Coming up in JJ September

Philip Larkin

British drummers
Dave Brubeck
Bill Mays
...and more

In August JJ: Tommy Smith, Brit drums pt 1, Brubeck pt 2, Edmond Hall, Lester Koenig and letters like this...

TEMPTED BY TONY
My initial interest in jazz happened on hearing a record on the radio by the Tony Kinsey trio. The tune was called Starboard Bow. The programme was on the BBC Light Programme and this was at lunchtime and in the mid 50s. To my knowledge I have never heard the record since and I am now wondering what it was about it that started me off as a jazz buff. Can anyone help?
Neville Barstow, Manchester

...which elicited eight replies but no attempt to divine why Mr Barstow fell victim to Kinsey's charms at lunchtime in the mid-50s. Do we have no Freudians among our readers?

Time out: Dagley & Drew

Two British jazz drummers, Chris Dagley and Martin Drew, died this week, both of them unfashionably excellent exponents of straight-down-the-line timekeeping.

Chris Dagley (by Gordon Sapsed)

Chris Dagley, star of NYJO in the 1990s and for the past few years house drummer at Ronnie Scott's died in a scooter accident on the morning of 28 July on the A40 west of London after leaving his gig at Ronnie's.

Chris will be remembered for his professional, propulsive work in many pickup bands with Americans around the UK and for his 'commercial' work with Eric Clapton, Take That, Jamiroquai, Van Morrison, Will Young and others. He represented first-class, no-nonsense musicianship in a jazz world where musical ability is often obscured by hype.

Chris was 38 years old and leaves a widow and three children. His death is a shocking and tragic loss for his family and the British jazz scene.

Martin Drew in 2006 (by Gordon Sapsed)

Martin Drew, for many years drummer with Oscar Peterson, died on Tuesday as he prepared to go to the funeral of Harry Klein.

According to JJ correspondent Gordon Sapsed, Martin felt unwell after taking a shower and was taken to hospital. The consultant happened to be a jazz fan and knew Martin from his days at Ronnie Scott's but his efforts proved in vain.

Martin was a larger-than-life character, as was evident when I visited his west London house for a blindfold test a few years ago, and he leaves a large hole on the London jazz scene.

An appreciation by Martin's friend John Altman will appear in the September issue of Jazz Journal.

JJ21

You get the genuine article in Jazz Journal, but as it says on page 22 (ish) the editor does not necessarily agree with the views expressed. Here, he's more likely to, and the content is likely to reflect both his tastes and inspirations and, as 'JJ21' might suggest, a view of jazz founded in a youth that saw the late 20th century as a promise of modernity. It didn't work out that way all round, not only for JJ but for the postmodern world (and jazz world) at large. My intuitive sense is that stasis has been the watchword in much jazz for going on three decades. But the hope of musical progress still bubbles under and this blog, aside from general reporting, will remind that there are out there effective musical communicators who seem to keep faith with modernism. Here's a guitarist (of whom Pat Martino said 'that is not guitar') whose career symbolises in large part the hopes and disappointments of recent years.

The wages of modern jazz

Mind you, he was very tired.