Tag / Confront Recordings

by mikeraggett

Alan Skidmore’s Tenor Tonic That’s Our Life

In early 1985 four musicians gathered in Tony Levin’s home in Birmingham and experimented with a new kind of jazz music. Featuring the experienced Skid and the rather younger Paul Dunmall on the saxophones that gave the band its name, they were supported by Paul Rogers on bass and host Tony Levin on drums. Fortunately there was a tape recorder on hand and one of the tracks they laid down appeared on Alan’s six-CD boxset A Supreme Love https://confrontrecordings.bandcamp.com/album/a-supreme-love published by Confront Recordings in 2023. “Modal Tonic” also appears in a number of versions in a two-CD set That’s Our Life issued by Jazz in Britain in May 2026.

The band didn’t last for long but fortunately, as well the recordings from Tony Levin’s rehearsal session, recordings were made in two studios and at the inaugural Pendley Manor Jazz Festival near Tring in Hertfordshire in July 1985. Some forensic work by John Thurlow of Jazz in Britain tracked them down to a noted collector in France. John explains:

The recordings came from Philippe Renaud a fan, promoter, collector, discographer and writer about British Jazz since the 70s. He had amassed a huge collection of live sessions recorded by friends all over Europe and some 10 years ago offered to sell them to me. I cherry-picked the ones I wanted and went and visited him in Tours when I was over there on holiday and brought them back to the UK. I had included four Tenor Tonic sessions because it was Skid and because I knew they had never released an album so it was added to the Jazz In Britain ‘prospects’ list.

Thank goodness he did and the results of his detective work with the help of Skid and Paul in compiling the informative booklet gives us an opportunity to experience this unique sound of significant 1980s jazz. Apart from Modal Tonic none of this material has been released before. The reaction has been unanimously positive. In UKVibe Alan Musson wrote this:

The music here displays a special kind of exuberance which is dangerously addictive. How could it be otherwise, propelled by the often-unrelenting power of drummer Tony Levin? Bassist Paul Rogers goes far beyond establishing a framework for his colleagues to extemporise over. He is always an equal partner.This is the first time this music has been publicly released, and it remains a mystery why the group didn’t release an album during their mid-1980s heyday. 

And in Jazz Views Jack Kenny asked:

Why did the quartet not record? Why did critics at the time not enthuse over the music? Were stylistic differences responsible for the split? Whatever the answer, now, some excellent high-powered music is saved for posterity.

In the Morning Star Chris Searle enthused:

These are unbridled, passionate sessions with all members in full throttle. The Poplar date unleashes both horns in full revelation of their sonic power, with an insurgent Levin and earthen Rogers adding an exuberant rhythmic uplift. Their sound may take us back forty years, but it holds a now-times vigour that never gets old. It blows your boots off!

Blow your boots off too! Head over to Jazz in Britain to get your copy.

by mikeraggett

We’ll remember Coltrane – 1983 style

Alan was rooting through his archives – something of a habit after the reception to the CD Boxset A Supreme Love – when he found a VHS tape (remember those?) labelled Baden-Baden 1983. It contained some rare footage recorded by the German TV Station Südwest Funk. It was part of a week-long workshop under the title we’ll Remember Coltrane which Alan did in that year in Baden-Baden. The week culminated in a concert hall in Mainz. Gathered here were some of the great names of European jazz: Albert Mangelsdorf, Tomasz Stanko and a whole raft of saxophone players including Alan himself. They were joined by Rashied Ali from the USA who had played as a drummer with John Coltrane so the connection was very real for all concerned. The presenter Joachim Ernst Behrendt introduces each of the saxophone players who will solo and we hear the introduction to My Favourite Things a song Coltrane usually played on soprano saxophone although the opening here is on tenors.

We’ve edited the session down so as to feature Alan’s solo, following on from his great friend Gerd Dudek, in which he squeezes some wonderful phrases out of the top end of the soprano. Have a listen.

And if you want to hear more from Alan’s archive – A Supreme Love has sold out in the CD version but you can download all or individual tracks from Confront Recordings.

by mikeraggett

Top 5 Stateside – and then #1

The highly influential NYCJR has listed Alan’s CD Boxed Set A Supreme Love in its top five boxed sets of the year.

This is a fitting accolade for a brilliant effort between Skid and Mark Wastell at Confront Recordings covering six decades of an extraordinary career. The physical boxed set has sold out but you can download a digital album from Confront.

by mikeraggett

A Supreme Love makes Jazzwise magazine’s top 20

The six-CD boxset of Alan Skidmore’s life as a musician has made it into the influential magazine Jazzwise’s Top 20 Reissues and Archive albums of 2023. And with the vast majority of tracks (more than 80%) previously unreleased it leans heavily towards the Archive rather than the Reissues sector.

With his inspiration, John Coltrane, featuring twice in the list and colleagues Stan Tracey, Sony Rollins and Kenny Wheeler also listed, Skid is in very good company. There are a very few copies left so if you don’t want to miss out on one of the albums of the year head over to Confront Recordings to get your copy.

Since writing this the physical box set has sold out but all tracks are available to download from the link above.

Watch this space for other year end awards that may come in for this superb collection.

November in Southend

And in other news, Alan joined outstanding vibraphone player and good friend Anthony Kerr for an impromptu gig at The Jazz Centre UK in Southend at the beginning of November. Long-term collaborators in Georgie Fame’s New Blue Flames it was great to hear the two playing together in this intimate space.

by mikeraggett

The Reviews are Rolling in for A Supreme Love

And as the box set looks back at Alan’s six decades of making music we’ve added some pages to the website to chart the places he’s played and the people he’s played with during that time. Check them out from the links.

