A consistently stirring trumpeter who caught the tail-end of the trad jazz boom in England and has since worked as a writer, broadcaster, and the founder of The National Jazz Archive and the Jazz Center UK, Digby Fairweather has recently been reissuing some of his best recordings from the past 55 years.
Notes From A Jazz Life Volume 4 is the fourth two-CD set that he has compiled for the Acrobat label. Its 33 selections are loosely in chronological order and feature Fairweather in a variety of different settings. My personal favorite is his mid-1970s group Velvet which has the trumpeter-cornetist in a quartet with guitarists Denny Wright and Ike Isaacs plus bassist Len Skeat. Each of the string players had worked in recent times with Stephane Grappelli and their seven numbers with Fairweather, which are mostly swing standards, are very much in the Hot Club vein. The interplay and tradeoffs between Fairweather and Wright are a real delight.
Second place would be Fairweather’s beautifully played duets with pianist Stan Barker: “Gone With The Wind” and “You Turned The Tables On Me.” Two songs by the Dixieland sextet Fairweather Friends include a memorable rendition of “Lonesome Road,” four numbers by his New Georgians are from the Nat Gonella Songbook, a hot rendition of “Original Dixieland One-Step” (along with “Prelude To A Kiss”) is offered by the ten-piece ensemble called The Great British Jazz Band, and there are two numbers have Fairweather in a quartet accompanying Chris Ellis’ vocals.
The most unusual performances are by Digby Fairweather’s Half Dozen, a medium-sized group from 2003-05. Seeking to at least temporarily escape from Dixieland, the trumpeter takes occasional vocals and utilizes rather modern and unusual arrangements of some of the tunes, particularly “The Blues My Naughty Sweetie Gave To Me.”
The group is also heard accompanying the bluesy and soulful vocals of George Melly on five songs with singer Jacqui Dankworth joining in on “Let’s Call The Whole Thing Off.” Notes From A Jazz Life Volume 4 concludes with freewheeling jams by Fairweather, pianist David Hackbridge Johnson, and bass saxophonist Mick Foster (known as We Three) from 2010 on four “good old good ones” including “Chinatown My Chinatown” and “The Sheik Of Araby.”
Throughout this twofer, Digby Fairweather’s expressive and versatile playing uplifts each performance. All of the releases in this valuable series are well worth acquiring.
Notes From A Jazz Life Volume 4
Digby Fairweather
Acrobat ADDCD 3528A
www.acrobatmusic.net and www.mvdb2b.com
Since 1975 Scott Yanow has been a regular reviewer of albums in many jazz styles. He has written for many jazz and arts magazines, including JazzTimes, Jazziz, Down Beat, Cadence, CODA, and the Los Angeles Jazz Scene, and was the jazz editor for Record Review. He has written an in-depth biography on Dizzy Gillespie for AllMusic.com. He has authored 11 books on jazz, over 900 liner notes for CDs and over 20,000 reviews of jazz recordings.
Yanow was a contributor to and co-editor of the third edition of the All Music Guide to Jazz. He continues to write for Downbeat, Jazziz, the Los Angeles Jazz Scene, the Jazz Rag, the New York City Jazz Record and other publications.
