Various: Journeys In Modern Jazz: Britain (1965-1972)

As British jazz in 2021 reaches domestic and international audiences of unprecedented size, so record companies are being emboldened to open up their archives and reissue long-buried treasures. So, too, are new labels being formed to make available recordings which have not previously been released, but which have survived in the tape libraries of the musicians who recorded them—or, in some cases, the libraries of their surviving family members.

The most ambitious major label reissue program to date is Universal/Decca's British Jazz Explosion: Originals Re-Cut series. It will be launched in July 2021 with Journeys In Modern Jazz: Britain (1965-1972), which covers a particularly innovative period in British jazz in both small and large ensembles (which are more or less equally represented here). The fourteen track, 2-LP / 2-CD compilation flags up the individual albums planned for reissue from August 2021 into 2022. These albums—chosen from the trove to be found in the now Universal-owned catalogues of Decca, Deram, Argo, Lansdowne, Fontana, Philips, Mercury and Verve—are being remastered from the original tapes and will be released digitally and on all-analogue 180-gram vinyl pressings including flipback sleeves, original LP artwork and inserts featuring new liner notes.

British Jazz Explosion: Originals Re-Cut is the lovechild of producer and longtime British jazz collector Tony Higgins. Journeys In Modern Jazz: Britain (1965-1972) comes with a 20,000 word booklet, written by Higgins, which tells the story of post bop British jazz and also includes essays on each of the fourteen albums from which the tracks have been taken.

As with all such ventures, there will be protests from aficionados that such and such a musician or album is not included. All that needs to be said in advance of this sniping is that this is Higgins' selection and there is not one dud within it. The series comes with an endorsement from reed player Shabaka Hutchings, the de facto standard bearer of the new British jazz, who says: "The recordings by people like Michael Garrick, Mike Westbrook and John Surman are what really inspired me [in my early development]."

The first individual album releases to be announced are tenor saxophonist Don Rendell's Space Walk (Lansdowne, 1972) on July 16, trumpeter Kenny Wheeler and the John Dankworth Orchestra's Windmill Tilter (The Story Of Don Quixote) (Fontana, 1969) on August 13, and The New Jazz Orchestra's Le Dejeuner Sur l'Herbe (MGM, 1969) on September 10.

Among the massed ranks of musicians to be heard on Journeys In Modern Jazz: Britain (1965-1972) are Michael Garrick, Mike Westbrook, John Surman, Don Rendell, Kenny Wheeler, John Dankworth, Dave Holland, John McLaughlin, Henry Lowther, Mike Osborne, Stan Sulzmann, Alan Skidmore, Harry Beckett, Ian Carr, Joe Harriott, Tony Coe, Neil Ardley, Barbara Thompson, Dick Morrissey, Phil Seaman, Jack Bruce, John Taylor, Mike Taylor, Jon Hiseman, Dick Heckstall-Smith, Chris Spedding, Stan Tracey and many, many more.

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