Joy Unlimited Edition: Harry Beckett 90

Harry Beckett's Joy Unlimited - Not for Tomorrow, for to Now

To make the most posts in a single month since February of 2021 -- and to share yet more improved versions of essential, underloved ROIO joy -- I am closing out May with a trumpet hero as undersung as yesterday's voyage of 1983 Miles was household in its name.

Today we have the 90th b'day of one of the leading figures of the Golden Age of Britjazz, whose music remains an indelible insignia on the whole of Jazz in general and not just wot from the UK.

Originally from Barbados, when he emigrated to England in 1954 and hooked up with British Jazz icon Graham Collier, he began an ascent that would, by the dawn of the 1970s, make him among the leading lights on his instrument(s) worldwide.

Probably one of the three most distinctive instrumental voices in Jazz from Britain, Harry Beckett's insanely-understated, impeccably tasteful playing is beyond verbal description, I'd say at his peak he's like Chet Baker buzzed on Bitches' Brew, or maybe an English Eddie Henderson -- how the hell have never covered him? I'm so stoopid, I sit on the TV and watch the couch, I swear! -- if you're in need of a Doctor.

The available selection of ROIOs on a figure such as he is obviously not akin to the amount of Bob Dylan boots that are out there, and we pray to the god we don't believe in that someday there will be a giant boxset of HB's millions of BBC sessions.

 At least if my plan to parachute into their London HQ, wearing nothing but a diaper sewn from the British flag and an accompanying Tubby Hayes bowtie, to demand immediate access to the vaults goes according to how I've got it drawn up on this Jamba Juice napkin, anyway.

There are, however, these three random ones that circulate for many years, in addition to this (too bad it's only 28 minutes long) 1974 one that was released officially some time back.

After a few little remasterizzational techniques were applied, these now sound even more delicious than the original tapes were, so until that dreambox happens with all ten trillion hours of Beckett BBC, we have this CD's worth of sumptuousness to digest.

Watch out along the way for Harry's cohorts on this stuff, which include superstar guitar slinger Ray Russell, maverick Maestro Michael Garrick and Soft Machinist Elton Dean, whom you May remember from my Mike Ratledge tape that began the month.

Harry Beckett

BBC sessions

1975-1982

I.

Harry Beckett's Joy Unlimited

BBC Jazz Club

broadcast 7.27.1975

01 Green Stripes On Red

02 Not for Tomorrow, for to Now

03 Rings Within Rings

Harry Beckett - trumpet & flugelhorn

Brian Miller - keyboards

Ray Russell - guitar

Steve Cook - bass

John Webb - drums

Robin Jones - percussion

II.

Harry Beckett Quintet

BBC Jazz Club

likely broadcast October 1981

04 Images of Clarity

05 Pictures of You

06 Time of Day

Harry Beckett - trumpet & flugelhorn

Elton Dean - saxello & alto saxophone

Martin Blackwell - keyboards

Paul Rogers - bass

Tony Marsh - drums

III.

Harry Beckett Quintet

Radio 1 Sounds of Jazz 

broadcast 2.14.1982

07 Symbols

08 Chandeliers and Mirrors

09 Chase Me No More

Harry Beckett - trumpet & flugelhorn

Elton Dean - saxello & alto saxophone

Michael Garrick - keyboards

Paul Rogers - bass

Tony Marsh - drums

Total time: 1:18:50

three sets of off-air FM captures -- likely master cassettes or reels -- of indeterminate origin

retracked, repaired & remastered -- with announcer removed -- by EN, May 2025
508 MB FLAC/direct link

That will do it for me for now, but fear not, O 12 readers that come to this page! For I already have a couple of things cooking for the Juneteenth BBQ season, including one so obsessively manic in its research needs, I will probably need to be massively medicated by the time the solstice syzygy's.

But what better way to bid farewell to the month than with this tribute to Harry Beckett -- born this very day in 1935 -- whose flugelhorn chops alone make lesser players sound like foghorns on fentanyl!--J.

5.30.1935 - 7.22.2010

Foster, Home

Miles Davis Septet - Jean-Pierre

In a strange confluence of coincidence -- or perhaps just to let us all know that what we see around us is an ever-less-concealable computer simulation, whichever you prefer -- the anniversary concert I had all set for today just happens to revolve, in no marginal way, around one of my favorite drummers of ever... who, sadly, passed away at 82 yesterday.

So we are gonna make this post -- the first of two back-to-backs to close out the month -- all about Mr. Aloysius Tyrone Foster, a player of immeasurable skill, feel and influence... the latter of which will go on far beyond the lifetime of anyone now living.

Miles Davis -- the figure with whom Al Foster is most associated and one of many who helped Miles, in a very material manner, shape the trajectory of music forever -- described him as having a kind of eternal, endless groove.

