Grits, Beans And Greens: The Lost Fontana Studio Session 1969

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...There is an exuberance in his playing that is compelling and demands attention – he’s like the metaphorical life and soul of the party, you just want to engage with what is being said. — Jazzwise, July 2019, 4 out of 5 stars

Release Date: 26th Jul 2019
Catalogue No: 7756964
Label: Fontana Jazz
Length: 36 minutes

Presto Jazz Recording of the Week

30th July 2019

Tubby Hayes: For Members Only

Work length6:29

$1.10

$1.50

$2.05

The Tubby Hayes Quartet, Ron Mathewson (double bass), Tubby Hayes (tenor saxophone), Mike Pyne (piano), Michael "Spike" Wells (drums)
Recorded: 1969-06-24
Recording Venue: Philips Studios, Stanhope Place, London

Tubby Hayes: Grits, Beans And Greens

Work length6:10

$1.10

$1.50

$2.05

The Tubby Hayes Quartet, Ron Mathewson (double bass), Tubby Hayes (tenor saxophone), Mike Pyne (piano), Michael "Spike" Wells (drums)
Recorded: 1969-06-24
Recording Venue: Philips Studios, Stanhope Place, London

Tubby Hayes: Rumpus

Work length7:32

$1.10

$1.50

$2.05

The Tubby Hayes Quartet, Ron Mathewson (double bass), Tubby Hayes (tenor saxophone), Mike Pyne (piano), Michael "Spike" Wells (drums)
Recorded: 1969-06-24
Recording Venue: Philips Studios, Stanhope Place, London

Duke Pearson: You Know I Care

Work length7:02

$1.10

$1.50

$2.05

The Tubby Hayes Quartet, Ron Mathewson (double bass), Tubby Hayes (tenor saxophone), Mike Pyne (piano), Michael "Spike" Wells (drums)
Recorded: 1969-06-24
Recording Venue: Philips Studios, Stanhope Place, London

Coleman, Cy: Where Am I Going?

Work length9:21

$1.10

$1.50

$2.05

The Tubby Hayes Quartet, Ron Mathewson (double bass), Tubby Hayes (tenor saxophone), Mike Pyne (piano), Michael "Spike" Wells (drums)
Recorded: 1969-06-24
Recording Venue: Philips Studios, Stanhope Place, London

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Recording of the Week, Tubby Hayes Quartet - Grits, Beans And Greens

30th July 2019

One of the most exciting archive discoveries of recent times, after 50 years on the shelf Grits, Beans And Greens is everything Tubby Hayes worshippers had hoped for, and it already sounds like a classic.

Undoubtedly one of the most important, influential and ground breaking UK jazz musicians of all time, during the ‘50s and early ‘60s, Tubby Hayes stood apart from many of his UK-based contemporaries, displaying a self-confidence and virtuoso musical delivery that placed him shoulder to shoulder with many of the leading American jazzmen of the day. He worked with the likes of Quincy Jones, Ella Fitzgerald, Charles Mingus and Duke Ellington and his many fans included Miles Davis, Cannonball Adderley and Sonny Rollins. He had his own primetime TV show and was the face of UK jazz. Thought to be either lost or destroyed until their recent rediscovery, these sessions are being hailed as among the very best work in the Hayes discography.

“Sometimes when tapes that have been lost or rumoured to exist finally surface there is a touch of anti-climax or the need to 'spin' them in a way that makes them more important than they are” explains Hayes' biographer and award-winning British jazz saxophonist Simon Spillett. “These sessions, on the other hand, are absolute classics in every regard. It's an album that can sit equally alongside the best Coltrane, Rollins or Dexter Gordon LPs. It really is a lost masterpiece, make no mistake.”

At the time the ‘Grits, Beans and Greens’ sessions were recorded, Hayes was also working on a more commercial project, ‘The Orchestra’, which found him aiming for the pop and easy-listening markets by covering The Beatles, Burt Bacharach and Nancy Sinatra. Ironically, sales of 'The Orchestra' were poor by the standards of his previous albums and as Hayes' health began to falter in the early 1970s, no further recordings took place, leaving the ‘Grits, Beans and Greens’ reels forgotten and unreleased. After his tragic death following open-heart surgery, aged just 38, in 1973, the tapes were simply filed away, eventually becoming mislaid as the label's archives went through a series of corporate buy-outs. The tapes were discovered when the late jazz writer and Polygram Catalogue Manager Richard Cook came across Hayes’ diary and noticed entries detailing a number of recording sessions. He subsequently trawled through the Polygram archives and made what was to be one of the most significant discoveries in jazz history when he came across the never-before-heard 1969 tapes. Cook left the company before the tapes were released and it wasn’t until last year that knowledge of their existence resurfaced.

Reviews

July 2019

...There is an exuberance in his playing that is compelling and demands attention – he’s like the metaphorical life and soul of the party, you just want to engage with what is being said.

Grits, Beans And Greens: The Lost Fontana Studio Session 1969

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