Jazz & Improvisation / UK Jazz Scene of the 60s/70s

Heralded as one of the defining moments in British modern jazz, the Don Rendell Quintet’s 1972 recording Space Walk returns to the spotlight, reaffirming its place as a stunning document of both bold creativity and refined craftsmanship. Saxophonist Don Rendell, already celebrated for his collaborations with Ian Carr in the groundbreaking Rendell/Carr Quintet, took a daring step forward with this album. *Space Walk* captures a group at a creative peak, fusing modal explorations, post-bop energy,…

London, 1970 saw the release of one of the most distinctive and enduring albums in the history of British jazz: Flare Up, the debut LP from visionary trumpeter and flugelhorn player Harry Beckett. Now widely recognized as a classic, the record remains a defining statement from an artist whose lyrical phrasing, inventiveness, and subtle command of mood set him apart on the vibrant UK scene.   Born in Barbados and arriving in London in the 1950s, Harry Beckett quickly became a central figure in th…

Originally released during one of the most fertile periods of post-war British jazz, Movement by the Joe Harriott Quintet stands as a bold statement of artistic independence and innovation. Showcasing Harriott’s unique vision, the album bridges the lyricism of modern jazz with an avant-garde sensibility that still resonates today.   Harriott, an alto saxophonist of Jamaican origin who established himself as a pioneer of the British scene, leads a stellar ensemble through a set of forward-looking…

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…

**2025 Repress. Clear Vinyl. Limited to only 150 copies in textured art paper. Included inner sheet with liner notes and pictures. Newly mastered sound from the original tapes and will include one bonus track recorded in the same sessions.** First ever vinyl reissue of this 1972 masterpiece by another of the big names in UK Jazz. Neil Ardley was offered the leadership of the seminal New Jazz Orchestra in 1964. Under his direction the Orchestra moved though different styles and changes of personn…

Reissue, Remastered, Stereo, 180g. on British Jazz Explosion series. Off Centre, the 1969 debut from The John Cameron Quartet, stands as a vivid and essential snapshot of late 60s British jazz, now reissued on vinyl for the first time in decades by Decca. Led by renowned pianist, arranger, and composer John Cameron, the quartet features an all-star lineup: Harold McNair (flute, tenor sax), Danny Thompson (bass), and Tony Carr (percussion). Originally released on Decca’s progressive Deram imprint…

Live at BBC 1970 captures the raw energy and innovation of Nucleus in their formative year, presenting a selection of live sessions recorded for the BBC just as the group was redefining British jazz-rock. Founded by trumpeter Ian Carr, Nucleus emerged from London’s vibrant late-60s scene and quickly established themselves at the forefront of jazz fusion, inspired by the electric revolution of Miles Davis. This LP features standout performances of key tracks from their groundbreaking debut Elasti…

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…

Previously unreleased. Stereophonic sound. 1-4 recorded 11th November 1973.5-8 recorded 22nd December 1974. Lineup:Kenny Wheeler - flugelhornGreg Bowen, Ian Hamer, Dave Hancock (1-4), Alan Downey (5-8), Henry Lowther - trumpetsBobby Lamb (1-4), Keith Christie (1-4), Dave Horler (1-4), Chris Pyne, Malcolm Griffith, Cliff Hardy (5-8), Jim Wilson (5-8), Pete Smith (5-8) - trombonesAlfie Reece (1-4), Cliff Bevan (5-8) - tubaDuncan Lamont (1-4), Stan Sulzmann (5-8) - tenor/soprano saxophoneNorma Wins…

Tip! By the 1960s, the popularity of big bands had waned considerably. The heyday of the 30s and 40s big bands had been superseded in the 1950s by smaller modern and traditional jazz units, skif e and, ultimately, rock and roll, and the prominence they once enjoyed were a fading memory. Although there were still several very ne big bands playing and recording during this time, the economics of the big band in the age of the pop group always put it at a disadvantage. There was, of course, the lea…

