Max Jones - MELODY MAKER   June 17, 1961

Dee at Casbar

A new seven-night-a-week club, the Casbar Bon Soir, has started life in Gerrard Street, Soho. Music is by the Brian Dee Quartet, with altoman Graham Bond. Monday was unofficial opening night, for invited guests, and the club jumped pretty insistently until 2 a.m. or more. Keith Christie, Ronnie Ross, Bobby Wellins and drummer Kenny Gordon were among the barstanders. Wellins sat in on tenor for the final session, helping to produce some interesting music . . . . .

Peter Kennedy, Solihull, Warwickshire - MELODY MAKER   July 1, 1961

Forgotten?

DON RENDELL, the forgotten man of British jazz (MM : 17/6/61)? Surely not now, with exciting altoist Graham Bond and the rest of his new line-up. I have heard the quintet and think it is the most refreshing sound in British modern jazz for many a year.

Charles Fox- JAZZ MONTHLY  February 1962

Jazz And Poetry - A Concert Report

The drama, you might say, came at the end. Ronnie Scott, up to that time a slightly acid compere, read out the list of performers and thanked the audience for coming, the band swung into Take the "A" Train, the curtains prepared to descend. Suddenly a man appeared in the wings. He peeled off his coat, sidled across to the piano, then jabbed out a few chords. A loud whisper to the bass-player ("What's the key?") and he was away. Although three-quarters of the audience must have been oblivious to the fact, Denis Rose was making his come-back.

I think it's forgiveable to begin my review in this rather romantic fashion. Denis rose, after all, is the nearest thing this country has to Bunk Johnson, a half-legendary recluse, the original moving spirit of modern jazz in Britain. I, for one, had never heard him in the flesh before. In the end he played about three or choruses on Take the "A" Train, probing away rather as Tony Crombie does when he gets near a piano - and producing some of the best and most exciting music of the evening. If nothing else had happened at the concert of Poetry and Jazz, sponsored by Live New Departures and presented at St. Pancras Town Hall on the chilly evening of November 27, this climax would have been memorable enough. But it came at the end of a programme of more than usual interest, during which a few heights were scaled, and one or two depths plumbed. The concert was also noteworthy for the sheer dedication of the musicians who took part, most of whom had devoted quite a lot of time to rehearsing. One felt they really cared about what they were doing. A 14-piece band under the direction of Laurie Morgan formed the basis of the evening's music, while no fewer than six poets read from their own works.

The high-spot of the evening was undoubtedly Bobby Wellins's composition, Battle Of Culloden Moor, a longish piece scored for the full orchestra but with improvised passages by a trio consisting of Wellins, Stan Tracy and Laurie Morgan. I've seldom heard Wellins play as well as he did on this occasion, sensitive, almost tender but with explosive forays, while the orchestrated parts hung together well and made up an impressive whole. You could, I suppose, call this "Third Stream" music, although it seemed pleasantly free of much of the pretentiousness that clutters up this genre. This is, in fact, exactly the kind of things which should be broadcast on one of the Jazz Session experimental evenings. The remainder of the music was more conventional, including big band versions of Limehouse Blues (arranged by Peter Myers) and Patti's Blues (arranged by Herman Wilson). The band was naturally fallible - what group of its size wouldn't be after only a few rehearsals - but it drove well most of the time. There were, too, good solos from Dick Heckstall-Smith, Graham Bond and Jimmy Deuchar, among others. And Laurie Morgan drummed intelligently and well.

Earlier on there were sequences by three trombonists (Peter Myers, Herman Wilson, John Mumford) and - but quite separately - Graham Bond and Dick Heckstall-Smith. Not surprisingly the trombonists produced the kind of noises one has heard on LPs by Jay and Kai - and quite competently too, although they were ill-advised to take Django as quite such a snail's pace. I was more impressed by the playing of Dick Heckstall-Smith, undoubtedly one of this country's most trenchant tenor-players. Graham Bond was vehement, too, but largely as a foil, playing the kind of role Eric Dolphy does inside a Charlie Mingus group.

