Talking Jazz

Talking Jazz

By Sholto Byrnes - Independent Music

Published: 29 March 2007

In the Forties and Fifties, a long-running feud between the American Federation of Musicians and the Musicians Union prevented US artists coming to the UK. This served to protect British jazz from harsh comparison, but also to slow the adoption of new advances; and it led to a suspicion that homegrown practitioners were not producing music as authentic as their US counterparts.

The arrival of Tubby Hayes on the professional circuit in 1950 went some way to demonstrating that it was possible for British musicians to hold their own in this field. Having learned violin and piano from the age of eight, Hayes received his first saxophone at 12. He turned professional three years later. Ronnie Scott allowed the "chubby kid" to sit in for a number around this time and later described Hayes as "a youth with a technique and sound of a man twice his age. He scared me to death".

Hayes went on to be one of - if not the - most important British saxophonists of the Fifties and Sixties, forming the Jazz Couriers with Scott, leading his own big band and appearing with Duke Ellington. But Hayes died in his prime in 1973, aged 38, denying his name the familiarity to younger generations that it deserves. A four-CD box set and a previously unreleased BBC recording from 1965, Commonwealth Blues, are highly recommended, and not just for those for whom British jazz pre-Courtney Pine remains a mystery.

Scott was not exaggerating when he described the young Hayes as a "prodigy". With Charlie Parker as his early role model, Hayes went on to absorb the influence of hard bop players like Hank Mobley and Johnny Griffin. He had total fluency, a medium to light tone with a touch of bite, and a supreme confidence.

The "little giant", commented critic Scott Yanow, was "an excellent musician in danger of being forgotten". The Blue Note artists of the same era may be much better known, but these recordings show that, in some quarters, British musicians were holding aloft the beacon of bop with as much cause for pride.

'Tubby Hayes: The Little Giant' www.proper-records.com

'The Tubby Hayes Quartet: Commonwealth Blues' www.artofliferecords.com