Originally released in 2008,
Neil Ardley's
Camden 70 has been bootlegged several times. Its re-release in 2024 should remedy that. His 17-piece
New Jazz Orchestra was on tour supporting the 1969
NJO album
Le Déjeuner Sur L'Herbe, which is universally regarded as a jazz classic.
This performance is drawn from the Jeanetta Cochrane Theatre in London, on May 26, 1970, during the Camden Festival. The Orchestra was touring with
Colosseum, and its members, including guitarist
Clem Clempson, saxophonist
Dick Heckstall-Smith, bassist
Tony Reeves, keyboardist
Dave Greenslade, and drummer
Jon Hiseman, played in both bands.
Though
NJO was missing key players from its earlier incarnation, you wouldn't know it from this recording. In addition to
Colosseum's players, the lineup included saxophonists
Barbara Thompson (she also played flute),
Dave Gelly (who penned the excellent liner essay here), and
Jim Phillip.
Harry Beckett and
Henry Lowther played two of four trumpets.
Dick Hart played tuba, while the trombone section featured
Mike Gibbs who, along with
Ardley,
Mike Westbrook, and
Michael Garrick, made up the new breed of Brit jazz composers.
Clempson's electric guitar added color, texture, and a soupcon of rock energy.
The 12- track program begins with four showstoppers:
George Russell's iconic "Stratusfunk" weds modernist hard bop to Ellingtonian harmonics and swings hard. Other wonderfully executed covers here include
Miles Davis' "Nardis,"
John Coltrane's "Naima,"
Gibbs' cosmopolitan "Tanglewood," and
Garrick's "Dusk Fire."
Jack Bruce's "Rope Ladder to the Moon" suffers somewhat from the muddy sound of
Clempson's vocals (they're nowhere near as fine as
Bruce's, anyway), though the funky interplay between
Greenslade's organ and the saxophonists is astonishing.
The lion's share of material here is from
Le Déjeuner Sur L'Herbe; seven of its eight tracks are performed consecutively in suite form -- the
Davis,
Coltrane, and
Garrick tunes were all part of the studio album. These are introduced by a long, sloppy reading of "Dusk Fire," redeemed by stunning solos and fiery ensemble interplay in its 12-minute duration. "Naima" and "Nardis" offer
Ardley's tastefully restrained orchestral charts. They're followed by a long, bluesy, flamenco-tinged version of
Andres Segovia's "Study" that includes a gorgeous soprano solo from
Thompson and charts that recall
Ardley's obsession with
Gil Evans.
Gibbs composed "Rebirth," which features
Greenslade's Hammond B-3 that threatens to derail the entire proceeding -- reeds and brass had other ideas. After the gentle-to-the-point-of-somnambulance of "Ballad" comes the
Dejeuner title piece, carried by a brief yet brilliant big-band orgy. The closer, "National Anthem & Tango," is a throwaway.
Camden '70 not only fills in
Ardley's and
NJO's tenure together -- he left in 1971 -- but is a striking aural portrait of the composer, conductor, and arranger at a crossroads in British jazz, presenting his original music in an evolutionary aesthetic process. ~ Thom Jurek
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