Dick Morrissey: At The BBC 1967

Rating: ★★★★

Record and Artist Details

Musicians:

Dick Morrissey (ts)
Bill Eyden (d)
Harry South
Phil Bates (b)

Label:

Rhythm and Blues Records

October/2021

Media Format:

CD

Catalogue Number:

RANDB074

RecordDate:

11 June 1967 and 18 October 1967

More rescued tapes from BBC broadcasts and more reasons to applaud this label, which has become something of home from home for retrieved British jazz of the 1960s. Here’s Morrissey, one of the great down-the-line swingers of UK modern jazz, caught in his prime as he builds confident improvisations over a first-rate rhythm section.

The opening riff piece, ‘Sunday Lunch’ by quartet pianist Harry South is a pick-up-and-run number, enabling Morrissey to burst into play, the ideas well-formed and fluent, his accompanists surging as one with him. South is at the heart of the quartet’s success, another musician who is never short of a worthwhile idea, his pared-down style and drive always impressive.

Just 27 at the time of these broadcasts, Morrissey seems to have come onto the London scene with his style ready-formed, redolent of Dexter Gordon perhaps, but with an extra level of zest that was all his own. He does well with ‘Off The Wagon’ by Tubby Hayes, exultant yet intense, bonding joyously with Bates in a duet passage. He’s good, too, on ‘I Don’t Know What Love Is’, calm and authoritative at ballad tempo, as he is on ‘My Ship’ from the second BBC tape.

Unsurprisingly, several pieces re-appear over the two sessions, notably Joe Henderson’s ‘Inner Urge’ and ‘Le Roi’ by David Baker, this apparent contentment with repertoire suggesting a well-set group sure that there is still plenty of meat left in the material. Booklet writer Simon Spillett calls it ‘Straight-ahead jazz of great character, verve and vision’ and he’s right.

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