Harry Beckett
Flare Up
★★★★
DECCA. DL/LP
Welcome British Jazz Explosion reissue for the debut album as band-leader by the great Barbadian trumpeter and cornetist.
So stellar were his contributions to the most potent and innovative British jazz of the late 1960s (never mind Ogdens’ Nut Gone Flake, Songs For A Tailor and Manfred Mann Chapter Three among numerous rock deviations) that it was something of a scandal that it took until 1970 for Harry Beckett to get his name above the title. Flare Up finds him making the most of that overdue opportunity with a killer octet including fellow Jazz In Britain alumni John Surman and Alan Skidmore on saxes, John Taylor on piano, Frank Ricotti on vibes, Mike Osborne on alto and Chris Lawrence on bass. It’s the less familiar name of undervalued rhythmic powerhouse John Webb on drums who makes arguably the greatest contribution, his immense clattering undercurrent the perfect complement to Beckett’s lyrical tone and compressed dynamism on both the latter’s own surging, funky Third Road and Surman’s great, wonky two-piano ballad Where Fortune Smiles.