The six CDs in this smart-looking box set reflect 70 years of tenor saxophonist Alan Skidmore’s playing career. The collection comprises 46 performances selected from the many live concert, radio and studio recordings he’s made over the years.

Read Brian Payne’s full review here

Look out for a massive retrospective from England’s greatest Coltranian as Mark Wastell’s remarkable avant-garde Confront label is issuing a vast record of achievement by Alan Skidmore entitled A Supreme Love Read the full preview here

Given the nearly fifty tracks on this set, attempts to pick a few highlights result in many changes of mind. However, “Nature Boy” and “I Remember Clifford” from the jazz- with-strings album, After the Rain (Miles Music 1998), with Colin Towns’ arrangements, are wonderful examples of Skidmore’s consummate ballad playing. The three tracks from Montreux 1969 that would later appear on Skidmore’s first album as leader, Once Upon a Time (Deram, 1970), inevitably rank very highly.

Yet, one suspects that fans will turn quickly to “Directions” from a Weather Report performance for Nordeutscher Rundfunk in 1971 with the addition of Skidmore, saxophonist John Surman and trombonist Eje Thelin. The fact that Skidmore damn near steals the show is confirmation of his remarkable abilities but that a whole concert exists somewhere is ear-tinglingly exciting. Read Duncan Heining’s review and interview with Skid here.

British musicians of this generation routinely put wry faces when they get rave reviews for music they made 50 years ago, but damn! What a legacy. A beautifully put together tribute to a real soldier of the road. Read Brian Morton’s full review here.

On the back of the box that houses the magnificent music within, producer Mark Wastell asks: “How do you represent a seven-decade career in only six CDs?” Well, the simple answer is you can’t, but Wastell has had a good go at it and in the process unearthed a cornucopia of previously unreleased material.

Read Nick Lea’s full review here

Very nearly all the material on this six CD extravaganza celebrating the marvellous tenor sax player Alan Skidmore – an eminent figure in UK modern jazz for decades – is previously unreleased and has come out of his private collection. […] OK Alan what other treasures are lying in the vaults and can we have them please? Read Russell Newmark’s full review here.

It’s testament to the richness of Skid’s considerable output over the years that this box set of almost entirely unreleased material devotes a whole disc to each of the six decades in which he’s been active – and never once lets up in intensity.

 Read Daniel Spicer’s full review here.

And you can buy a digital download of this amazing 6 CD box set here.

by mikeraggett

An article about Skid in the NYCJR

The prestigious jazz journal The New York City Jazz Record has picked up on the release of A Supreme Love Alan Skidmore’s six CD Box set published last month by Confront Recordings. He gets cover billing in the June issue.

In an article written by Francisco Martinelli, the author of A History of European Jazz, the piece covers Skid’s six decades represented by the six CDs in the box set. Much of it is drawn from Richard Williams’ excellent booklet which accompanies the CDs and from Martinelli’s extensive knowledge of the European jazz scene. You can read it here. [courtesy New York City Jazz Record]                          Click and + to enlarge if need be.

And if you haven’t got this amazing record of a distinguished career you can buy it here from Mark Wastell’s Confront Recordings.

by mikeraggett

The Spirit lives on

John Coltrane may well have died on 17 July – indeed, sadly, he did 52 years ago – but on 17 July 2019 his spirit was evident at Café Oto for a 52nd anniversary commemorative concert featuring the Alan Skidmore Quartet. This event was organised by musician and producer Mark Wastell of Confront Recordings who had invited Alan to play at the previous concert in 2017 which marked fifty years since Coltrane’s death and which subsequently featured as a Confront CD set.

Quartet and audience

The Alan Skidmore Quartet

This year it was an all-Coltrane evening spread over three magnificent sets.

 

In the first of these Alan’s regular quartet featuring Steve Melling on piano, Andrew Cleyndert on double bass and Miles Levin on drums enchanted the audience with a continuous performance of three tracks from the seminal album A Love Supreme. They started with Resolution, segued into Pursuance and brought the first part of the evening to a close with the rarely performed Psalm. The last strains of this died away into one of those moments of enraptured silence before the extended applause broke out.

Skid Psalm

Alan plays Psalm

In his introduction Alan had explained that he couldn’t stand up for long periods because of having a leg full of steel rods which resulted from an accident some 40 years ago. So, Alan sat out the second set while the Steve Melling trio were joined by guest tenor saxophonist Ed Jones. Remaining with Coltrane material they treated us to blues and ballads including Mr Day from Coltrane Plays The Blues from 1962, Central Park West from Coltrane’s Sound released in 1964 and Moment’s Notice from the early Blue Trane from 1957.

Trio with audience

Steve Melling Trio

Ed

Ed Jones

The final set saw Alan with the quartet playing one of his most popular numbers After the Rain which Alan recorded with a full orchestra on the album with the same name in 1998. Utterly spellbinding in quieter ballad mode, Alan then wrapped up the evening by asking Ed Jones and Howard Cottle (who had featured alongside Alan in Paul Dunmall’s Sun Ship Quartet two years earlier) to join him on the stage. The intensity, inventiveness and variety of these three tenor sax masters on Transition from the epynymous posthumous album. But they did not overshadow Melling, Cleyndert and especially Miles Levin who all made huge contributions to this barnstorming end to a fabulous evening.

If there is an afterlife, JC would have been smiling broadly and applauding this wonderful tribute.

Finale WS

The finale with (l-r) Steve Melling, Ed Jones, Alan Skidmore, Andrew Cleyndert, Howard Cottle and Miles Levin

Ed, Skid, Howard
The three tenors

UPDATE    27 August 2019

At the Café Oto gig was renowned jazz journalist and reviewer John Fordham. He obviously enjoyed the evening and wrote this for the September issue of Jazzwise  magazine.Jazzwise Cafe Oto review