The Jazz Repertory Company’s fourth concert with strings for the EFG London Jazz Festival will include recently unearthed arrangements by Tubby Hayes, that have never been performed in public – until now. Here, Richard Pite (*) talks to Simon Spillett about how these pieces were lost decades ago, and what it means to bring them to light sixty-one years later.
UK Jazz News: The Tubby Hayes music in the show has never been performed before. Can you give us the story about how this music came about, and what happened to it?
Simon Spillett: In the very early 1960s, as Tubby was striking out on his own after a couple of successful years co-leading the Jazz Couriers with Ronnie Scott, he and his then manager Pete King (Ronnie’s business partner) made a plan to tick [off] as many career goals as possible. Out of this came Tubby’s debut in the USA, his own TV series, a major record contract and some movie work.
When King discovered the BBC was planning to extend the hours of its ‘Light Programme’ radio broadcasting in 1963 and was looking for music that would bridge the gap between pop and jazz, he suggested Tubby as a likely candidate. Although he’d never previously written for such an opulent instrumentation – sixteen strings plus harp and his own quintet and vocals – Tubby took to the challenge with characteristic gusto and in May 1963 financed a ‘trial’ recording of the pieces he’d arranged: recent show tunes, some classic Great American Songbook ballads, even an upscaled version of his latest 45rpm ‘single’ of ‘Sally’.
UKJN: It’s an intriguing back story. What happened next?
SS: The BBC turned him down flat, Tubby believing they couldn’t get past the ‘way-out jazz’ tag attached to his name. The trial tape was forgotten, the arrangements shelved and Tubby simply got on with his career. However, when I was writing my biography of Tubby (‘The Long Shadow of The Little Giant’, Equinox 2015) I was able to hear a cassette of the recordings, which Tubby had loaded to others in the business. The original arrangements are ‘missing in action’ so it’s Ian Bateman‘s impeccable transcriptions that people will hear at Cadogan Hall. He’s done the most incredible job and this concert simply wouldn’t have been possible without his talent, patience and dedication to detail.
UKJN: Were the recordings the only time Tubby performed with strings?
SS: No, he’d already appeared on a Ted Heath big band and strings session for Decca in 1962, although he and Heath had a misunderstanding soon after the session was recorded – Tubby was late arriving at the recording – and there is no credit given to him on the album sleeve, meaning it’s a bit of a well-kept secret. Later on, he used strings on some tracks of his final album ‘The Orchestra’ (1969), very much in the vein of Stan Getz, then the contemporaneous albums in that instrumentation featuring Stan Getz. He even added strings to one concert performance of his classic self-penned saxophone concerto ‘100% Proof’ in 1967.
UKJN: Vocalist Vimala Rowe is performing as Joy Marshall, who was featured on some of the session. Tell us something about her?
SS: Joy was a fabulous American singer who arrived in the UK from San Francisco in 1962 and quickly established herself as a popular jazz/cabaret act, performing with the Tony Kinsey Quintet, the Gordon Beck trio and Tubby Hayes, with whom she had a tempestuous romantic relationship. Tubby’s composition ‘A Dedication To Joy’ commemorates their union. Although she publicly denied being a pure ‘jazz’ singer, Joy’s style was very much based on that of Carmen McRae and by the time of her tragic death, aged just 32 in 1968, she was singing everything from Broadway ballads to Bacharach. Alas, Joy didn’t record much (her only LP ‘How About These?’ is mooted to be reissued soon). She’s certainly due a reappraisal.
UKJN: Do you think the BBC turning down Tubby’s proposal in 1963 suggests that getting jazz into the mainstream of entertainment has always been very tough? Is the assumption that jazz had a much higher profile 60 years ago wrong?
SS: I think Tubby faced exactly the same challenges that many established jazz performers face now, chief amongst them the widely held prejudiced belief that jazz cannot be appreciated by a wider, non-specialist audience. He was as popular as a modern jazzman could be in the UK in the pre-Beatles era, and made many inroads into mainstream media, but nevertheless barriers did exist.
There’s irony here too: if you were to put the orchestral accompaniment Tubby devised for his Quintet on these string charts behind, say, Ella Fitzgerald they’d be regarded as classics and probably wouldn’t raise an eyebrow if played as background music in your local branch of a well-known coffee chain. But at the time, the Beeb couldn’t see the versatility of Tubby’s talent. He was seen as ‘that wild jazz guy’.
UKJN: Was it the music of Tubby Hayes that made you take up the saxophone?
SS: No, although he was one of the first jazz saxophonists I heard on record. I was originally a trombonist – as was my Dad – but the saxophone took over around age 17. I liked Charlie Parker, Gerry Mulligan, Paul Desmond, Getz, Rollins, Coltrane, the usual influences. Eventually it all led to Tubby.
UKJN: As a tenor saxophonist playing this music in public for the very first time, how do you feel about the concert?
SS: Well, Tubby’s are very big shoes to fill and as I’ve said often before, I’m not him: I don’t have what he had. He was unique and incredible. All I can do is help honour his legacy and performing his music to those who haven’t heard it before, whether it’s with my quartet, big band or with strings, is a huge honour and privilege. It’s exciting too, to be able to give this music the exposure it always deserved. I’m just pointing the finger towards his talent and saying check it out.
UKJN: Tubby’s long-time friend and collaborator Ronnie Scott is also represented on the concert. Tell us a bit about that.
SS: In 1964 Ronnie recorded half of an album with strings (The Night Is Scott…) very much inspired by Stan Getz’ ballad playing, and it seemed highly appropriate that he be represented too. Again, Ian Bateman has lovingly transcribed the original arrangements (by Richard Rodney Bennett), and in this case expanded them to feature a full string section rather than the slightly smaller unit on the original versions. Ronnie has always been a hero of mine and this is music which, like the Tubby Hayes charts, has never ever been played live before. And to add some more connections, Pete Long and I are featuring a couple of numbers from the repertoire of The Jazz Couriers, Ronnie and Tubby’s famed two tenor sax band.
UKJN: You have become something of an archivist for all things Tubby. Are recordings or ephemera still turning up?
SS: Yes, amazingly! Although he was born nearly ninety years ago and has been dead for over fifty years, things are still coming to light. In the past few months, the soundtrack to one of his ‘lost’ TV shows has been rediscovered, and some previously unknown radio recordings from 1966 have also come to light. It’s very much like the legacy of Coltrane or Louis Armstrong: something we haven’t heard before is always lurking out there, waiting to be found.
(*) Richard Pite is Director of the Jazz Repertory Company.
The concert will feature the Pete Long Orchestra with:
Simon Spillett; tenor saxophone
Alan Bateman; clarinet
Nick Dawson; piano
Anthony Kerr; Vibraphone
Vimala Rowe; vocals