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…

*2025 repress* Made with the intention of exploring and experiencing the various musical and cultural perspectives of a territory as vast as that of Persia, "Near And Far East" is a significant historical document that transcends the restrictive concept of territory but rather inhabits a space of absolute time. The album's content is not just window into faraway places, but a leap into the times and cultures that have now been swallowed up by the incessant movement of globalization and capitalis…

How Many Clouds Can You See? is the second album by English saxophonist John Surman featuring  Alto Saxophone – Mike Osborne; Baritone Saxophone, Flute – John Warren; Baritone Saxophone, Soprano Saxophone, Bass Clarinet – John Surman; Bass – Barre Phillips, Harry Miller; Drums – Alan Jackson, Tony Oxley; Piano – John Taylor; Tenor Saxophone, Flute – Alan Skidmore; Trombone – Chris Pyne, Malcolm Griffiths; Trumpet – Dave Holdsworth; Trumpet, Flugelhorn – Harold Beckett; Tuba – George Smith. John …

Recently celebrating his 80th birthday and one of Europe’s foremost jazz musicians, John Surman is a masterful improvisor, composer, and multi-instrumentalist (baritone and soprano sax, bass clarinet, and synthesizers/electronics). For nearly 60 years, he has been a major force, producing a prodigious and creative body of work that expands beyond jazz. Surman’s extensive discography as a leader and a side man numbers more than 100 recordings to date and has featured dozens of prominent artists w…

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…

2024 Stock  The arrival of English tenor saxophonist Tubby Hayes in New York during the autumn of 1961 caused a sensation in American jazz circles. The first British jazz soloist to ever make a guest appearance in a US club, his opening night at the Half Note was attended by figures including Miles Davis, Al Cohn and Zoot Sims, with Metronome describing Hayes as a swinging ambassador from Britain who definitely can hold his own in fast company. At the end of his visit Hayes recorded the album Tu…

** 2024 restock, long out of print - few copies avaialble **  Reissue of the legendary Amalgam recording with Trevor Watts, Jeff Clyne, John Stevens and Barry Guy. This recording received the highest rating by The Penguin Guide to Jazz. It was re-mastered from the original reel to reel tapes. : In the late 60s, British jazz was in a state of flux, pulling itself into strange new shapes influenced by the U.S. avant garde, European improvisation and rock and giving birth to bands such as Keith Tip…

Recorded live on 25th February 1979, Teatro Cristallo, Milan, Italy. Second of two performances. Previously unreleased. Stereophonic sound. Elton Dean - saxophones, Keith Tippett - piano,  Harry Miller - double bass, Louis Moholo-Moholo - drums.  All tracks composed by Elton Dean. Original event organised by Riccardo Bergerone. Very special thanks to: Marino Dean, Roberto Ottaviano, Sergio Balletti, Carlo Verri, Aymeric Leroy. Executive producer: Riccardo Bergerone. Restored and produced by Matt…

In 1975, the lead album "Fragment" by the acclaimed UK jazz pianist John Taylor, which was previously only released on cassette tape and hailed as a gem of UK jazz.

2024 stock. The Coliseum and the New Jazz Orchestra led by Neil Ardlay originally had John Heisman and Dick Hextall Smith in the NJO, and the NJO participated in the ‘Valentine Suite’, but this album was released the year after the ‘Valentine Suite’, in ‘ This is a rare live album from when they toured as a combined band in 1970, the year after ‘Valentine Suite’. The album features songs from the Coliseum and NJO albums, as well as songs by Jack Bruce and John Coltrane, and is a rare live record…

Third solo album released in 1976 by Neil Ardley, a British jazz pianist and arranger who led the ‘New Jazz Orchestra’, featuring top British jazz musicians such as Ian Kerr and Brian Smith of Necleus, as well as Third Ear Band's Paul Buckmaster of Third Ear Band, Dave Krahe of Matching Mole and others also participated. As the album title suggests, the dazzling sonic universe is a brilliant crossover of diverse musical genres. Paper jacket, SHM-CD, latest remastering, definitive release!

