This is a book essential to an understanding of an important era of Jazz in the UK
Simon Spillett
Jazz In Britain Ltd
ISBN: 978-1-0683644-0-2
Simon Spillett writes much like Tubby Hayes plays: generously, full of surprises, and with deep humanity, warmth, and technical bravura.
There is so much to admire about Spillett as a writer. His obvious love of jazz shines through alongside his meticulous research, sharp literary ability, keen sense of period detail, and a barely disguised antipathy for certain corners of the music business.
Spillett paints a vivid portrait of an era where a pint of beer cost 37p, a loaf of bread just 11p, and an LP £1.70. Yet despite the charm of this nostalgia, the period he covers was an intensely male-centred world. A notable exception in Spillett’s coverage is the singer Joy Marshall (aka “Miss Adventure”)—lover of both Tubby Hayes and Peter King—who is framed as a femme fatale par excellence.
The book is packed with fascinating anecdotes and historical insights. In the notes on Ronnie Scott, Spillett recounts how the ever-adventurous Sonny Rollins was playing with Scott in Liverpool when he unexpectedly hit an “inventive brick wall.” The following night at Manchester’s Club 43, however, Rollins played what Scott described as “the best music I’ve ever heard.” Spillett notes that a bootleg recording of that legendary gig exists, fully confirming Scott’s high praise.
Spillett tackles the difficult task of looking past Scott’s famous sardonic exterior. He offers moving insights into Scott’s dark struggles—including suicide attempts, nursing-home stays funded by Spike Milligan, and his relentless fight to keep his club open while nurturing new talent.
Tony Hall of Tempo Records is celebrated for giving British jazz a major boost against all odds. Spillett, deeply familiar with the vagaries of the music business, details the grim environment of Decca’s West Hampstead studio—which he describes as being as artistically stimulating as a morgue. Musicians routinely snuck off for drinks at the nearby Railway Arms and were difficult to lure back, while Decca’s engineers were rarely sympathetic to jazz. Nevertheless, Tempo became the “British Blue Note,” recording some of the era’s most vital musicians (some of whom were even signed by the American Blue Note label).
Jimmy Deuchar was an important voice in the period covered by the book. Spillett considers him one of the most thrilling soloists in jazz: a hybrid of Bunny Berigan and Fats Navarro. The recordings produced by Hayes and Deuchar during their residence at Ronnie Scott’s—Late Spot at Scott’s and Down in the Village—achieve, according to Spillett, a balance between aggression and lyricism.
The chapter “Tubby Hayes at the Top Alex (1973)” reads like an offcut from Spillett’s acclaimed biography of Hayes. This section details Hayes’s visits to Southend toward the end of his life. Spillett gathers compelling evidence suggesting that, despite declining health forcing him to refine his style, Hayes was in some ways playing better than ever.
Spillett addresses accusations that he has been “reductive and lukewarm” toward the revered Don Rendell–Ian Carr Quintet. While he goes out of his way to praise both Rendell and Carr as individual musicians, he cannot resist quoting a scathing contemporary review by Miles Kington. Kington complained that the group lacked a player of the stature of Tony Coe or Stan Tracey, writing that their greatest achievement was merely fulfilling the potential of small groups from the 1940s and ’50s—a polite way of saying they were simply spinning an existing model. Spillett notes with some satisfaction that Kington’s elegant hatchet job neatly vindicates his own critical stance.
No survey of this era would be complete without addressing Stan Tracey’s Jazz Suite Inspired by Dylan Thomas’ “Under Milk Wood”—perhaps the most eulogised British jazz album of the century. Spillett details the genesis of the masterpiece, arguing that its perfection ranks alongside Miles Davis’s Kind of Blue and John Coltrane’s A Love Supreme, specifically because it freed itself from slavish adherence to American norms.
Under Milk Wood was recorded in a single session lasting three hours at Lansdowne Studios. Spillett quotes Benny Green on Bobby Wellins’ “restraint… his unerring ability to avoid the trite and meaningless… his use of silence… his ability to create light and shade instead of the endless rambling streams which so many musicians indulge in.”
“Starless and Bible Black was exactly what it was supposed to be,” Wellins remarked modestly. “Quite haunting, really!”
In a touching personal anecdote, Spillett recalls an afternoon spent with saxophonist Bobby Wellins, rehearsing themes from the suite before Wellins invited Spillett to play tenor while he sat at the piano. Spillett calls this “one of the most treasured musical experiences of my life.”
He also shares a poignant exchange between Wellins and Stan Tracey. Listening to the finished album together years later, Wellins turned to Tracey and said, “You know, that is the most wonderful music, Stan.” Tracey simply replied, “Well, I wrote it with you in mind.” According to Wellins, that was the only comment about the music that ever passed between them.
Among chapters covering giants like Ben Webster, Zoot Sims, Dudley Moore, the Spontaneous Music Ensemble, and Dizzy Reece, one of the strangest sections is devoted to a local character who shared a name with the famous American clarinetist. This British “Benny Goodman” was a balding, spectacled drummer who inveigled his way into numerous groups despite possessing very little technical skill. Spillett’s decision to cover such a minor, shadowy figure offers a darker, eccentric counterweight to the legends of the scene. Tragically, this Goodman’s story ends in a sad postscript: he died young as a result of drug addiction.
One minor frustration of the book is that many of the essential recordings Spillett describes were issued on long-defunct labels, leaving listeners to search for them in second-hand racks.
Spillett has written an essential book. He modestly considers himself a jazz musician who writes fairly regularly about the music he loves. One can only hope that the next volume will cover jazz from 1976 to 2026.
