BBC Omnibus film on Stan Tracey

[Tenor Freak]

This would probably be lost if I posted it in the Jazz Videos thread so I am posting it here.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cJQE-Ss1O8I

This may be the film that Paul Gonsalves watched the night he passed away.

[BLUESNIK'S REVOX]

Wasn't this from the Jazz Britannia series? I've got it on VHS somewhere. I remember it as being very very good about Stan and the Jazz "life". Well worth watching again.

[BLUESNIK'S REVOX]

Just below the Tracey on Youtube, new to me "The Talking Saxophone" - BBC profile of the young Andy Sheppard from 1988. Very personable etc, and with clips of him playing around Bristol with Keith Tippett. All good.

http://youtu.be/fs2i30QcX0I?feature=shared

[Tenor Freak]

Wasn't this from the Jazz Britannia series? I've got it on VHS somewhere. I remember it as being very very good about Stan and the Jazz "life". Well worth watching again.

I don't think it is; from what I remember the Jazz Britannia prog interviewed Jackie (she's only pictured in this Omnibus, not interviewed unfortunately) and back in 1975 Stan wasn't ready to reveal his drug use as being a key factor in resigning from Ronnie's house band. But the story of him applying to be a postie when the gigs ran dry in the early '70s is there alright. It's a fascinating old film just for the street shots of grimy old London and the old slam-door trains etc, never mind the uber-rare film of Mike Osborne. And good to see his quartet and octet at Maida Vale (I guess?) with a cameo from Charles Fox.

Incidentally I also watched that Andy Sheppard film from 1988. I was one of those who bought a copy of his first LP; still have it on the shelf but not listened to it for years.

There is another one of Andy this time interviewed, along with Ronnie Scott, by Mavis Nicholson from her daytime show Mavis On Four.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jXS7utF727k&t=318s

[Serial_Apologist]

Incidentally I also watched that Andy Sheppard film from 1988. I was one of those who bought a copy of his first LP; still have it on the shelf but not listened to it for years.

Andy spent the afternoon of the release in HMV Bristol signing that album for buyers, and I remember it being said HMV had never sold as many copies of a single album in one day - possibly in the local rag. It's ironic now thinking of the appeal Andy and a few others brought jazz for people of my own age in the early 1960s at that time. We had a 15-year old "intern" doing a summer school holiday "job experience" fortnight in the office where I was working in '89. She overheard me chatting to a black guy, a Chet-influenced trumpet player who worked on the shop floor and occasionally gigged with Keith Tippett in a country pub in the Cotswolds, and also alongside visiting Americans including Art Farmer (2-frontline trumpets!), and said she'd try and get her parents to take her along to the weekly gig on the Thekla when it was Andy's turn. I got her a copy of that first LP, titled "A" with Andy's face in sideways profile. When Christmas came along she handed me a Christmas card with very neatly written thanks and "love from" on the inside. You can guess the ribbing I received from workmates, "Aha, chasing after teenage girls now, are we?" Quite embarrassing, that was!

[Old Grumpy]

Andy spent the afternoon of the release in HMV Bristol signing that album for buyers, and I remember it being said HMV had never sold as many copies of a single album in one day - possibly in the local rag. It's ironic now thinking of the appeal Andy and a few others brought jazz for people of my own age in the early 1960s at that time. We had a 15-year old "intern" doing a summer school holiday "job experience" fortnight in the office where I was working in '89. She overheard me chatting to a black guy, a Chet-influenced trumpet player who worked on the shop floor and occasionally gigged with Keith Tippett in a country pub in the Cotswolds, and also alongside visiting Americans including Art Farmer (2-frontline trumpets!), and said she'd try and get her parents to take her along to the weekly gig on the Thekla when it was Andy's turn. I got her a copy of that first LP, titled "A" with Andy's face in sideways profile. When Christmas came along she handed me a Christmas card with very neatly written thanks and "love from" on the inside. You can guess the ribbing I received from workmates, "Aha, chasing after teenage girls now, are we?" Quite embarrassing, that was!

Nice story, S_A.

Not quite sure Andy would have had "jazz appeal" in the early 1960s, as he would have only just turned 3 years of age and is recorded in his biog as only taking up saxophone at the age of 19.

He (with Sphere IIRC) certainly was one of my first introductions to jazz (along with Barbara Thompson's Paraphernalia) whilst I was at "uni" (well actually university in those days) in Southampton in the late 70s / early 80s.

[BLUESNIK'S REVOX]

There was a Bath/Bristol tenor player called Danny Shepherd (no relation) who had a residency at the Old Farmhouse pub in Bath A good player in the Zoot Sims to Dexter Gordon range. Apparently he helped Andy S quite a bit in the early days. That was really good pub gig although the piano had certainly been drinking.

My claim to fame was helping Andy S onto the London train at Temple Meads as it was pulling out. The saxophone cases to die for, burgundy leather.

[Serial_Apologist]

There was a Bath/Bristol tenor player called Danny Shepherd (no relation) who had a residency at the Old Farmhouse pub in Bath A good player in the Zoot Sims to Dexter Gordon range. Apparently he helped Andy S quite a bit in the early days. That was really good pub gig although the piano had certainly been drinking.

My claim to fame was helping Andy S onto the London train at Temple Meads as it was pulling out. The saxophone cases to die for, burgundy leather.

Only just caught up on the Stan Tracey '77 documentary and the Andy Sheppard from 11 years later. Really seems like yesterday in some ways and another age in others. Such a wide gulf seemed at the time to separate 1977 from 1988 in every way, as politics gradually morphed into culture in recompense. I would have been packed in there on many of the occasions "footaged" in the Andy programme, especially those Sunday nights at the "Ollburrt", recognising several now-remembered faces including Ian, who ran both pub and event and has graced our Bored of late, but in spite of stopping the link didn't spot myself in the red-dimmed surrounds.

By coincidence I once bumped into Peter Jacobsen at Paddington, tottering his way with blind stick to the ticket office, and helped him onto a train destined for Plymouth or somewhere west where he had a gig.

[Tenor Freak]

For completeness' sake, here's the later Jazz Britannia doc. For some reason it's in B&W which I didn't recall on first tx.

https://youtu.be/Vnwpzhs6FI8