Polygon JTL 4
Jazz Today
10” EP
Recorded May 1955

Tracks

Side 1
Minute to Midnight (Baker) (A) (recorded 3/5/55)
Blues In Thirds (Hines) (B) (recorded 17/5/55)
I’m a Ding, Dong Daddy (Baxter) (B (recorded 17/5/55)
Apex Blues (Noone) (E) (recorded 11/5/55)

Side 2
Studio B. Boogie (Baker) (A) (recorded 3/5/55)
West Wind (Jones) (C) (recorded 17/5/55)
Oh, Baby (Davis & Burke) (D) (recorded 11/5/55)

Sleeve Notes

How It Happened: by Peter Leslie

“After Hours” is a record which almost made itself. The germ of the idea came from that excellent modern pianist, Dill Jones, idly doodling on the Royal Festival Hall piano after the first concert there by Britain’s new Jazz Today Unit. A haphazard sequence of notes led him, at first satirically, then seriously, into a rocking chorus rather in the manner of those which used so to delight New Yorkers from the nimble fingers of James P. Johnson. Trumpet ace Kenny Baker, packing away his horn on the other side of the stage, paused, listened and then, refitting his mouthpiece, strolled over and began to blow in the same vein. Bruce Turner carried his alto across and joined in.

The jazz they blew owed allegiance to no school, bowed to no stylistic demands: it was just plain, honest-to-goodness hot music, the sort of sound once called “jump music”, too often dismissed today with a contemptuous “middle-period stuff”!

“Why”-Kenny Baker wondered aloud after several exhilarating choruses-“why does nobody ever record this kind of jazz today?” Jazz Today recording executives overheard the query, took the musicians up on it. This disc is the result.

The seven tracks here were recorded at three late-night sessions, after the musicians had finished their normal jobs. So the title wrote itself, too! They were recorded without fuss, with no preconceived ideas, and “very convivially”. The arrangements consisted of no more than a casual “You take two, I’ll take the next, and then we’ll play a couple of choruses of this riff” from Kenny Baker.

The first number on each side is a Baker original: “Minute to Midnight” a fast-paced piece of fireworks with plenty of opportunity for Dill Jones’s “stride” piano to cut its way through as a front line instrument; “Studio B Boogie” an exploration of the eight-to-the-bar familiar in an unfamiliar way. “Blues in Thirds”, slower than the famous Bechet version, features Baker in a superlative piece of lowdown trumpet playing, sensitive of construction, modelled of phrase-and, in concept, nearer than usual to Armstrong. In “West Wind”, Dill Jones creates a real “three o’clock in the morning” atmosphere in a long solo performance of grave and haunting beauty. Note here the faultless bass of Frank Clarke-a name probably new to most jazz fans, and Eddie Taylor’s restrained drumming.

Bruce Turner, a first-class musician with one foot firmly in each of today’s warring jazz camps, joins in on alto for the three remaining sides-and on clarinet, too, in Jimmy Noone’s “Apex Blues”. Finely complementing Baker in the ensembles, he displays both in ensemble and solo something of Pete Brown’s on-the-beat drive, coupled with phrasing not unlike that of the late Chu Berry-which provides interesting comparison on “Oh, Baby”, for in this old Wolverines” number the versatile Kenny, “wilder” in mood here, betrays a marked resemblance to Red Allen, an old stablemate of Berry’s.

Personnel

(A)
Kenny Baker (tpt.); Dill Jones (piano);
Frank Clarke (bass); Derek Price (drums).

(B)
Kenny aker (tpt.); Dill Jones (piano); Frank Clarke (bass)

(C)

Dill Jones (piano); Frank Clarke (bass); Eddie Taylor (drums)

(D)
Kenny Baker (tpt.); Bruce Turner (alto); Dill Jones (piano); Frank Clarke (bass); Eddie Taylor (drums)

(E)

As above: Bruce Turner (alto doubling clarinet)

Sleeve:
Designer: Ian Bradbery
Photography: Walter Hanlon

Recording:
Balance: Chris Philip
Supervision: Denis Preston