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The New Jazz Orchestra

Western Reunion London

1965 Vocalion CDSML 8427

The late Neil Ardley's New Jazz Orchestra (members including Ian Carr, Dave Gelly, Trevor Watts, Barbara Thompson, Jon Hiseman) assembled in 1965 in Decca's West Hampstead studios, in front of a (large and vociferous, if this recording's a reliable guide) audience to run through a set of arrangements by Ardley and others of mainly American material.

Tadd Dameron's burnished, bop-laced ballad 'If You Could See Me Now', Jimmy Heath's bustling opener 'Big P', Tiny Kahn's self-explanatory 'Tiny's Blues', John Lewis's plangent 'Django', Leonard Bernstein's tender love song 'Maria' and Gerry Mulligan's 'Western Reunion' are all given intelligent, cogent readings, but it is the Miles Davis-connected material that provides the orchestra's touchstone.

'So What', taken slightly faster than is customary in a Les Carter arrangement, features Ian Carr's alternately dancing and spearing, Milesian soloing; 'Milestones' centres on Carter's crisp deployment of the brass section and features hard-hitting soloing from Trevor Watts et al.; a floating Ardley original, 'Shades of Blue', sounds almost like an out-take from a Gil Evans/Davis project.

The album consequently documents not only the early sound of a number of subsequently illustrious UK musicians, but also emphasises just how influenced by US models was the British 1960s jazz scene.

As Dave Gelly (who is heavily featured throughout, playing light-toned yet strong tenor) says in his amusingly self-deprecating notes, the band may not always have been perfectly in tune (and there are occasional hairy moments, particularly during the slower selections), but it was commendably enthusiastic, punchy in its ensemble work, oaccasionally gloriously abandoned in its soloing, and always communicating its love and knowledge of the music, and this album (issued in stereo for the first time) provides a valuable snapshot of British jazz at a crucial stage in its development.