ALLAN GANLEY – The Complete Quartet and Jazzmakers Recordings 1957-59 by Simon Spillett

 © Copyright ® Steven Cerra, copyright protected; all rights reserved.

“A rarity in a land notoriously short of good drummers, Allan has a meticulous technique and excellent timing, as well as the great virtue, lacking is so many drummers, of producing musical sounds from the drums.”

- Ronnie Scott

Based in the UK, Acrobat Music is a record label specialising in collectors’ and reissue CDs across just about every genre of music. Fortunately, many of the individual and multi disc releases with a Jazz theme have insert notes by Simon Spillett, who besides his first rate writing skills is also an excellent tenor saxophonist, arranger and bandleader.

In other words, he knows what he’s talking about and is able to explain it in a clear, concise and entertaining manner. Another plus is his wry sense of humor which he displays with controlled bursts that seem to come out of nowhere [Jazz pun intended].

As one of our many Jazz preoccupations, we are always on the lookout for recordings by our favorite drummers and in this category we recently came across Allan Ganley: The Complete Quartet & Jazzmakers Sessions 1957-59, Acrobat ACMCD 4379.

And as luck would have it, the notes were by Simon who gave his permission for them to be posted as part of this blog feature.

© Copyright ® Simon Spillett, copyright protected; all rights reserved; used with the author’s permission.

Leafing through the yellowing pages of the Melody Maker from the 1950s is a little like lifting the lid on a long-buried time capsule. Indeed, sixty-odd years on some of the papers musical predictions now seem almost comically awry, with great stock being put in performers, recordings and even styles that were to vanish in a flash, never to return. However, in amid its almost obsessively over-detailed accounts of the comings and goings of the day’s musical figures and an approach to journalism which at times veers perilously close to gossip-column tittle-tattle, occasionally the paper casts up a pearl of lasting historic value. In its January 17th 1953 issue, opposite a page shouting “Cowboy Jimmy Will Play Glenn Miller Now”, is a photograph of a fresh-faced young man, with a beakish nose and an imposingly perpendicular quiff, staring serenely into the middle-distance. Bracketing the photo is the headline “GANLEY – man of the moment”, and alongside the right side of the portrait are listed the words “Tone, Taste, Technique, Swing.” 

The “man of the moment” was none other than drummer Allan Ganley, of course, featuring in what must surely have been the first extended musical critique of his career. Although only 21 years of age, the article noted that he had already elicited praise from a host of admirers. The papers Mike Nevard had apparently made favourable note of his “feather crisp drumming” a few months earlier, whilst a recent review of a concert at The Royal Albert Hall had met with a positively effusive response from Ernest Borneman, among the sternest of local jazz critics. “No praise is too high”, the uncharacteristically generous Borneman was reported as saying, whilst the main thrust of the piece went on to emphasise just how important a position Ganley now occupied as second drummer in the Jack Parnell orchestra, making the appointment sound something like a musical knighthood. However, the article's author, Laurie Henshaw, clearly thought the young man was more than ready for the challenge: “Allan’s four precepts for good drumming are tone, taste, technique and swing. He has them all.”

Although it’s somewhat ingenuous to reduce the skills of a player whose musicianship would continue to expand right up until his death some fifty-five years later to some four words, Henshaw’s description of Allan Ganley - jazz neophyte - could well have been written at any stage in his long and varied career. Indeed, Ganley was not only a musician of natural curiosity, keen to elevate both the role of the drums and alter the misconception of drummers as lesser musical souls, he was among the most consistent British jazz performers of his generation, forging the basic concepts of “tone, taste, technique and swing” into a formidably adaptable style.

Interviewed by the author in 2004, he offered just one instance where these failsafe skills had resulted in a changing of the local musical guard. When the volcanic saxophonist Tubby Hayes had formed his new quintet in 1962, Ganley revealed that he had made it into the running simply because he was “Mr Reliable.” “Tubby would have loved Phil Seamen to do it”, he confessed, “but he was so unpredictable that he asked me instead.”

However, the above story should by no means imply that Ganley was some sort of musical non-entity. Far from it: any band in which the drummer played was guaranteed to be transformed by his presence. There is no better example of this than that of John Dankworth, to whose bands Ganley regularly contributed over a truly staggering fifty year span and which required a musician able to react positively to all sorts of compositional challenges. More quixotic talents also liked his approach, including the virtuoso blind reed player Roland Kirk, and, across a career that took him around the globe several times, he worked with a bewilderingly eclectic range of musical figures from Ruby Braff to Peggy Lee to Ernest Ranglin and beyond, each of them valuing the unflappable professionalism of a player refreshingly free from the curse of so many jazz drummers – ego.