There was not, as it turned out, quite so much poetry-with-jazz as I've expected. In fact, three of the poets - Adrian Mitchell, Ted Milton and Anselm Hollo - read without music at all. Mitchell was, for what my opinion is worth, the best poet on show that night - perspective, witty, imaginative, and able to read without any sense of strain or any posing. Ted Milton - very young rather ingenuous - could easily develop into quite a fair poet (I rather dug his line about "the sixth finger which the other ten obey"). Anselm Hollo only read one poem (long but not enlightening) before he introduced a tape-recording of Gregory Corso. Like Jehovah delivering judgement, Corso's voice floated above our heads, flailing all local beatniks. Time, or so it seemed, stood very still. (I seized the opportunity to read an entry or two in Colin Wilson's Encyclopaedia of Murder, an admirable bedside book for people who share my macabre interests).

Spike Hawkins (at least I think it was he, for I never caught the name) read with a rhythm section. I will, though, say nothing about his performance, for I couldn't make out a word he said. In future he should stand further back from his microphone. Peter Brown, his stage personality almost as amiable as Louis Armstrong's, tried once or twice to shock us. In some ways his brief little squibs (more gags than poems) came across as well as anything - provided he was content to be coarse or funny, or both. Things went awry during his "jazz-poem", Night, which had support from Graham Bond and Dick Heckstall-Smith. The technique used was mimetic, the musicians echoing the poet's images. When he talked of groaning, the saxophones groaned; at the mention of a train, we got train-effects. The trouble is that this can only too easily sound comic - and this was, after all, a "serious" poem.

A similar technique (again sounding very Mingus-like) was used behind some of Mike Horovitz's poems. Horovitz, as it happens, went on rather too long (a fatal prerogative of editors - and Horovitz edits New Departures) but he did try two or three experiments. One poem, for instance, was read accompanied only by Dick Heckstall-Smith's tenor sax, the musician and reader alternating, the whole thing sounding very much like the duet by Hoagy Carmichael and Bob Hardaway (using Young Sycamore, by William Carlos Williams) on the Vogue "Jazz Canto" LP. Medieval Satire turned out to be a parody, music as well as words, very similar to the kind of things one finds in "Façade". With The Mad Monk (Stan Tracey at the piano) and Flying Home, Horovitz made more of a head-on attempt at "jazz-poetry", but not, I thought, with a great success. Once he stops sounding like Lawrence Ferlinghetti, the word-play seems to shrivel up.

It's easy, of course, to pick faults in affairs of this kind. I have after all, fairly strong ideas about how I think poetry and jazz should go together - which makes me distinctly prejudiced. And I don't go along with the Beat-orientated, heart-on-the-sleeve attitude that many of these poets have. All the same, they care enough to try out their ideas and to risk derision - and they also cared enough about jazz to assemble one of the liveliest band's I've heard for a long time. (An unsung hero of the occasion, incidentally, was John Jack, the Gautama of Dobells, who went sleepless at least two nights a week, urging musicians and poets to keep on rehearsing). Yes, despite, the odd fluff and occasional absurdity, despite - most of all - the trough of boredom carved for us by Gregory Corso, it was all a stimulating evening.

Bob Dawbarn - MELODY MAKER   April 14, 1962

Exciting Rendell

The Don Rendell Quintet (Marquee, Saturday) is fast becoming a really popular modern jazz group. Reason? It spurns dome of music's subletlies and concentrates on building excitement. Graham Bond's alto dominates the group, though he is now a more disciplined player. However, for me Rendell remains the star soloist. The rhythm section gets a nice tight sound and Johnny Burch's piano is effective in an unobtrusive way.

MELODY MAKER   June 2, 1962

Ravings

Seems Don Rendell's Quintet knocked them out at the international jazz show Brussels last week. The group will go back for TV and radio in November.

Chris Allen, bandleader, Farnham, Surrey - MELODY MAKER   September 8, 1962

Hooray For Don!

