11 April 2008

Peter King Quartet - Live at Bulls Head Barnes 2008

Peter King Quartet
The Bulls Head
Barnes
LondonUK

29 March 2008

Set One
1. E’s Blues (Melling)
2. My Ideal (Chase, Robin, Whiting)
3. Yes and No (Shorter)

Set Two
1. Untitled (Gascoine)
2. Deluge (Shorter)
3. Spain (Corea)
4. Lush Life (Strayhorn, sax solo)
5. Joshua (Feldman)

Peter King – alto sax
Steve Melling – piano
Geoff Gascoigne – double bass
Martin Drew – drums

I don't know how well this one will go down here, as there is a preponderance of free jazz. This is much more mainstream. Pete King is one of Britain's great altoists, who's been around since bebop days. He played at the opening night of Ronne Scott's club in London in 1959 (no I wasn't there - before my time). Since then he's led his own band and played along with the likes of Ronnie Scott, Stan Tracey and Alan Skidmore. He is said to be very "Parkerish" (and indeed he's done many tribute gigs to Bird), but I think he has a style more similar to Phil Woods.

The other guys in the band have played with Pete on and off for years. Martin Drew was Oscar Peterson's drummer for many years. Melling has worked with such notables as Elvin Jones and Benny Golson, but more fequently with Skidmore and other British artists.

As regards the venue, the pub is located right by Barnes Bridge on the Thames, and is one of the best regular jazz venues in the country. Unfortunately I don't live near, so I've only been there on a very few occasions when I've been in the area. It's a great place - all that jazz and Youngs Bitter as well - can't be bad !

This is an audience recording, excellently taped and seeded by "youngsbest" (see he even named his moniker after the beer). My thanks to him.

So forget your Braxtons and Baileys for a while and listen to some real music.

Link in comments.
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20 comments:

  1. Boromir11 April 2008 at 14:54:00 CEST

    Link VBR high quality

    http://rapidshare.com/files/106581535/King.part1.rar
    http://rapidshare.com/files/106590794/King.part2.rar

    ReplyDelete
  2. kinabalu11 April 2008 at 16:45:00 CEST

    Please note that Pete King is featured on the John Stevens - Freebop - record which has been posted here previously:

    http://inconstantsol.blogspot.com/2007_08_01_archive.html

    ReplyDelete
  3. kinabalu11 April 2008 at 17:07:00 CEST

    I'll take it that the reference to Braxton was slightly tongue in cheek or I could be forced to post some unreleased stuff from the Braxton Standards Quartet. You'll love it, I'm sure.

    I haven't been to the Bulls Head, but I did get a chance to visit the Village Vanguard a few weeks back which is not a bad substitute :-)

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  4. Anonymous11 April 2008 at 17:13:00 CEST

    You guys are lucky to be in Europe where these guys play frequently ,

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  5. Boromir11 April 2008 at 18:15:00 CEST

    Kinabalu,
    I actually quite like Braxton playing standards, though I find his more esoteric stuff a little difficult to take (as a rule of thumb, if the track title is comprised of all numerics, I won't like it). My comment was really a gentle dig at the people who only listen to free jazz, and ignore the more middle of the road stuff.

    Jazzme,
    I'm assuming you're in the US, in which case I think you have can enjoy plenty of good music over there (or do all the top American artists spend their time in Europe ?). If you ever get to the UK for a holiday, the Bulls Head would be a good, inexpensive night out. If you google their website you'll see that prices are modest, and there's someting on most evenings.

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  6. Boromir11 April 2008 at 18:20:00 CEST

    Forgot..
    Thanks for reminding me kinabalu that King played on Freebob - must get it out and have a fresh listen.

    He also featured on the Charlie Watts band concert I posted a while back (alongside Evan Parker of all people).

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  7. kinabalu11 April 2008 at 18:41:00 CEST

    I think I read somewhere that King played the sax solo on Lou Reed's "Walk on the wild side". Can anybody verify that?

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  8. Anonymous11 April 2008 at 20:09:00 CEST

    I love it!! I guess that makes me an addict of mostly "unreal" music!