At the time Laurie Henshaw had written his paean of praise to Ganley, the drummer was working his way steadily up the career ladder, having just left the band of saxophonist Jimmy Walker. The association with Jack Parnell – about which he had been so excited – lasted barely a few months before he moved onto the first edition of the Dankworth Big Band, thus beginning what would be a lifelong association. In many ways he was a player bespoke for leaders’ cultured approach, later describing how one of his predecessors with Dankworth, Tony Kinsey, had been “the biggest influence of them all. He was my idol when I started playing.”

To reinforce how meteoric was his rise to the top of the British jazz tree, a simple thumb-nail sketch of Ganley’s background might prove instructive: born in Tolworth in Surrey on March 11th 1931, he became interested in jazz through his brothers record collection, soon becoming besotted with the drums, much to his parents delight. “They were wonderful”, he later recalled. “I practised for three  or four hours a day. Neither they nor the neighbours complained”. Along with the drums themselves, Ganley soon found himself fascinated by the burgeoning modern jazz movement, occasionally taking the train into London to visit the legendary Club XI, crucible of British bop. In 1949, he ventured even further afield to Paris to hear Charlie Parker’s quintet featuring Max Roach, a player who was to set many of the musical parameters that would eventually govern his own style.

After a spell of National Service in the RAF, Ganley finally turned professional by joining Jimmy Walker, filling whatever spare time he had networking with other young players including Tubby Hayes and Jimmy Deuchar. The gig with Dankworth however was a step even further up the ladder and when he and the bandleader were invited to the US in 1955 as part of a promotional tie-in with Capitol Records, to whom the altoist had recently signed, the trip afforded the opportunity to witness the latest drum styles up close. 

Reporting back to Melody Maker, Ganley opined that of the players he’d heard “the most original was Shelly Manne: the most swinging – Osie Johnson and Kenny Clarke: the most sensational – Buddy Rich: the best big band drummer – Mel Lewis” but exposure to the work of all these men and more fueled a nagging desire to strike out on his own. Soon after his return from the US, he and ex-Dankworth pianist Derek Smith teamed with baritonist Harry Klein and bassist Sammy Stokes to form the New Jazz Group, a band with an uncompromising “jazz only policy” which during its year-long existence (featuring just one change of personnel in trumpeter Dizzy Reece, as can be heard on Acrobat ACFCD 7502 Dizzy Reece: The Complete Recordings 1954-62) endeavoured to up the ratio of British jazz compositions featured on live club, concerts and broadcast appearances. Declaring himself “always fascinated by music – not just the drums” Ganley’s compositional ambitions also began at this point and, within a short space of time, with Smith’s help and guidance he was turning out themes not just for the New Jazz Group, but also for Victor Feldman and The Jazz Couriers. “They were pretty basic compared to what I did later”, he recalled in 2004. “Just a top line and chords, not really arrangements as such, but it was a start.”

The promising start came to an abrupt halt however when Derek Smith announced his emigration to the USA in spring 1957. Although he was also working with both Ronnie Scott and Kenny Baker’s Dozen at the time, Ganley now had to think on his feet: the collaboration with Smith had provided a ready outlet for his composing, something that virtually no other unit could offer and so the logical choice was to become a bandleader in his own right.

 

The Allan Ganley Quartet: “a quietly swinging, immensely tasteful and musicianly unit...”

There had been successful small groups headed by British drummers before, including several excitingly raw outfits fronted by Tony Crombie, but the biggest practical example of the impact a drummer could have as a bandleader/composer was that of Tony Kinsey, who’d led a series of classy line-ups since leaving the Dankworth Seven in 1951. One of Kinsey’s regular sidemen was alto saxophonist Joe Harriott, a player Allan Ganley had worked with on a number of all-star club and concert presentations and who he numbered amongst his favourite local jazzmen. The drummer considered him “an obvious choice” for his new band.

After a lengthy association with Kinsey, Harriott jumped at the chance for a change and, although his move was typical of the game of musical chairs played out on the still relatively confined British modern jazz scene of the time, it left his previous employer somewhat in the lurch. “Why couldn’t Ganley get someone else?”, Kinsey complained bitterly to Jazz News. “I have been working on arrangements for [my] band for over three weeks. [I’ve] worked night and day. Now this has to happen.”

Ganley’s response to his fellow drummer and former idol was not recorded, but when the new quartet made its debut at London’s Club ‘M’ on June 16th 1957 the uniformly positive reaction of critics and fans vindicated his controversial choice. Almost immediately the band began to attract attention: in his regular column in The Record Mirror during August, Tony Hall named Ganley as one of “The Big Five” in contemporary British jazz, largely on the strength of his new group. “Yes, Allan’s done more than his share [but] his quartet with Joe Harriott is giving him greater scope.” 

Jazz News also chose the leader – who it described a little disconcertingly as a “cap wearing heart throb” – for a front page feature that same month, with the accompanying article also usefully outlining the musical policy of his new unit. “Most of the arrangements for the group are by Allan himself and they feature a lot of group originals. The group also feature originals by other British jazz musicians which is an unusual departure.”

