Michael Garrick - 1968 - Prelude To Heart Is A Lotus

Michael Garrick Sextet with Don Rendell & Ian Carr

1968

Prelude To Heart Is A Lotus

01. Heart Is A Lotus

02. Sweet And Sugary Candy

03. Webster's Mood

04. Song By The Sea

05. Temple Dancer

06. Little Girl

Michael Garrick - piano, harpsichord, celeste

Don Rendell - soprano e alto sax, flute

Ian Carr - trumpet

Jim Philip - flute

Coleridge Goode - double bass

Trevor Tomkins - percussion

Prelude to Heart is a Lotus is a 1968 BBC Jazz in Britain recording now released for the first time. Pianist and composer Michael Garrick was 35 years old and together with close associates - saxophonist Don Rendell and trumpeter Ian Carr - was defining innovative new directions in British jazz. Prelude to Heart is a Lotus is the precursor to the Argo Records Heart is a Lotus studio album which was released two years later, and this remarkable music shines a new light on an extraordinary period of creativity in Garrick’s long career.

Exactly fifty years ago the Great British Jazz Experiment was proceeding well, unhooking from the Mother-ship of American jazz. Our new British flagship was the combination of pianist Michael Garrick, trumpeter Ian Carr and saxophonist Don Rendell. The emphasis was acoustic instrumental craftsmanship within original compositions, a fabric woven of different timbres – soprano and alto sax, flute, piano and like variations. The Carr-Rendell-Garrick team series of EMI Lansdowne albums of the late sixties remain the most sought after in the British jazz canon, so it was a delight to find some of this gorgeous material, in affordable vinyl form, thanks to Gearbox Records.

Gearbox Records obtained access to music recorded for radio by the BBC, who recorded the Garrick ensemble numerous occasions ( I count seventeen recorded sessions in the BBC database) for radio broadcast during the late ’60s and early ’70s, for programmes with names like Jazz Club, The Jazz Scene, Jazz Line Up, Jazz Parade, Jazz Workshop, and Jazz In Britain, fronted by jazz stalwarts Humphrey Lyttleton or Miles Kington . Good time to own a radio.

The title track of the BBC Prelude recording, Heart is a Lotus, is the common thread with a commercial release under the same name a little over two years later, The Heart Is A Lotus, recorded 20-22 January, 1970. Here the similarity stops, as the later album has only two further songs in common with The BBC Prelude, and the later recording line up includes vocals. Lots of it.

The interplay between the composition and the musicians – Garrick, Carr and Rendell – is inspired. Carr has a full rich tone, leaning towards flugelhorn, Rendell gives the upper-register sax an exhausting work out, ranging between Sidney Bechet and Indian snake-charmer; acoustic bass and drums are propulsive and suspenseful. I like to think this time and music was Britain’s Kind Of Blue moment, or Red White and Blue moment, just typically ten years late.

By the early 70’s, the pied piper of jazz rock fusion drew Ian Carr off to form Nucleus, rock tempo ectric bass electric piano combo. Rendell recorded intermittently but found a new direction in teaching. Garrick, ever searching for new directions, started his own label (Jazz Academy), started his own jazz school, and toured tirelessly. However, the brief magical spider’s web of the Michael Garrick Sextet was no more.

Gearbox records are a class act presenting previously unheard recordings on quality vinyl. This has to be one of the most precious.

The Michael Garrick Sextet have long held a justifiably revered position in the annals of British jazz and this release goes a long way to explaining the reason why.

In 1970 Garrick recorded The Heart is a Lotus with Norma Winstone, it was released on Argo. Prelude to Heart is a Lotus, recorded two years earlier for a BBC radio broadcast, has never been available until now,

All compositions are by Garrick who sadly died in November 2011.

They are cracking pieces and show everyone off to advantage including the mystery tenor man on Sweet and Sugary Candy. He's not listed on the sleeve and it's not Don Rendell as the tenor can be heard riffing behind Rendell's soprano. I guess it's Jim Phillip although the album details only list him as being on flute.

Carr shines throughout, mainly muted, with suggestions of Miles. Goode does his Slam Stewart bowed vocal impression and the leader plays two fisted piano. Oh yes and Tompkins kicks it along like a contemporary George Wettling.

On Webster's Mood - Rendell is listed as playing alto although it does have a tenor sound. He switches to flute for Song by the Sea. Temple Dancer has some exotic wailing by the horns and suitably Asian sounds come from the rhythm section.

Little Girl is quite beautiful painting a rich tapestry of harmonic colour. Carr is at his most Milesian here. Rendell lyricises on soprano over Goode's bass.

I'm not sure if something recorded in 1968 qualifies as my record of the year but if it does it's a front runner.