Tag / Jazz Views

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

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.