This stamina to supply that endless groove was described by The Chief as providing a foundation for everyone else in the band to play off, and to the marathon maximum of their capabilities.

If we're going by the axiom -- one I've heard repeated by many exemplary brahmen of the batterie, from Phil Collins to Neil Peart to Max Roach -- that any band is only as good as its drummer, then there can be no better barometer of what Al Foster means to the continuum of all the music that has happened since he joined Miles in 1972.

And it's all true, every exaggeration I have just laid out is 101.7% true. Players like Al Foster live up to the hype created by idiots such as I -- that dare to try to write about something as ineffably elusive as music -- because they live up, and then some, to any hyperbole anyone behind a keyboard not labeled "Roland" could muster.

If you need sonic proof, well... like I was saying, the cosmic flow has it so I have some for you, right here.

Should anyone need any sort of verification about what The Man With The Horn -- whose 99th birthday was a few days ago, and who, when he turns 100 in a year, will inadvertently cause me to break the internet from the sheer volume of concert tribute I will put up here -- was talking about re: Al Foster, this 62 minutes of prime 1983 Miles mayhem oughta deliver it with less reservations than frequent travelers should need.

Remastered beyond exquisiteness by plaz, Lord Potentate of Miles Davis ROIOs, watch out here not just for Miles and Al, but for John Scofield as well, who embroiders some electric and very Blues oriented fire onto this 60+ minutes over Tokyo.

Miles Davis Septet

Yomiuri Land Open Theatre EAST

Inagi, Japan

5.29.1983

01 band warming up

02 Come Get It

03 New Blues (aka Star People)

04 Speak/That's What Happened

05 It Gets Better

06 Hopscotch

07 Star On Cicely

08 Jean-Pierre

Total time: 1:02:55

Miles Davis III - trumpet & keyboards 

Bill Evans - soprano & tenor saxophones, flute & electric piano

John Scofield - guitar

Mike Stern - guitar

Tom Barney - bass 

Al Foster - drums 

Mino Cinelu - percussion

master off-air DAT of the 1991 Japanese NHK-FM rebroadcast

this is Revision B of the plaz remaster
382 MB FLAC/direct link

Some future birthday of his, I will put up something where Al himself is the leader, but since I had this already in launch position I thought it was obvious to make it not just about Miles' 99th on the 26th, or the show's 42nd anniversary today, but about the amazing -- and now ancestral -- Al Foster.

I'll be back tomorrow with a trumpet deity as underrated as Miles Davis -- probably the most renowned Jazz musician in the history of the music -- isn't. But today is about a gratitude I feel for the life of Al Foster... one that's as endless as the groove he supplied in support of every note of every band he ever ignited from the backline engine room.--J.

1.18.1943 - 5.28.2025

The Full Gismonti

Egberto Gismonti & Academia de Danças - Maracatu

I have three more tasty treats for May, two anniversaries and a milestone birthday to close it out. The last two are both trumpetfolk, coincidentally: one the most notorious, the other just as glorious.

This here is the first of the anniversary ones, taped 43 years ago today at the classic Fabrik in Hamburg, scene of countless shows of legendary lore and quite a few live records as well.

This is one of those where the group or artist maybe isn't at the top of the world's radar, but the quality of the music dictates it's well worth it for me be attempting sonic improvement upon.

That's what it boils down to for me a lot of the time: since I'm always hot to put either something new and undercirculated, or an improvement to something that's already well circulated, in the ROIO realm, I tend to wanna work on music that I'm in the mood to listen to the million times it sometimes takes to fix these tapes into their best -- or at least, a measurably better -- sonic state of affairs.

I'm also always hyped to feature folks and bands I've never done before, as we know. So at the end of every month, when I scout the 14,000-concert archive for what the next month will contain, I'm constantly filtering it through what I'm inclined to absorb in multiple doses, as well as the tendency toward novelty and minimum repetition.

There's artists I will always hit upon more than once or twice -- like the Miles Davis 1983 thing that's up next, not for his 99th b'day tomorrow, but the show's anniversary on the 29th -- but for the most part I really struggle to be creative, feature new people and, where possible like with that David Lynch soundtrack deal, make new things that never existed before.

So there's that micro-manifesto no one asked for and apropos of precisely nothing. Now let's talk about Egberto Gismonti, a prime example of what I mean when I say I want to cover music and musicians as far away from the usual or the most renowned and stereotypically clickworthy as I can. Or as the limited coterie of people who've toured and had their shows professionally recorded and/or broadcast on FM radio in the last 75 or so years will allow.

You can also tell, if you've been here before, that I have a real, wide open heartspot for the ECM label, and all the diverse and gorgeously reflective music to come from Manfred Eicher's stable of transcendent musicmakers in these last 50+ years since he began that seminal, indispensable imprint.

One such performer and composer is the Brazilian multi-instrumentalist Egberto Gismonti, who's made several LPs for ECM that have never been more than walking distance from my inner, ongoing playlist.

