Ronnie Scott | Alan Skidmore

Sunday sun and showers in Hoxton surrounded an enterprising gig at the Hundred Years Gallery.

Percussionist and record producer Mark Wastell teamed up with tenor saxophone legend Alan Skidmore for a unique duo for saxophone and percussion.

The gallery’s basement holds about 25-30 people about half of whom seemed to be tenor sax players keen to experience this unique pairing. In his introduction, Mark recalled his first exposure to Skid’s music over thirty years ago and the striking and long-lasting impression it had on him.

For his part Alan warned that it had been two years since he’d played in public and that was in front of a full house at the Royal Albert Hall in the company of 60 other saxophonists in the tribute to Ronnie Scott.

Well with this line up it was always going to be a bit different. Added to which they had not rehearsed or ever played together except in a big ensemble number at Café Oto’s Coltrane tribute a few years back.

Since his childhood, Alan has always been passionate about the drums although his dad warned him off the seat with the advice: “You’ll always be first in and last out of the gig” but today he had several opportunities to play percussion alongside Mark whose array of drums, gongs, bells, shruti box and assorted devices must take him hours to stow and transport.

The first set began quietly and built into a sensuous soundscape which formed a base for Alan to join in with his tenor. There was a blues and ballad feel at the start but then, prompted by Mark’s ever-changing swirling textures and urgent beats, the Alan of SOS days emerged seeming to revel in free improvisation once again.

The second set featured a lot of call and response with ideas being thrown across the room between two musicians who were clearly enjoying each other’s company.Some of Mark’s sounds reminded me of Japan and at other times the duo took me off to the Africa of Ubizo, Alan’s collaboration with South African musicians from back in the early 2000s. The session just pointed up Mark’s ability to create a huge variety of sounds and Alan’s versatility on his instrument with lush melodic passages interspersed with honks and squeals, scales and octave leaps.

It included a sequence with both of them creating wonderful patterns on the drums. There were inevitably echoes of Coltrane from the tenor most notably with A Love Supreme featuring strongly towards the end.

An afternoon thoroughly enjoyed by all present. Let’s hope they can repeat it on a larger stage before too long.

THEN

1958 Alan Skidmore aged 17 is playing one of his first professional engagements at Butlins, Skegness and his father joined him on stage as Alan says, “To show me how to do it”!

NOW

Photo:Kay Skidmore 2018

2018 Alan Skidmore waiting to go on stage at the Llandudno Jazz Festival in the Green Room known as “Barnes’ Boudoir”.

Alan’s early years were spent in big bands and he had a number of opportunities to play alongside his already well-established tenor saxophone playing father.

1960s

Alan played for many BBC Jazz Club broadcasts played in bands like Eric Delaney’s and toured and recorded with Alexis Korner’s Blues Incorporated and John Mayall’s Blues Breakers where he says he truly learned his art. As he told Jazzwise in 2008:

“You have to be hungry to play and perfect your art. But before that you have to learn to play the blues. If you can’t play the blues you’re stuffed.”

And as the decade closed Alan’s Quintet was chosen to represent the UK at the Montreux Jazz Festival.

John Taylor, Kenny Wheeler, Harry Miller, Alan Skidmore And Tony Oxley won the International Press Prize for best band and Alan won the soloist prize too and Tony Oxley won best drummer.

1970s

Alan was winner of Melody Maker‘s best tenor saxophonist poll for four years in a row and had the honour of playing with Elvin Jones whose connection to John Coltrane meant a great deal to Alan who has been greatly influenced by Coltrane throughout his career.

Playing with Elvin Jones’ Jazz Machine

S O S

With the Ronnie Scott Quintet he played on the same bill as Thelonious Monk at the Royal Festival Hall in 1975. Throughout the decade he toured extensively with SOS the three-saxophone group formed of Alan Skidmore, Mike Osborne and John Surman. Alan also became a regular member of Georgie Fame’s New Blue Flames and would be for the next 40 years.

1980s

In a very busy period of playing and recording: a couple of highlights were playing in a duo at the 1985 Edinburgh Jazz Festival with Stan Tracey a musician with whom Alan had a long association and tremendous respect.

Alan with Stan Tracey at the Edinburgh Jazz Festival 1985

It was in the 80s too that Alan replaced Dexter Gordon in George Gruntz’s Concert Jazz Band an association that also lasted for many years. Alan worked and recorded with the WDR Big Band based in Köln which included a tour of south east Asia as soloist with the band sponsored by the Goethe Institut. Then in 1987 he was asked to play at the John Coltrane Memorial Concert commemorating 20 years since Coltrane’s death.

1990s

Recording The Call

In 1991 Alan began a long musical relationship with Colin Towns’ Mask Orchestra and his Provocateur Record label. Alan was the first musician to play in South Africa after the ending of apartheid when in 1994 he made a British Council sponsored visit. Alan returned with Colin Towns to record The Call with musicians from the band Amampondo who were to become the core of Alan’s own Afro-European group Ubizo.

2000s

Alan Skidmore’s Ubizo came to tour the UK and had residencies at Ronnie Scott’s in 2002 and 2003.

The noughties saw more recordings, more festivals including Cork, Brecon, Cheltenham and the North Sea and more tours with his own bands and others mainly in Europe. He made a trip to New York in 2006 as he was nominated for best reissue CD for Once Upon a Time in the Jazz Journalists Association awards at which his old friend Sonny Rollins was crowned musician of the year.

2010s

As he enters his sixth decade in the business things are slowing down a bit but only a bit. He played at the opening of the The Jazz Centre UK in Southend in 2017 a year which saw Alan again commemorating John Coltrane’s 50th anniversary by playing music from the album Sunship at London’s Café Oto. As Skid said at the time:

“He was playing this stuff when he was 36, here am I trying to play it when I’m nearly 76. I must be mad.”

But then he goes off on a Saxophone Summit Tour of Belgium and the Netherlands with dear friends that go a long way back which we reported in the blog at the time.

Luckily for all his fans Alan will still be playing his unique jazz music for a while longer yet.

60 years and still blowing strong.

Alan Skidmore

Tenor saxophonist

Tag / Ronnie Scott

A new departure

60 Years a Blowin’