The band also boasted a genuine new star in pianist Stan Jones, a musician of formidable intellect who looked more like an accountant than a jazz musician, but whose sensitive style acted as a useful counterweight to the fiery outpourings of Harriott, whilst to partner him in the rhythm section Ganley had selected former NJG bassist and close friend Sammy Stokes, a player he would jokingly announce as “the only successful out of tune bassist in the business”. If the camaraderie between the leader and Stokes was indicative of the relaxed nature of the new group’s music, Ganley nevertheless continued to find his altoist an enigma. Although he would describe him as “the most consistent player I’ve ever worked with. I’ve yet to hear him play a bad chorus”, off the stand he found Harriott’s attitude hard to fathom. Notoriously moody, the Jamaican seemed to put himself at odds with virtually everyone he came into contact with, even his leader. “We were never that close”, Ganley told Harriott’s biographer Alan Robertson in 2001. “He was a fabulous musician though, so inspiring to work with.”

The first hint of this inspiring new partnership to reach the wider public was a BBC Jazz Club broadcast on October 25th (appearing opposite the Tony Kinsey quintet - clearly no enmity remained between the two drummers) and the following month the quartet convened at producer Denis Preston’s Lansdowne Studios in Holland Park to record four titles for an EP release on the Nixa label. This new Acrobat release marks their first appearance in a digital format.

An individual who once openly compared his pioneering efforts to those of legendary American impresario Norman Granz, Preston’s contribution to British jazz was transformational. Indeed, from the early 1950’s up to the 1970’s, he was responsible for recording a vast swathe of British jazz, taking a genuine interest in the work of all kinds of players at a time when few in the parochial records industry could be bothered and the string of EP releases he “supervised” for the Polygon and PYE/Nixa “Jazz Today” series during the mid-to-late 1950’s form an impressively eclectic body of work. Although he had netted such big names as Chris Barber and Kenny Baker, Preston was also fond of mavericks like Kenny Graham, Dill Jones and Bruce Turner and he can also be applauded for his prescience: some of those he recorded would never again get the chance to head their own sessions and though this was not true of Allan Ganley, the drummers quartet recording of November 19th 1957 documents the only surviving example of the first incarnation of the band.  

(Like a considerable percentage of Preston’s 1950’s output the session was engineered by the notorious Joe Meek, a man whose genuinely innovative understanding of recording techniques went hand-in-hand with an increasingly disturbed personality. Eventually he and Preston parted company but, in a somewhat bizarre connection, bringing together the Nixa recordings of Ganley with those done later for Atlantic must make this the only album in history to have been engineered by both Meek and the equally legendary Tom Dowd.)

“At the time of this E.P. we had been playing together as a regular group for just over six months, and had built up a large library of numbers”, Ganley began his sleeve note to the record. “The four inside this sleeve are tunes that we most enjoy playing as well as being among the most requested in our repertoire.”

The opening Ganley score of I Feel A Song Comin’ On instantly sets out the band's stall. With its changes from waltz to swing, somewhat echoing the earlier classic version recorded by Sonny Rollins and Max Roach, the chart is smack in the territory of contemporary Hard Bop. Appropriately Ganley drums with Roach-ian logic, whilst Harriott’s passionate playing is a welcome reminder of how inventive he was within the language of “conventional” jazz.

Stan Jones’ Margona, described by his leader as “a very unusual chord sequence” also clearly stimulates the altoist whilst the head-arrangement of Mean To Me contains what Ganley called one of Jones’ “thoughtful, logical solos…typical of his relaxed was of playing [it] brings to mind the work of his idol, John Lewis.”

Throughout the session the pianist combines with Sammy Stokes and Ganley to form what must surely have been one of the most cohesive rhythm sections then operating in British jazz, illustrated perfectly on the drummer’s composition Stewpot. 

“A session we all thoroughly enjoyed”, was how Ganley summarised the recording, telling his listeners “we hope you find equal pleasure in the finished product.”

When the Nixa EP, titled Gone Ganley, was released in March 1958, the critical tenor was unusually favourable for a local product. “The routines are intelligent and out-of-the-rut”, reported Record Mirror, “but never over-busy or slick”. The review then went on to praise Harriott’s contribution as “probably Joe’s best recordings thus far. His technique and general mastery of his instrument has improved considerably over the years” and concluded that “this is a very good disc.”

“Don’t be put off by the fact it’s British”, New Musical Express stated. “Ganley’s drumming is great – beyond criticism. He should be far better known than he is even now and his quartet, good though it is, still does not get the praise it deserves.”

“The work of a group such as this or the Jazz Couriers”, wrote Graham Boatfield in his Jazz Journal appraisal, “is consistently interesting, apart from minor lapses, and immensely able, without quite being able to leave a strong impression. Perhaps that will come in time.”