‘Surprisingly enough, program music is not all that common in jazz. For example, unlike their classical counterparts, not many jazz composers have set out to evoke particular places. Duke Ellington’s 'Tone Parallel To Harlem' is one of the great exceptions. Britain has been even more neglected, unless you count Billy Strayhorn’s 'Chelsea Bridge', and that was about Whistler's painting rather than the actual bridge itself. But the British jazz composer Graham Collier is one who is doing something…

"The Rendell/Carr Quintet was a groundbreaking jazz ensemble featuring saxophonist Don Rendell and trumpeter Ian Carr, among the most influential musicians in post-war British jazz. BBC Jazz Club Session April 1965 is a snapshot of the group in transition, with pianist Michael Garrick new to the ranks and taking them in a more radical direction." - normanrecords.com

Nine previously unreleased tracks from the golden era of British jazz. Featuring the cream of players and composers from the period. Stereophonic sound.All tracks original source - public domain. These restorations and remasters by British Progressive Jazz © 2024

Big tip! Hampton Hawes - one of the finest jazz pianists of the 1950s, a fixture on the Los Angeles scene who had brought his own interpretations to the dominant Bud Powell style - was rebuilding his career after five years in prison on heroin possession charges. Pardoned by President Kennedy in 1963, he'd spent the late '60s finding his way back, relearning how to navigate a jazz scene that had changed dramatically in his absence. High in the Sky, leading a dynamic trio with virtuoso bass play…

Big Big Tip! Certainly one of the most obscure and perhaps one of the most fascinating work of the English jazz revolution. Master of ceremonies is cellist Paul Buckmaster, known for his work with the Third Ear Band and for his (later) collaborations with Miles Davis, David Bowie and Elton John. Chitinous is his the only album as leader and it was recorded between 31 March and 13 April 1970, by an orchestra of no less than 51 players, with violins, violas and cellos. In this enormous line-up we …

2024 Stock, reduced price. Remastered edition on British Jazz Explosion series. ‘Le Déjeuner Sur L’Herbe’ features key players in modern British jazz including Henry Lowther, Ian Carr, Michael Gibbs, Derek Wadsworth, Barbara Thompson, Dave Gelly, Dick Heckstall-Smith, Frank Ricotti, Jack Bruce and Jon Hiseman, under the directorship of Neil Ardley. ‘Nardis’ features solos by Ian Carr on flugelhorn, George Smith on tuba and – rarely heard – Jack Bruce on acoustic bass.  Complementing this is what…

2026 much-needed small repress. Hardcover Edition, large format. Labyrinth is a massive hardback book, 375pp in length, printed on high-quality art paper, with an embossed cover and cloth quarter-binding, written by Richard Morton Jack. This beautiful, limited edition hardback is the most comprehensive overview of the subject ever published. It celebrates over three hundred albums, offering detailed background info about each, alongside excerpts from original reviews and masses of high-quality i…

Jazz In Britain is proud to be publishing Chris Searle’s new book, ‘Talking The Groove: Jazz words from the Morning Star’. The book is a collection of reviews and interviews with over 150 jazz artists that have appeared in the paper in recent years.And, like our last three books, there’ll be companion audio (two CDs) of rare, previously unreleased, music relevant to the book… some from our archives and some specially donated by musicians featured in the book. When we shared the tracklisting with…

This book, a comprehensive, annotated, discography, discusses the great British trumpeter Ian Carr’s recorded works and includes up to the minute additions to the Carr canon. It is the most complete discographical text on the works of Ian Carr. The discography is divided into 2 parts with archival releases being covered in the second part. Three appendices detail Carr’s appearances in the Melody Maker jazz polls, biographies either by or about him, and finally details of Ian’s miscellaneous medi…

“He said ‘who the fuck are you?” so I said, “I’m the bass player”. And all he said was “Well, we’ll see about that, won’t we?” When Tubby Hayes arrived at the Hopbine, Wembley’s popular jazz pub, one evening in the spring of 1965, his career was in a state of flux; still topping polls and casting an impressive shadow over the British jazz scene, he nevertheless remained frustrated. The elongated free-flights of John Coltrane and Sonny Rollins now held his fascination and although actively search…

