Dizzy Reece

The Complete
Recordings 1954-62

(Acrobat)

4 Stars

He arrived at Tilbury docks on the Empire Windrush direct from Jamaica on June 22 1948 with hundreds of his Caribbean compatriots.

"I knew there would be something for me in England," he later declared.

He was Alphonso "Dizzy" Reece, born in Kingston in 1931 and one of the prime trumpeters of his time.

But there was no new world waiting for him in London and he set aside his music for a time, becoming a building labourer in Liverpool before trying his fortune in Germany, the Netherlands and Paris, where he blew with some expatriate US jazzmen like Don Byas and Kenny Clarke.

By 1954 he was back in London, playing at the Flamingo Club, the West End's leading bop venue where the compere was Tony Hall, who was also the main man of the Tempo label, a jazz outlet of Vogue-Decca records.

Dizzy gradually built himself a formidable London reputation - enhanced by some open praise from Miles Davis.

"There's a trumpeter over in England," he declared, "a guy who's got soul and originality and, above all, who's not afraid to blow with fire."

Thus began Dizzy's most intense and prolific recording period, and the next eight years of this have been brought together as a five-disc compilation in an Acrobat box set, The Complete Recordings 1954-62, and fine and fiery they are too.

The Tempo recordings are some of the true jewels of British bop, with Dizzy playing with such London lights as tenorists Tubby Hayes and Ronnie Scott, vibes virtuoso Victor Feldman and on many tracks, the nonpareil of British drummers, Burton-on-Trent-born Phil Seamen.

Many of the tunes were Dizzy's too. Listen to him on his opuses O Moon and Butch from the May 1955 session, his exploring horn galvanised by Seamen's bouncing skins alongside him, soaring upwards and roused by the drummer's feisty breaks.

Or hear them resonating off each other on Bang, from the same date, when Reece also takes a slow and lyrical ride through the ballad, This Is Always.

On Charlie Parker's Now's The Time he builds a groovy partnership with Hayes's serpentine licks, and on another of his tunes, When? his notes share the same waves with Feldman's levitating mallets.

By 1958 Dizzy was becoming known to jazz record producers in the US, and the most prestigious of these, Alfred Lion and Francis Wolff of Blue Note, agreed to record Reece in London with English bandmates plus two US artists, trumpeter Donald Byrd and drummer Art Taylor, who were working in Paris.

The result of this London session was the album Blues In Trinity, with Hayes on tenor, Lloyd Thompson on bass and pianist Terry Shannon.

Hall was still in wonder at Blues In Trinity 50 years later.

"For a white English guy to have a record by musicians that he thought were great from his own country out on Blue Note was like a dream come true."

The trumpeters pair up with comradely assurance, Hayes is superb form his luscious first solo on the opening title tune, Shannon plays freely and the undertow of Taylor's drums is formidable throughout.

Reece turns balladeer on I Had The Craziest Dream and Close Up - one of the four Reece tunes - has two beautifully fluent solos from the two trumpeters with an eloquent Hayes in Between.

Hayes takes the album finale with a strikingly emotive version of Monk's Round Midnight.

By October 1959 Reece had decided to try his talent in New York, but it wasn't easy, despite recording another Blue Note album Star Bright, within a month of his arrival, this time with a stellar quintet including Hank Mobley on tenor, fellow Jamaican pianist Wynton Kelly, Taylor again with arch-bassist Paul Chambers, playing four Reece tunes plus the songbook standards I Wished On The Moon and I'll Close My Eyes.

Dizzy crackles from the start of the opener The Rake. Kelly responds powerfully to his compatriot, particularly in Groovesville, and Mobley sounds relaxed and customarily phlegmatic.

Chambers's unremitting bass pulse is huge throughout.

There are two more Reece albums which complete this set.

Another Blue Note session created Soundin' Off, a trumpet quartet album on 1960 with pianist Walter Bishop, Taylor and bassist Doug Watkins.

The only Dizzy composition is Blue Streak where he soars and explores with a burning intensity amid a garland of ballads.

His 1962 album, full of the future with sonic and rhythmic references to north Africa and further beyond is Asia Minor, where Joe Farrell plays tenor and flute and Cecil Payne is there with his baritone.

There are new, cosmopolitan complexities entering his music, particularly his own compositions like The Shadow of Khan and his reworked original tune on 1954 Ackmet.

But as his horizons widened his prominence faded.

Luckily for us we now have this box of rare beauty, Reece's artistry another powerful gift of the Windrush years.

Chris Searle