It was an encomium that spoke as much of the circumstances of British modern jazz musicians as for their practical skills. Like the Jazz Couriers and the half-a-dozen other leading local modern groups of the era, Ganley’s quartet was working within a vacuum. Not only was the British jazz scene still small and insecure, its aspirations remained largely imitative, the very reason why the reviewers tackling the bands EP were at pains to state its worth regardless of “the fact it’s British” 

The predictions that Boatfield made were also not destined to come true as, by the time Gone Ganley was being reviewed there had been a seismic personnel change within the group. Ever the wild card Joe Harriott had left to form his own quintet, a move which ironically prompted another round of musical chairs with Tony Kinsey. For a few gigs Kinsey’s former tenor saxophone star Bob Efford occupied the front-line position in the quartet before swapping with Art Ellefson, a journeyman jazz player whose work had yet to create a wider impact on local audiences.

Born in Moose Jaw, Canada in 1932, Ellefson had moved to the UK in 1952, and had since worked his way through a vast array of commercial and jazz-based big bands, Carl Barriteau, Harry Hayes, Roy Fox, Frank Weir and Vic Lewis’ amongst them, but whilst it had provided a solid apprenticeship, this workload had somewhat obscured his already impressive skills as a jazz improviser. Originally inspired by Coleman Hawkins, Ellefson had gone on to incorporate elements of several players styles but with his jaunty phrasing, vaguely hooting tone and questing harmonic mind, he already sounded like no-one but himself. The stay with Ganley’s quartet also considerably upped him musical stock: for example, Ellefson had not appeared at all in the tenor section of the Melody Maker jazz poll of 1957 – itself something of a barometer of who was hot and who was not – but by the end of 1958 he was placed seventh.

Ganley himself had done even better, winning the drum category for the first time in October 1957. The victory was a rarity in jazz polls – a triumph of subtlety over panache, a description that could have been applied equally to the drummer's style itself.  Less powerful perhaps that Tony Crombie’s, less fussy than Tony Kinsey’s and without the attendant hype that surrounded Phil Seamen’s work, Ganley’s playing had now entered a remarkable golden age, which by a strange quirk of co-incidence almost mirrored that of one of his idols, Max Roach. Just as Roach was then doing with his own series of small bands, through a combination of a remarkably crisp tuning of the drums themselves and his own failsafe technical command, Ganley had created a coiled-spring sense of musical tension which other more overly dramatic drummers were unable to match. And, in another parallel with the American drum icon, he had also become a talent-spotter par excellence.

Clearly now was the time to capitalise on this success and the following summer it was announced that the drummers quartet had signed with “a new low-price label, Saga”, part of the Saga Films group, whose aim was to provide quality British jazz at budget-line prices. According to Melody Maker the label had “fired a broadside in what may prove to be a major price war”, retailing its 7” EP’s at “6s. 3d. – a price reduction of approximately 50 per cent.”

Joining an initial roster of artists also including vocalist Johnny Grant, tenorist Tommy Whittle and guitarist Ken Sykora, Ganley’s one and only session for the label was recorded in July 1958, under the A & R supervision of agent Peter Burman. In fact, Saga’s effort could not have been better timed. Assessing the quartet in Disc magazine the following month, Tony Hall noted that “the group fills a long-felt gap on the British scene. A quietly swinging, immensely tasteful and musicianly unit, it has the courage of its convictions and is not afraid to whisper in public when the mood demands.” Hall also recorded that “the Art Ellefson-Bob Efford tenor swap a few months ago has worked out very well for all concerned”. It had certainly worked in Ellefson’s favour as, after seven years on the UK jazz scene, the Saga recording was to finally provide the first extended example of his soloing on record (a previous Nixa release under his own name had concentrated upon his multi-instrumental skills, even going so far as utilising early overdubbing).

The opening version of Bob Brookmeyer’s Open Country (a theme previously recorded by Al Cohn, Stan Getz, Gerry Mulligan and Brookmeyer himself) not only captures the saxophonists individual take on the tenor tradition but also provides the perfect summary of what the anonymous sleeve note writer described as the groups “unerring flow, unmarred by hesitation or a desire to steal the limelight.”

Beaulieu, a Stan Wasser composition, dedicated to the then-new Beaulieu Jazz Festival, showcases the bassists’ solid tone and time whilst the leaders’ tribute to Thelonious Monk, The High Priest, also recorded that same year by clarinettist Vic Ash, features a melody line echoing the dedicatees’ own Blue Monk. The final item, Irving Berlin’s Blues Skies, scored by Stan Jones, lowers the temperature in the manner typical of much British modern jazz of this era, although Ellefson does his best to come out swinging.