For the first time ever, the Bobby Wellins Quartet albums – Jubilation and Dreams Are Free - expanded with bonus tracks. The original albums, and the extra tracks, were all recorded by the same quartet in 1978 or 1979. Released in partnership with Spike Wells, the drummer in the quartet, who provided the extra recordings from his own tape archive, and wrote the booklet notes as well as providing many previously unseen photographs, Fiona Wellins, Bobby’s daughter, and the bassist in the quartet A…

Recorded in Sawbridgeworth, Hertfordshire, UK, December 1976. Private session. Previously unheard. The amazing lost Dean, Miller, Pyle private tapes from 1976: featuring the very first recorded meeting of these three extraordinary pioneering talents of British Jazz/Rock, performing four magical co-composed pieces, none of which have ever been issued in any form. This album was originally intended to be released by Mike King's highly regarded Reel Recordings label. Sadly, Mike passed away before …

2023 Much-needed Repress. Finally reissued, one of the key recordings in the development of free improvisation and originally the first release on Incus, the label founded by Evan Parker, Derek Bailey and Tony Oxley to document the music. Outstanding deluxe vinyl edition of one of the most iconic free improv LP ever made, a landmark album in the British avant garde.Liner notes by Evan Parker (for the 2014 re-issue):‘The Topography of the Lungs’ was the first recording I made as a "leader" - in t…

Tip! LP reissue of Collective Calls, the first duo LP from Evan Parker and percussionist Paul Lytton. Mythically alluded to as ‘An Improvised Urban Psychodrama In Eight Parts”, Collective Calls utilises electronics, pre-records and homemade instruments to wryly in/act self investigation. Having just recorded the cliff jumping Music Improvisation Company with Derek Bailey, Christine Jeffrey, Hugh Davies and Jamie Muir, Parker was at the point where [he] was thinking, ‘what’s the next thing?’ On C…

“On Loan with Gratitude was my first vinyl recording as leader released in 1977. Graham Collier started a label ‘Mosaic’ and invited me to record specifically for it. The times were fortuitous with BBC engineer Pete Freshney being able to record at the BBC transcription studios in Shepherds Bush. There was an excellent piano in situ, Pete was an excellent jazz engineer and fan, plus the studios were affordable. I led the quartet for approximately 10 yrs which included regular BBC Jazz club and J…

Reissue, originally released in 1961. The West Indian-born alto saxophonist Joe Harriott was one of the most convincing boppers outside of the USA, though by the end of the 1950s he was exploring freer musical pastures, and the quintet with which he undertook the exploration was an outgrowth of the hard bop band with which he'd made a name on the British scene. Often in the past the group's music, in which trumpet and flugelhorn player Shake Keane figured alongside Harriott in the front line, ha…

Super rare 1970s British jazz from Joy: Chris Francis, James Dvorak, Frank Roberts, Ernest Mothle, Keith Bailey reflecting the young, multicultural, vibrant flavours of mid-70s London. Funky, hip, committed, Joy is one of the forgotten gems of London jazz.

Featuring Mike Taylor (piano), Dave Tomlin (soprano saxophone), Tony Reeves (double bass) and Jon Hiseman (drums), this is the first ever release of a newly discovered tape of this legendary British jazz quartet’s final rehearsal before going into the studio to make their fabled Pendulum album in October 1965. Recorded in Taylor’s grandparents’ London living room by Reeves, it’s has striking presence and immediacy, and will fascinate all admirers of this most enigmatic of composers and musicians…

Temporary nice price Eargong Records present a reissue of Mike Osborne's Outback, originally released in 1970. Alto saxophonist Mike Osborne has been one of British jazz's most intense players. A unique alto sax voice that enhanced the music of great bands such as Chris McGregor's Brotherhood of Breath, Mike Westbrook, Harry Miller's Isipingo, Mike Gibbs, and many others. Originally released in 1970, Outback is Mike Osborne's debut album. This is open, passionate, and adventurous music performe…