A paean to Ian Carr and his colleagues has just been published in Italy by Edizioni Auditorium,"Elastic Jazz - Sketches of Britain" is a CD + Book package which contains portraits of some of the major players in British jazz including Ian Carr, Graham Collier, John Surman, Keith Tippett, Trevor Watts and Mike Westbrook, to name just a few. In a way it's an audiovisual revisiting of Carr's seminal book, 'Music Outside' (1973) which focused on mostly the same protagonists.

The book takes its title and cover art from Nucleus' debut album "Elastic Rock" which the authors freely acknowledge in their introduction. The CD comprises ten previously unreleased tracks from Graham Collier, Mike Cooper, Stan Sulzmann, Mike Westbrook, Amalgam, Bob Downes, London Jazz Composers Orchestra and Evan Parker. The music on the CD spans a period from 1970 to 1983 although most of the pieces were recorded in the 1970s. The style of music represented here is very varied, ranging from the funky jazz rock of Mike Cooper and Trevor Watts Moire Music through the two exquisite alternate takes of Graham Collier's 'Mosaics' trio settings of Mike Westbrook's chamber music from 'A Little Westbrook Music' and the more cerebral projects such as Barry Guy's London Jazz Composers Orchestra which includes the late, great Derek Bailey and culminates in a six minute masterclass of multiphonics and circular breathing on soprano saxophone.

The book/CD project was devised and written by Claudio Bonomi and Gennaro Fucile and is published as a bilingual version in Italian and English. It succeeds in plugging the gaping hole in the written history of jazz in Britain. Apart from Carr's aformentioned book, only John Wickes' book 'Innovations in British Jazz 1960-1980' has come anywhere near to remedying this deficiency. Jim Godbolt's two books on British jazz only cover the early decades in sufficient detail. Although not a big book, it is CD sized and only around 90 pages, its inclusion of a unique CD makes it indispensible, particularly when considering that several of the tracks are rare as hen's teeth - for example the two Collier tracks and Bob Downes' 'Spanish Plain'. It is available now from the publishers' website: Auditorium Edizioni

Roger Farbey, December 2005

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