Following its release in early 1959, the reviews of Ganley’s Saga EP – titled The High Priest –were somewhat divided. Writing in The Tatler Gerald Lascelles thought the session representative of the drummers’ ability “to knit even a small group like his quartet into a musical entity”, and praised Ellefson’s “potent tenor saxophone work”. Jazz Journal’s reviewer however thought the record a disappointment, stating “the standard of performance doesn’t reach the high level that I’ve heard from the quartet.”

There is also evidence to suggest that Saga’s bold policy of releasing budget-priced jazz had similarly back-fired. Issued at a time when all eyes were on the American jazz scene, even the incentive of cheaper pricing didn’t appear to have helped local jazzmen like Ganley, Tommy Whittle and the other Saga-signed artists. Sales figures had been notably poor, leaving their one-off EP’s for the label in a kind of historic limbo: inexpensive enough to afford, but obscured by discs by more popular US artists. (Ironically,  the handful of Saga releases of British jazz from the 1950’s have since become rare and expensive collectors’ items: another of the labels recordings, Tommy Whittle’s A Touch of Latin, is now incorporated into Acrobat ACMCD 4355 Tommy Whittle Quintet: Complete Recordings 1958-1959)

Hindsight also proves to be a far less harsh judge of their contents. Indeed, in the knowledge that it was to be the quartets’ one and only recording, the value of the High Priest EP (reissued here for the first time) becomes more musical than financial. The session also provides a glimpse of where its participants were headed next: within a month of the record's release in September 1958, the Allan Ganley Quartet would add another front-line player to its ranks and re-launch itself as a co-operative under the title of The Jazzmakers.

The Jazzmakers: “the freshest and most unexpected sounds”

The formation of what was to be regarded as one of the finest British jazz groups of its day was actually more casual than conceptual. In fact, when Melody Maker announced that Ganley and baritone saxophonist Ronnie Ross were to join forces that September, apart from a little journalistic excitement at the potential musical riches to he had from the alliance, few eyebrows were raised: the union was merely the latest reshuffle on the London jazz scene, the kind of thing British jazz fans had long grown used to.

Since making his debut with Don Rendell’s group in 1954, Calcutta-born Ross had been at the front-rank of British jazzmen. He was also among the very few who’d managed to forge a style that was truly world-class, so much so that, after serving time in a delightful series of bands headed by Rendell, Tony Kinsey and others, he had ventured to the United States in the summer of 1958 to play at the famous Newport Jazz Festival. Although the circumstances of the gig were by no means ideal (Ross was working in a supposed “youth” band under the leadership of the didactic Marshall Brown), the endorsement spoke volumes. Other American jazz men who’d also toured the UK opposite Ross had been similarly impressed, most notably Modern Jazz Quartet pianist John Lewis (with whom he would record the album European Windows) and when the baritonist was placed in the readers’ poll of the prestigious DownBeat magazine in 1958, the victory was not only unprecedented but truly deserved. “The growth of international prestige of British jazz is a process that has been taking place ever since the end of the war”, wrote Benny Green in the sleeve notes to one of the saxophonists LP’s shortly afterwards, “and Ross’s rise is its latest manifestation.” Away from the purple prose of the critics however, it was the practical endorsement of musicians like John Lewis that counted most and, when it was reported that none other than Gerry Mulligan now considered the English baritonist “the only real threat” there was unabashed pride in the local music press.

Gifted with a highly melodic style and a fund of witty rhythmic ideas, Ross was a natural partner for Ganley, as the drummer remembered in 2004: “His name brings back very happy memories, both musically and socially. If you wanted someone to co-lead a band with – he was your man!”

The Jazzmakers made their debut at The Dankworth Club in Oxford Street on October 5th 1958 and within weeks were displaying a group unity that was rare among British outfits of the day. “This is the only group I’ve been in that has a definite group feeling”, Ganley told Jazz News the following year. “That is [our] strong point.” 

There had been other British bands that had exhibited a marked affinity for the same musical goal – The Jazz Couriers for example – but the Jazzmakers music seemed to glow with almost familial warmth, as Ronnie Ross remarked to Melody Maker: “My heart’s in this band. We have real sympathy, I think. Just five guys trying to play together. I couldn’t play if there was any kind of ‘atmosphere’: I don’t think any of us could”.

When he caught the band at the Marquee early in the New Year, Brian Harvey of Jazz News found them “one of the most musically intelligent groups in the country”. 

“The compositions and arrangements by the individual members are distinguished by their contemporary and original sound,” Harvey continued. “One particular facet of the group that I have heard NO other [British] group attempt at length is the interplay of both horns with no backing at all. The idea is not new but it has rarely been more successful than when used by Ross and Ellefson.”

