Graham Bond
Album: Live At The BBC And Other Stories
Label: Repertoire
Tracks: 18+14+7+7
Website: http://www.repertoirerecords.com

Three years ago, the German label Repertoire released a classy (and lavishly presented) four-disc box-set of Graham Bond recordings; entitled Wade In The Water, it gathered together “classics, origins and oddities” (both studio and live recordings) from various lineups centred around or involving the leadership and input of iconic keyboard and sax supremo Graham Bond through the 1960s and into the early ’70s (tragically, he was to die in 1974). Despite a few arguably crucial omissions, it was a fine set, deservedly acclaimed, which fairly begged for a companion set dealing with the multifarious radio broadcasts and BBC sessions made by The Graham Bond Organisation and other lineups in which Bond figured. And here it is… Long-time Bond associate Pete Brown is once again in charge of the project, and it really is a fitting companion to the earlier set, since it claims to contain “Graham Bond’s entire BBC output – under his own name and featured with other acts”. Well, I couldn’t find a 1963 broadcast of Alexis Korner’s Blues Incorporated (which at that point included Bond in its ranks) here, but quibbling aside this would indeed appear to be a very comprehensive set, which in spite of inevitably very variable sound quality proves stimulating listening. Even so, I can’t see the rationale for the set darting about all over the place time-wise instead of observing a more chronological sequence (OK, one can always re-programme I suppose).

Stylistically, the set ranges as far and wide as Bond himself did, with definitively inspired post-be-bop (a 1962 Don Rendell Quintet broadcast), radical and innovative improv (a number of different slants on the ubiquitous Wade In The Water, naturally), straightahead bop (a 1962 Brian Dee Trio EP track, Things Are Getting Better) and R&B (Hallelujah I Love Her So), to more frantic extended workouts (What’d I Say). Lineups represented include the early-60s Graham Bond Quartet, mid-60s Graham Bond Organisation and from the early-70s Graham Bond Initiation and Bond & Brown, while there are star turns from band members, guests and collaborators who include Dick Heckstall-Smith, Ginger Baker, Duffy Power and Bobby Breen. There’s a fair share of curios too, from a 1962-vintage snippet of improvised musical dialogue between Bond and Heckstall-Smith to “concessionary” covers of the likes of I Saw Her Standing There and Hello Little Girl. The earliest recording here is a rehearsal-cum-jam-session with Ken Wray and the Joe Palin Trio recorded at Club 43 in Manchester in 1962, while one of the latest is a mighty blow (Blew Through) on a 1970 album session with Philamore Lincoln. And talking of blowing, the set contains a good number of examples of Bond’s sax playing. But whatever the provenance, there’s plenty of interest here, not just for the Bond devotee, and these session byways, which include several previously unreleased and rare recordings, provide a fascinating and salutary reminder of Bond as a catalyst and innovator who, in the well-chosen words of the booklet note, “combined an element of entertainment with power, humour and artistry in a new way. They sold it. And they needed to – as there was little room in the jazz world of the early sixties for them, and a new audience had to be found”. Which, as you hear, is exactly what happened…

David Kidman