British Conversations Graham Collier featuring Harry Beckett and Ed Speight

• 1 Red Sky in the Morning 10:30
• 2 Clear Moon 06:35
• 3 Halo Round the Sun 11:29
• 4 Red Sky at Night 07:43
• 5 Mackerel Sky 13:09
• Total Runtime 49:26

Info for British Conversations

To commemorate the 10th year since the passing of esteemed British jazz composer, bassist and bandleader Graham Collier, My Only Desire Records presents this 1975 recording of his previously unreleased suite 'British Conversations'.

The recording features lead soloists trumpeter Harry Beckett and guitarist Ed Speight, alongside The Swedish Radio Jazz Group - made up of the hottest players on the '70s Scandi jazz scene - including saxophonists Arne Domnérus, Claes Rosendahl and Lennart Åberg, trumpeter Jan Allan, pianist Bengt Hallberg, guitarist Rune Gustafsson and drummer Egil Johansen. Collier steers the band through the five-part suite that encompasses beautifully composed melodies, driving jazz rock and as many extremes as the British weather that inspired its name.

Graham Collier (1937-2011) was one of the most accomplished, popular and collectable British jazz artists during the Brit-jazz heyday of the '60s and '70s, with his career of musically challenging yet hugely rewarding albums spanning five decades. His early LPs 'Deep Dark Blue Centre' (Deram, 1967), 'Down Another Road' (Fontana, 1969) and 'Darius' (Mosaics, 1974,) are rightly considered classics of the era.

Released in co-operation with the Collier estate, we hope this wonderful record leads to many new people discovering and enjoying the music of Graham Collier.

"This is a remarkable album for many reasons: it has been hidden for so long and it shows aspects of Collier that are surprising: the sheer beauty of the playing, the nuanced fluidity of the writing. It should call for a reappraisal of Collier’s work." (Jack Kenny, jazzviews.net)

Graham Collier, conductor
Harry Beckett, trumpet, flugelhorn
Ed Speight, guitar
The Swedish Radio Jazz Group:
Arne Domnérus, alto saxophone, clarinet
Claes Rosendahl, tenor and alto saxophone, flute
Lennart Åberg, tenor and soprano saxophone, flute
Erik Nilsson, baritone saxophone
Americo Bellotto, trumpet, flugel horn
Bertil Lövgren, trumpet, flugel horn
Jan Allan, trumpet, alto horn
Håkan Nyquist, trumpet, flugel horn, French horn
Lars Olofsson, trombone
Sven Larsson, bass trombone, tuba
Rune Gustafsson, guitar
Bengt Hallberg, piano
Georg Riedel, double bass
Stefan Brolund, electric bass
Egil Johansen, drums

Digitally remastered by Caspar Sutton-Jones at Gearbox Records

Graham Collier (1937-2011)
is one of the best known and most important British jazz composers and over a 40 year career, his list of compositions and commissions has grown to encompass ensembles around the world. He is well-known as an author and educator, having written seven books on jazz.

Composer Graham Collier (1937-2011) was one of the principal driving forces behind the evolution of British jazz during the late 1960s and on into the 1970s. Initially also a bassist and bandleader, his Graham Collier Music fostered the talents of such luminaries of creative music as trumpeter Harry Beckett (1923-2010), saxophonist Stan Sulzmann, guitarists Phil Lee and Ed Speight, multi-instrumentalist Karl Jenkins, drummer John Webb and many others. A composer of long-form suites that contain a unique level of openness to the point of cross-oeuvre communication, his rhythmically incisive and tonally broad music was created "on the bandstand," even when in the studio. Collier was a composer, first and foremost, but his ideas of composition were collective and fluid, while remaining extremely rigorous. This interview was conducted via Skype for the New York City Jazz Record in advance of a speaking engagement in New York on his final published book, The Jazz Composer.

One's time on Earth is a curious thing – I hadn't expected Graham Collier to pass on so soon. By all accounts, he was happy with the article culled from this text, but there were still questions to ask that never made their way back to Graham. As this interview is published, it's a bittersweet irony that the music of Miles Davis is now being packaged as "The Miles Davis Experience" by trumpeter Ambrose Akinmusire. A far cry from the inspired impressions of Collier's Blue Suite.

As a critic who speaks with musicians a fair amount, the fluidity of terminology – "composition", "improvisation", "orchestration", "arrangement"... – is something to reckon with. It has taken years for me, as a listener-writer, to begin to understand what's on the page and what's off the page when I experience music, and even now what I think I know may be off the mark. As Collier uses these terms, it's still a challenge not to want to render them somewhat interchangeable, even if dressing up someone else's tune isn't entirely "composition." Good interviews should pose such questions, and in this case they are questions readers will have to answer through their own investigations.

This album contains no booklet.