Indeed, the at times startling synergy of the Jazzmakers front-line partners made the band virtually unique on the UK jazz scene – a group whose goal was collaboration not imitation - and it came as no surprise whatsoever when both Ellefson and Ross were hand-picked to form part of the ready-made British contingent of Woody Herman’s touring “Anglo-American Herd” during the spring of 1959. However, their temporary indisposition was all but a blip for a band which Brian Harvey noted was “producing one of the most refreshingly virile sounds yet heard in British modern jazz.” 

Confirmation of their burgeoning importance came that July, when it was announced that the Jazzmakers were to tour the US as part of an all-star jazz package also including Thelonious Monk, George Shearing, Lennie Tristano and Anita O’Day. 

Allan Ganley had toured America two years before with Ronnie Scott, but this time, rather than finding themselves tagged onto a show as a token gesture of Anglo-US goodwill, the visit promised to pitch the English band into the international spotlight. Attempting to gauge how they felt under such heavyweight scrutiny, Jazz News’ John Martin was tasked with interviewing the group en masse just ahead of their departure, something the journalist found nigh-on impossible. “Gags, jokes and good natured insults were thrown back and forward with the speed of a string of up-tempo chase choruses”, he noted, adding “next time I hope the editor gives me an easier assignment…like an interview with the Goons.” However, Martin was eventually able to prise some sense of occasion from the band as he mentioned their forthcoming US debut. Wasn’t it a case of taking coals to Newcastle? “I think we have something to say musically”, bassist Stan Wasser replied, whilst Ross added “I think we have something that a lot of American groups haven’t got.” Despite this impressive confidence, and still somewhat agog at the prospect of British jazz musicians working in the US, Martin concluded “[the tour is] quite an achievement for a group whose formation is comparatively recent”. 

From September 6th to the 17th, the band criss-crossed the US and Canada (according to Ronnie Ross even their day off had been spent “travelling at 80 miles an hour from Toronto to Boston”) and, culminating in a final appearance in New York, it found itself consistently well received by the national press. Reviewing the final show at New York’s Town Hall, Burt Korall cabled the Melody Maker to report “the honours going to the Ronnie Ross-Allan Ganley Jazzmakers.”

“If anything, Ellefson outdid Ross this night”, he continued, “ably mixing long lines with punchy phrases, and often reminding me of Zoot Sims in his concern for swing.” DownBeat’s Leonard Feather also reported that although rationed to a short twenty-minute slot “the freshest and most unexpected sounds…were provided by the Jazzmakers” with Ross in particular showing “great confidence and imagination”. The Big Apple appearance had clearly been a major jazz victory for the visiting Englishman, and, as if to confirm their elevation to the international jazz firmament, Melody Maker printed a back-stage photograph of Ronnie Ross (“one of England’s most compelling musicians”) receiving his DownBeat ‘New Star” award alongside Thelonious Monk and Cannonball Adderley. 

Interviewed upon his return to London, and sporting “press cuttings which confirmed the opinion that British jazz can hold its own in America”, the baritonist informed Jazz News’ that “they want us back so we will probably return next year”. “Now we’re used to the travelling and the somewhat unconventional hours the Americans keep we should be able to relax more”, he added.

However, behind its general air of a musical coup, the Jazz News article also touched briefly upon an aspect of the trip that had all but threatened to sabotage its success, the sudden disappearance of Stan Jones. Ross noted that the pianist had “fallen ill” in New York, resulting in his not taking part in the majority of the groups engagements “except for five concerts where [he] re-joined us.” The nature of Jones’ illness was not disclosed at the time, but years later Allan Ganley revealed what had actually happened, recalling that the pianist had undergone some sort of mental breakdown and had sought refuge in a church. “Our trip…was traumatic to say the least. On the day we were due to leave on tour, everyone met at Columbus Circle in New York. Except our pianist, Stan Jones, who went missing! He’d been a bit strange on the flight over and then disappeared. So we all left and every stop we made on the coach, Ronnie and I would find a phone and try and find out where he was. So we did most of the tour without a piano player until he finally turned up for [our concert] in Boston.” Amazingly, Jones was also able to pull himself together enough to record an album with the band at the close of the trip.

Selling British jazz in the United States had proved notoriously difficult, but as the enthusiastic reception met by the Jazzmakers had shown, provided an opportunity to have their music heard, British jazzmen could nevertheless create a striking impression. Few individuals realised this more keenly than Tony Hall, Flamingo club MC, disc jockey, head of exploitation at Decca Records, A&R supervisor at the Tempo label and general man-about-jazz. Ever since the early 1950’s Hall have been chivvying American record companies to take up the work of English players and, to date, he’d found moderate success in getting albums by Jimmy Deuchar, Victor Feldman, Tubby Hayes and others issued on various US imprints. In 1958, he had successfully organised trumpeter Dizzy Reece’s debut session for the Blue Note label (recorded in London in somewhat covert circumstance and now included on Acrobat ACFCD 7502 Dizzy Reece: The Complete Recordings 1954-62) but with the Jazzmakers’ US tour he was finally able to realise a long-held ambition, that of having a UK-based jazz group make a record in the land of the music’s birth.

