CD1
1. Travelling Blues
2. St Louis Blues
3. White Hart Blues
4. Indiana
5. Ole Miss Rag
6. Savoy Blues
7. Dippermouth Blues
8. Don't Go `way Nobody
9. Storyville Blues
10. Cone On and Stomp, Stomp, Stomp
11. Dippermouth Blues
12. Travelling Blues
13. Don't Go `way Nobody
14. Indiana
Acker Bilk - Clarinet
Ken Sims - Trumpet
Mac Duncan - Trombone,
Ray Foxley - Piano
Johnny Bastable - Banjo
Ernie Price - Double Bass,
Vic Carter - Drums
Recorded 9 February 1958
CD2
1. Travelling Blues
2. Willie the Weeper
3. Delia Gone
4. Dardanella
5. Franklin Street Blues
6. Gladiolus Rag
7. Easter Parade
8. Marching through Georgia
9. Blaze Away
10. C.R.E March
11. El Abanico
12. Under the Double Eagle
13. Jump in the Line
14. Higher Ground
15. Carry Me Back
16. Louisian-I-ay
17. Jelly Bean Blues
18. Careless Love
19. Marie Elena
20. Bye and Bye
21. Don't Go `way Nobody
22. Jump in the Line
Acker Bilk - Clarinet
Ken Sims - Trumpet
John Mortimer - Trombone,
Jay Hawkins - Banjo
Ernie Price - Double Bass
Ron McKay - Drums.
On tracks 9-22 Roy James replaces Jay Hawkins
Recorded in 1958/59
What I found particularly interesting about these tracks from the late fifties, which predate Acker's Paramount Jazz Band, is that Acker's own style of clarinet playing was already set and the main difference is that the Paramount Jazz Band has a much more subtle and musical approach. If you like your jazz hot and you like the band to belt out the tune, then you are going to like this CD a lot!
I first heard this type of jazz in 1951 at the Queens Hotel in Primrose Hill St, Coventry. I also had my first pint of Mild there; the music and the drink seemed to me to fit together very well! By this time I was already a fan of big band music after hearing a concert by the Ted Heath Band. What hit me at the time was that these traditional jazz players played without music! At the time, this was a startling revelation to a clarinet player who had just acquired an instrument and a book that told you how to play it.
What I liked about traditional jazz was the freedom that the genre allowed, and that the performance could develop as the tunes were regularly played. It was all down to the ears of the musicians involved.
The 1958 session was originally released under the name of Johnny Bastable, who was the banjo player on the recording. The last session was just before the Paramount Jazz Band was formed.
The two-CD set represents an interesting piece of the history, of the development in the UK of one of its finest jazz bands as led by Mr Acker Bilk. A band many of us have enjoyed for many years.
Don Mather
CD Reviews
Lake LACD 281
