The Daryl Runswick Quartet 1975

     Cartoon by 'RAP' of the Leicester Mercury

Stan Sulzman, soprano sax, tenor sax
Tony Hymas, Rhodes electric piano
Daryl Runswick, double bass
Harold Fisher, drums

Anagram
by Stan Sulzman

Calouste
by Daryl Runswick      

Monsieur Tristesse
by Daryl Runswick     

Screepin'
by Tony Hymas    

The Radio Leicester music studios (nestled on land long since redeveloped between the Tigers rugger stadium and the old abattoir) had no piano, so on both recordings from there (this one and the earlier 1973 Quintet broadcast) Tony Hymas plays electric piano only. Unaccountably this recording, though not the earlier one, is in mono.

Was I terribly busy at this period? I revert to repeating old material throughout (including Blue Water, not included here because the earlier 1974 Quartet version is better) and Stan and Tony each contribute a tune. Was I just being generous like other bandleaders? The mists close...

I remember that in his spoken commentary, scripted to notes provided by me after we'd all gone back to London,
Radio Leicester's compère and producer Roger Eames accidentally swapped my descriptions of Stan's and Tony's tunes and applied them to the wrong ones. So Anagram, not Screepin', apparently had a bassline sliding deliciously away from its chords. The note I gave Roger for Monsieur Tristesse contained a lie: I said it was an old tune of mine that had originally been played much slower (aping Miles's treatment of ballads such as Autumn Leaves) but in fact the tune had been composed recently, in 1974, as a fast number. With Calouste it is interesting to compare this performance with that on my 1973 Quartet broadcast, for the contrasting approaches of all the players but especially the two drummers, Spike Wells there, and Harold Fisher, outstanding here.

[I've just noticed, making these web pages, that I did broadcasts on 20th November 1973, 19th November 1974 and 19th November 1975.]