If modern jazzmen ever hope to enjoy a boom, they should follow the lead given by Don Rendell's Quintet here on Saturday. The group took the stand for their first session before about 200 dancers who stood open-mouthed as they opened with a "far-out" mid-tempo swinger. This left a good 95 per cent of the crowd absolutely cold. This was the testing time. Don quickly realized that this was no jazz club date and also his duty to please the public. Tempos were modified to the more danceable and gradually people started dancing. It was good to see top modernists playing to please the public and not just for their own pleasure.

MELODY MAKER   November 17, 1962

Blues Are Bustin' Out All Over

Bossa nova may be thing - and the appearance of Getz "Desafinado" in the MM charts underlines this - but the music which is currently drawing the biggest crowds in London clubs these days is plain unadulterated rhythm-n-blues. And the rhythm-n-blues purveyed by Alexis Korner's Blues Inc unit at the Marquee every Thursday night is not music just to listen to - it's music to twist to, jive to, jump to, swing with, and get with. Last Thursday (9) the joint was jumpin' with 800 fervent fans. Now when did a non-trad club in London last do business like that?. The line-up is leader Korner on guitar, Dick Heckstall-Smith (tenor), Graham Bond (alto), Johnny Parker (piano), Jack Bruce (bass) and Ginger baker (drums). Says Alexis: - "Basically whatever else we want to do, we are a dance band; we want to play music for dancing". One fascinating aspect of the Blues Inc line-up is that, with the exception of Johnny Parker, all the sidemen have modern associations. A moral somewhere?

MELODY MAKER   December 8, 1962

Alexis Korner's Blues Incorporated may not be the loudest band in the world. But I can't think of a contender on the spur of the moment . . . Disappointed with "Dr. No." I thought it was going to be about Graham Bond.

JAZZ NEWS & REVIEW   February 1963

Unbreakable Bond

The Flamingo in Wardour Street is a very hospitable place to people in business these days. At one time it used to be quite a job getting in without paying even if you were doing a gig down there and had a double bass on your back ("You may be OK, but how about your friend"). But the other night the brothers Gunnell let me roam freely through the cosy red twilight while the Graham Bond Trio were doing their stuff. In spite of the organ amplifier being on the blink (to me lack of decibels was a welcome change, but I gather Graham missed the amplifier's control over dynamics) the group sounded fine. Fascinating to watch, too with diminutive jack Bruce draping his arms over the shoulders of his bass, as though it was supporting him, during a thunderous drum solo from Ginger Baker. And Graham himself, on piano for one number, ferociously keeping time with his head. No wonder he has such powerful neck muscles.

Bob Dawbarn - MELODY MAKER   February 9, 1963

Bond Shines

Strong soloists and effectively straightforward arrangements make the Johnny Burch Octet one of the potentially most popular modern groups. At Klooks Kleek, West Hamstead, last week they triumphed over curious acoustics which made Peter Baker's drums almost overpowering and gave Burch's piano a touch of the NAAFI. Graham Bond is, perhaps, the dominating figure, but I was impressed with trumpeter Mike Fallana and and Dick Heckstall-Smith's tenor. Most impressive was trombonist John Mumford, playing better, and more confidently, than I have heard him in the past.

JAZZ NEWS & REVIEW   June 13, 1963

Rocker Feller

Graham Bond still plays the organ with his head, but what's happened to the music? I heard his quartet at the Marquee the other night; it was billed as Rhythm & Blues, of course, (the scene's cure-all), but it was rock 'n' roll. And not very good rock, I'm told by students of the genre.

MELODY MAKER   August 24, 1963

Everything Cool

Everything cool at the Askona, Switzerland Jazz Festival last weekend - too cool for visiting British musicians. Ian Carr, trumpet with the Don Rendell Quintet, tells us it was so cold he couldn't play his flugelhorn at all because it was so flat. And the sax players had trouble with freezing fingers. Despite the cold, the Joe Harriott Quintet, Don Rendell Quintet (minus Don, who fell ill), Chris Barber Band, Dick Morrissey (tenor) and Graham Bond (alto) scored a big success on the bill, topped by American star Bud Shank.