    But in fact, no. I've huge respect for all the jazz greats. Darn, I'm sitting here surrounded by virtually all their albums.

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  9. SOTISE11 April 2008 at 20:20:00 CEST

    boromir them's fighting word's..
    perhaps its time to pull those duty old stan getz bootlegs of the shelf..and give them an airing.
    im not joking..i love stan getz

    kinnabalu ..man that unreleased brax on standard tunes sounds great.
    but not before you have a spare moment and give us a taste of brax with roscoe M's creative music orchestra.
    pretty please

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  10. SOTISE11 April 2008 at 20:21:00 CEST

    uh sorry k, mispelt the monniker yet again!

    ReplyDelete
  11. dalemcbdnl11 April 2008 at 23:43:00 CEST

    Real? It's all real! I, like many other "oldsters," have a preponderance of traditional musics (jazz, classical, world etc. etc.) in my collection (many thousand albums by now)and the aesthetic range is like my personal "taste" geneology. BUT, in the longer perspective, I KNOW THAT I NEED to be constantly expanding my personal aesthetic boundaries. Hence the "unreal" stuff has an increasingly prominent presence in my stacks. Even so, I am definitely not about to toss or ignore the "real" stuff. For one thing I'm an incurable collector. For another, I listen to music for a variety of reasons. But I confess that I MUST listen to the Braxtons, CTs, and Stockhausens frequently in order to avoid a "rusty ear." For me, it requires a certain amount of discipline to keep my feet in both areas and STILL PERCEIVE BOTH as beautiful.

    I hope it's not mysterious or weird seeming that I can actually listen to bop (like the music of Parker and Gillespie) or even fusion stuff (like Coryell's "Barefoot Boy" or the "Jerry Hahn Brotherhood") and LOVE them and then turn around the next day and go bananas over some solo Braxton. There is no doubt in my mind that WE need both - certainly I know I do.

    I'm SURE there are narrow people on both sides of this debate but my sense is that people who we "label" "free-jazz" fans are a little more likely to check out and enjoy "bop" than the other way around. That's my experience anyway.

    Oh, by the way, I'm going to download this Peter King and I bet I'll really like it.

    Thanks Boromir

    Dale

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  12. Anonymous15 April 2008 at 05:24:00 CEST

    Peter King was a non-entitiy to me until very recently--had "New Beginning" dropped on me ... very nifty

    much appreciated, Boromir

    and as for the rest of you zanies and Sotise ... you're on fire!

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  13. Anonymous18 April 2008 at 13:14:00 CEST

    QUOTE: jazzme said...

    "You guys are lucky to be in Europe where these guys play frequently"

    ... and quite often for free :o)

    Peter King Quartet in Regent's Park, London:
    http://i96.photobucket.com/albums/l175/jazzscriveyn/pking2007.jpg

    Thanks b. for the upload.

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  14. bluebird12 August 2010 at 21:49:00 CEST

    Thanks Boromir

    Much under-rated musician and this is his working Quartet.

    He's due in my neck of the woods later this year with this group so looking forward to that. This can be the 'taster'.

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  15. MonkSphere27 November 2011 at 14:08:00 CET

    Dear Boromir,

    Fantastic stuff, I'm sure, but can you please re-up these or supply them in some other way as the links no longer work? If you'd like to contact me I'm available at charlied050957@yahoo.com.

    Peter King is one of the leading altoists of his generation!

    Cheers,

    Tom.

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  16. Unknown5 October 2014 at 08:36:00 CEST

    Hello
    Any re-upload possible ?
    Thanks!
    Cheers

    ReplyDelete
  17. Unknown5 October 2014 at 08:38:00 CEST

    Re-upload possible ?
    Cheers

    ReplyDelete
  18. francisco santos21 September 2015 at 23:41:00 CEST

    re post, please !...
    Big THX !.....

    ReplyDelete
  19. spaycetyme!1 January 2021 at 01:17:00 CET

    Please repost this recording as we lost Mr King this last year, in August 2020.

    ReplyDelete
  20. fb29 January 2023 at 23:37:00 CET

    Re-upload possible ?

    Thank you

    ReplyDelete