says this is the best he can get from the source material, I hate to think what the originals sounded like.

But this CD is not about sound quality; it is about a slice of history; it is about a band that was the prime mover, if not the source of the British revivalist jazz movement. To know British jazz you need to have and to listen to this CD. The sleeve notes are by George Webb himself. These extensive notes give an outline of the band's history and an idea of the British traditional jazz scene at the time. It can easily be argued that the notes alone are worth the cost of the CD!

Geoff Boxell, New Zealand 31 July 2000