Following an interminable series of telegrams, and some practical intervention from MJQ pianist and Ronnie Ross advocate John Lewis, Atlantic Records producer Neshui Ertegun had finally confirmed that he would tape the Jazzmakers for a one-off session on September 23rd. Not only did the agreement offer yet more confirmation of the British bands international standing, it ensured their work a place in a catalogue already brimming with front-rank jazz talent: as well as their extensive documentation of the Modern Jazz Quartet, Atlantic had previously recorded albums by Charles Mingus, John Coltrane and Lennie Tristano, and had garnered a reputation for selecting musicians whose work needed greater exposure. What better endorsement was there for the bona-fide authenticity of Ganley and co.?

Listening back to The Swingin’ Sounds of The Jazzmakers over half a century later one is instantly struck by two things: first, the sheer authenticity of it all. At no point does anyone play anything that could lead the listener to identify his nationality. Secondly, how relaxed the band sounds - an almost unbelievable achievement considering the pressure the recording exerted. Not only were they making their debut album in the jazz capital of the world, under the auspices of a label renown for quality control of every kind, they were recovering from the sudden mental collapse of one of their key members! None of this shows at all.

The opening version of Ronnie Ross’ The Country Squire immediately establishes the groups approach: palatable modern jazz with an emphasis on straight-ahead swing and melodic improvisation. Ellefson’s solo in particular, brimming with ideas and delivered with his characteristic choppy articulation, swings like the proverbial clappers, whilst Ross once again indisputably proves his world-class ranking.

Perhaps the record’s greatest virtue is that it sounds both like and unlike contemporary American jazz. The influence of Al Cohn and Zoot Sims’ tumbling two-part inventions can certainly be felt in the ensemble work on It’s A Wonderful World (a theme which the American duo had recorded two years earlier) Pitiful Pearl and Blues For The Five Of Us - and intriguingly the baritone and tenor achieve a blend uncannily like Cohn and Sims’s rare clarinet outings on I Won’t Fret If I Don’t Get The Blues Anymore -  but the effect is less marked in the individual solo statements. Ross is a tower of individual strength, with the lovely How Long Has This Been Going On? ranking amongst his finest ballad-tempo recordings, whilst Ellefson’s curiously effective blend of musical sweet and sour occasionally hints at more radical departures. His lead playing on The Real Funky Blues for instance has fitful flashes of a near Coltrane-like urgency.

Stan Jones is also notably assured sounding given his condition at the time. Like his hero John Lewis’ Jones was a master accompanist – a good example can be found in the way in which he shadows Ross on his own The Real Funky Blues –and a telling soloist, able to make a little go a very long way. The understated but funky improvisation he unfurls on The Moonbather is among his best on record, whilst that on I Won’t Fret If I Don’t Get The Blues Anymore would make for challenging guess-work in a blindfold test.

The co-leaders' drumming is also a masterclass of subtle invention throughout: listen to his tight, Roach-like solo on his own composition The Moonbather and the way in which he underpins the dynamic shifts of The Real Funky Blues.

A further word also needs to be spoken for Stan Wasser. Overshadowed by the likes of Lennie Bush, Jeff Clyne and Kenny Napper and now all-but-forgotten, he had been among the pioneers of modern jazz bass playing in the UK, working with a dazzling array of local talent including Tony Kinsey, Ronnie Scott and Dizzy Reece. A good example of his logical but unflashy soloing comes on Pitiful Pearl, but elsewhere he is content to lock-down with Ganley and Jones to form the kind of British rhythm section that jazz critics of the time were loath to admit existed.

Despite the success of the Atlantic session and the US tour, both events effectively marked the end of the first phase of the Jazzmakers existence. When the band returned to the UK, Stan Jones retreated to Holloway Sanatorium in Virginia Water, leaving Ganley and the remainder of the band to consider their next move, with the group eventually recruiting trombonist Keith Christie for what effectively became the Jazzmakers Mark II. Also there was no little irony in the timing of Atlantic’s decision to release the original band's album in the US at the beginning of 1961. Awarding it a six out of ten rating in Metronome Bill Coss praised the group as “fine musicians worthy of serious consideration: our cousins have qualities by the dozen”, although by this time the “cousins” had virtually all departed for new musical ventures: Ross had gone off to co-form his new Jazztet with trumpeter Bert Courtley in 1960, whilst the Ganley and Christie opted for another shake-up into the New Jazzmakers, a quintet line-up featuring the impressive Mancunian saxophonist Stan Robinson. This revised group recorded an as yet unissued album at London’s IBC Studios in December 1960, but its future was short-lived and when Ganley was recruited by Tubby Hayes for his new unit in February 1962, the band finally dissolved. Again, there was an ironic touch to the timing of the break-up: that same year, after a delay of over two years, Jeff Kruger’s Ember label finally secured the UK release of The Swingin’ Sounds of The Jazzmakers, thus enabling British listeners to at last hear a band that was by then fast becoming a distant memory. The albums’ reviews were somewhat desultory: “Much of the ambitious work which went into the Jazzmakers had been lost in this recording”, Jazz Journal’s critic observed, whilst even Melody Maker’s Bob Dawbarn – a writer whose observations had a near Pavlovian tendency towards the expected – couldn’t muster anything more enthused than “the group swings in a gentle and melodic way.”

