Record Reviews

MARTIN DREW / TONY LEE ~ MARTIN DREW BAND / STREETS OF DREAMS VOCALION 8462 (Barcode: 765387846220) ~ UK ~ Jazz Recorded: 1977 - 1979 Released: 2009 By the late 1970s the fantastic British Jazz scene, which thrived during the previous two decades producing some of the most revolutionary music ever and breaking many barriers of conceptual approach to Jazz, was unfortunately suffering badly. Many different factors contributed to this phenomenon: musical, social, economic and so on, but the situation "on the ground" was getting pretty desperate, with major record labels almost completely banning Jazz material from their repertoire of new releases, contrary to their traditional support of Jazz music. This new development opened a new opportunity for small independent British labels to step in and provide a platform, which would enable British Jazz musicians to record and release their music. One of such labels was the tiny, but excellent Lee LambertFind albums on this label label and this album is a long overdue reissue of two of the albums original released by that label in the late 1970s. Drummer Martin DrewFind albums by this artist presents an album recorded by his quintet / sextet with superb musicians: saxophonist Brian SmithFind albums by this artist, vibraphonist Bill Le SageFind albums by this artist, pianist John TaylorFind albums by this artist, bassist Ron MathewsonFind albums by this artist and percussionist Chris FletcherFind albums by this artist. Pianist Tony LeeFind albums by this artist presents an album recorded by his quartet with bassist Tony ArcherFind albums by this artist, drummer Martin Drew and congas player Tony UterFind albums by this artist. Both albums are full of excellent musicianship and great ideas. The music includes mostly Jazz standards but there´s nothing standard about the way they are performed here. Both albums are excellent examples of how mainstream Jazz can be of high quality and completely devoid of boredom. Highly recommended!

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