Harry Beckett - Still Happy '2020

Tracks list

Barbados-born Harry Beckett was known across the jazz world, respected as a
major player on the UK scene for many years, winning the Melody Maker Trumpeter
of the Year award in 1972 and recording or performing with a host of musicians
including Louis Moholo-Moholo, John Dankworth and John Surman. Like many jazz
players he was in demand as a session player across genres—hes on Jack
Bruces magnificent Songs For A Tailor (Polydor, 1969), as well as albums by The
Faces, Memphis Slim, Working Week and Jah Wobble.

Still Happy is a relative rarity in the Beckett discography—an album from
Beckett as leader rather than sideman. He recorded the session for an edition of
BBC Radio 2s Jazz Club, broadcast in August 1974—versions of No Time For
Hello and Bracelets Of Sound were included on Becketts Joy Unlimited (Cadillac
Records, 1975), with guitarist Ray Russell rather than the twin horns present on
this recording, but Still Happy is previously unreleased.

Beckett is definitely at the center of things, but he gives plenty of space to
his bandmates, themselves some of the leading lights of the British jazz scene.
The tunes—three of Becketts originals—are reflective of their
time, fusing jazz, rock, funk and more into an exciting, vital, sound.

The album opens with Paul Harts soft-toned, three-note bass riff on Bracelets Of
Sound. As he repeats the phrase the other musicians gradually join in, slowly
building layers of sound before Beckett arrives with a sweet, plaintive melody.
Hart closes the album too, after joining drummer John Webb in driving No Time
For Hello along with some powerful playing he ends the track with three gentle
harmonics—not before Don Weller grabs the spotlight for a tenor solo.
Still Happy is as upbeat and joyous as the title suggests—Webbs
propulsive drumming gives it a real feeling of movement, Becketts solo is
unrestrained and celebratory.

Tracklisting:
01. Harry Beckett - Bracelets of Sound (13:57)
02. Harry Beckett - Still Happy (9:41)
03. Harry Beckett - No Time for Hello (5:14)

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