The Daryl Runswick Quartet 1974

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Stan Sulzman, tenor sax, soprano sax, flute
Tony Hymas, piano, Rhodes electric piano
Daryl Runswick, double bass
Spike Wells, drums

 

 

 

 

 

Blue Water
by Daryl Runswick      

Trudging
by Daryl Runswick      

Gazeuse
by Daryl Runswick       

I've chosen to put up just three tracks from this broadcast. Monsieur Tristesse was also played, but I prefer the version of that tune you can hear in my 1975 Quartet broadcast (and I definitely prefer my solo there).

Blue Water is a complete reworking of one of my very first jazz compositions, Sails, written for a poetry and jazz afternoon at the Edinburgh Fringe in 1967. The poetry was Clive James's. Trudging does just that and was newly composed for this occasion, in a sort of 'Miss Mabry' style. Gazeuse (as the late Peter Clayton, the MC of the broadcast, said in his introduction) refers not to fizzy French water but a gas of a French female.

The relationship between a bassplayer and a drummer is one of the most intimate in the whole of music. At its best it has a quality of e.s.p. – you each know what the other is doing, and is about to do, and can react before the event and make a seemingly magic moment: inexplicable certainly to onlookers. It's a brotherhood, almost a marriage (I've not been fortunate enough to play with any female drummers). I've had five such relationships in my lifetime, with Spike Wells, Mike Travis, Harold Fisher, John Marshall and Kenny Clare.

 

Recorded at BBC Maida Vale Studios, 19th November 1974.


These compositions and recordings are covered by copyright.