This superb two-disc set honoring bassist Ron Russell consists of material recorded during the 1970s. This is also the first time it has been issued, and one can question why that should have been. In his booklet notes, Digby Fairweather says, “. . . we were never signed to a label . . . . Quite why I’ll never be sure . . . .” After hearing the CD, one can only echo his wonderment.
When it comes to traditional jazz, labels can be slippery—even treacherous—things, and to avoid any problems one almost has to define his or her terms, as Fairweather does here. In his booklet notes, he mentions that Russell’s aim always was “to play the kind of music (still, for better or worse termed ‘Dixieland’) that he adored . . . . And by ‘Dixieland’ I’m talking about the artistically-specific area that by-passes ‘Trad’ to embrace the sophisticated school of jazz thought beginning in America with Eddie Condon . . . .” That is kind of jazz we have here on these CDs.
The musicians who provide this jazz, none of them (other, perhaps, than Fairweather) exactly household names, are an extremely talented group who, having enjoyed a long acquaintanceship with each other in this and other groups, give near flawless performances. One can see at a glance that the personnel changes are relatively few. Present on all tracks are Fairweather, Strange, and Russell. Fairweather daz