He's mostly to be found playing the 12-string guitars like the one in these pictures, but he's also very proficient at piano and various wind instruments.

His pianistic, hyperpercussive and orchestral approach to the guitar makes him one of the less-thought-of progentiors of the tapping techniques more associated with Rock, and just the general idea of the fretboard as keyboard that is so central to his music kind of sets him apart from the more traditional, straightforward guitar players that might spring to mind.

One of the many groups of which he has been a part is his Academia de Danças project that began in the late 1970s.

Luckily for us music lovers, this group has been caught live in the act on a few broadcasts, one of which is this, which also circulates in a shorter version but is featured here in its complete form. That is to say, The Full Gismonti! And I labored to make it sound better too.

Egberto Gismonti Academia de Danças

NDR Jazzworkshop No. 171

Fabrik

Hamburg, Germany 

5.25.1982

01 Maracatu

02 10 Anos

03 Lôro

04 Don Quixote

05 Selva Amazônica

06 Salvador

07 Infância

08 Frevo

09 Karatê

10 Quarto Mundo/Dança das Cabecas

11 Em Família

12 solo features/Em Família (reprise)

13 Palhaço

14 Bodas de Prata

15 Folia

Total time: 2:10:45

disc break goes after Track 09 

Egberto Gismonti - guitars, piano & flutes

Zeca Assumpção - bass

Mauro Senise - saxophones & flutes

Nenê (Realcino Lima Filho) - drums & percussion

off-air FM capture of indeterminate origin containing the complete concert, supplied by the immortal jazzrita

edited, retracked, denoised & remastered by EN, May 2025
762 MB FLAC/direct link

There isn't much to say about this guy or this music, except that if you like things organic and dynamic -- and not Autotuned and artificial -- than you've picked the right bootleg blog this evening.

Like I said I will be back in a few days with a brief from The Chief, coincidentally turning 99 tomorrow. Next year, when he's 100, I might break the internet with tribute. But that's down the road a few days/months/years, and I figured this banger of a Brazilian blast from The Great Gismonti -- still alive and picking at 77 -- was well worthy of an anniversary reorientation.--J.

Bass Recognition: Cecil McBee 90

 

Strata East All-Stars - Search for the New Land

We'll resume and start the week off with a milestone Jazz birthday. Wait, you're not surprised I'm doing a milestone Jazz birthday? This is only the 10 trillionth one of the year, but you'll find it's as worthy as any potential celebrant we could name.

He's made a good few albums as a leader, but today's newly nascent nonagenarian is most legendary for the sheer number of recordings with which he has graced the space with his bass.

A veteran of a thousand sessions, I would recount everyone he's played with, but I don't wanna be here typing this until next May 19th.

I can think of 25 LPs I love where he is anchoring the low end, and that's just off the top of my head.

Sometimes with players like this, you go through a period where every beloved record you pull off the shelf has them on it. That's Cecil McBee in a recorded-as-much-as-nearly-any-living-musician nutshell.

I think the thing about him is the versatility, and the ability to adapt across all styles of the music so readily, that has his number at the top of everyone's Rolodex when it comes to making records.

He's also toured with so many luminaries in so many bands, it'd be impossible to list or even annotate them all.

He does lead groups of his own, and I've posted shows where he is the bass player countless times, but today I am going with this superstar quintet, itself almost a Mount Rushmore of musicians in its own way.

All five, Cecil McBee included, are associated with the seminal label Strata East -- which was formed 50+ years ago by Stanley Cowell and Charles Tolliver, two of the people in this concert -- and this is kind of an all-star aggregation based around that label's outstanding legacy.

Strata-East All-Stars

Internationale Jazzwoche Burghausen 2015

Wackerhalle

Burghausen

Altötting, Germany

3.19.2015

01 On the Nile

02 Voice of the 7th Angel

03 A Feeling

04 Travelin' Man

05 Search for the New Land

06 Stretch

07 Suspicion

08 Trying to Find a Way

09 Ruthie's Heart

Total time: 1:17:43

Charles Tolliver - trumpet & flugelhorn

Jean Carne - vocals

Stanley Cowell - piano, vocals & percussion

Cecil McBee - bass

Alvin Queen - drums

448/48k 5.1 surround sound audio extracted from a European digital satellite TV broadcast

converted to 16/44 stereo CD Audio, edited, tracked & remastered by EN, May 2025
464 MB FLAC/direct link

He's 90 today, and I would guess that the bulk of his recording and touring days are behind him, but as far as I know Cecil McBee still teaches at a conservatory in Boston.

Anyway I've got a couple more for May, as I try to catch up after the interruption caused by my brother's suicide last month.

But I would be bassless if I were to miss out on the big birthday of Cecil McBee, born this day in 1935 and still alive and showing the way to the players of today... and tomorrow.--J.