Following the success of Vocalion’s Alan Skidmore (CDSML 8406 ‘Once Upon a Time’) and John Surman issues (CDSML 8402 & 8410), CDSML 8418 comprises the superb Jazz in Britain ’68-’69. This album, recorded during the sessions that yielded Skidmore’s ‘Once Upon a Time’ LP, paired Surman, Skidmore and drummer Tony Oxley with a stellar cast of British jazz musicians in a set of complex and beautiful original compositions. The band is wonderfully cohesive, and the loose-yet-disciplined playing/soloing of such giants as Kenny Wheeler, Mike Osborne and Harry Beckett - not to mention Surman, Skidmore and Oxley - gives the music a completely organic and natural feel, as only musicians like these can produce.
“The maturity and class of Alan Skidmore’s quintet on ‘Circles on Ice’ and ‘Winter Song’ are astonishing, but are matched by Surman’s octet on the moody ‘Shepherd Oak’….An excellent introduction to British jazz of the period.”
Duncan Heining, Jazzwise, May 2006 (No.7, Jazzwise Office Vibe, April 2006)
5 Tracks.