Therein lay the rub of the Jazzmakers music. By late 1962, the tenor of the musical times was no longer favouring “gentle and melodic” jazz. The avant-garde had begun its noisy ascent and there was a deafening fall-out from the Trad Boom, whilst the seismic shift that was The Beat Boom lay just ahead. 

The individual stories of the original Jazzmakers after the bands split make for an interesting study in contrast: Ronnie Ross and Art Ellefson both continued to be highly visible figures on the British jazz scene, dividing their time practically between session work and out-and-out jazz as the decade wore on. Two of their colleagues however had been less fortunate: after spending a short but key stay in the band of tenorist Dick Morrissey (as can be heard on Acrobat AMCD 4373 Dick Morrissey: The Complete Recordings 1961-63) Stan Jones slunk into gradual obscurity, whilst bassist Stan Wasser was the most tragic casualty of the bands break-up, allegedly taking his own life in 1961, barely into his 30’s.

Allan Ganley would whether the storm ahead better than most of his colleagues, working not only with Tubby Hayes and John Dankworth in the years immediately ahead, but also appearing at Ronnie Scott’s club with leading American jazzmen including Freddie Hubbard, Stan Getz and Roland Kirk before emigrating to Bermuda in 1967. There then followed a short spell in the United States, studying composition and arrangement at the famed Berklee School of Music and recording with, among others, Jim Hall and Art Farmer. When he returned to the UK in 1976, he simply took up where he left off, beginning another lengthy spell with Dankworth and forming key musical alliances with a number of visiting American soloists, most notably the saxophonist Scott Hamilton. Although he would go on to lead several further line-ups of his own before his early death in 2008 - ranging from quartet up to a star-packed big band - veteran British jazz fans continued to remember the drummer's earlier groups with affection. 

“The rapid rise to fame of the Jazzmakers is the success story of British jazz”, Jazz News declared in 1959. Over half-a-century after those words were written, and with the long years in between having claimed all the musicians involved save for Art Ellefson, this album at last gives the opportunity to witness the history that immediately preceded that success. Above all it documents the first great flowering of Allan Ganley, a player whose enduring mix of tone, taste, technique and swing ultimately made him a man of many, many moments.”

Simon Spillett

March 2014

1. I Feel A Song Comin’ On (McHugh)

2. Margona (Jones)

3. Mean To Me (Turk) 

4. Stewpot (Ganley)

Joe Harriott (alto sax); Stan Jones (piano); Sammy Stokes (bass); Allan Ganley (drums)

Lansdowne Studios, London, November 19th 1957

Originally issued on 7” EP Nixa Jazz Today Series NJE 1046 – Gone Ganley: The Allan Ganley Quartet featuring Joe Harriott

5. Open Country (Brookmeyer)

6. Beaulieu (Wasser)

7. The High Priest (Ganley)

8. Blue Skies (Berlin)

Art Ellefson (tenor sax); Stan Jones (piano); Stan Wasser (bass); Allan Ganley (drums)

London, July 21st 1958

Originally issued on 7” EP SAGA ESAG 7010 – The High Priest: The Allan Ganley Quartet

9. The Country Squire (Ross)

10. Pitiful Pearl (Ross)

11. The Moonbather (Ganley)

12. The Real Funky Blues (Jones)

13. It’s A Wonderful World (Adamson, Savitt, Watson)

14. Blues For The Five Of Us (Ganley)

15. I Won’t Fret If I Don’t Get The Blues Anymore (Ross)

16. How Long Has This Been Going On? (Gershwin)

Art Ellefson (tenor sax); Ronnie Ross (baritone sax); Stan Jones (piano); Stan Wasser (bass); Allan Ganley (drums)

Atlantic Studios, New York City, September 23rd 1959

Originally issued on 12” LP Atlantic SD 1333 – Ronnie Ross and Allan Ganley: The Jazzmakers

Originally issued in the UK on 12” LP Ember CJ 801 – Ronnie Ross and Allan Ganley: The Swingin’ Sounds of The Jazzmakers

Original sessions produced by Denis Preston, Peter Burman and Neshui Ertegun

Engineers on the original recording sessions were Joe Meek, James Lock, Tom Dowd and Phil Iehle 

With grateful thanks to the late Allan Ganley and Al Merritt.