ONLY THE TITLE TRACK AVAILABLE TO DOWNLOAD (WE DON'T HAVE THE RIGHTS TO THE OTHER TRACKS WHICH ARE ALL COVERS) - BUT YOU CAN PURCHASE THE WHOLE ALBUM AS A CD!
Full Track Listing:
1. Jazz Give Me The Blues
2. I’m Just A Lucky So And So
3. Black Coffee
4. Do Nothing Till You Hear From Me
5. God Bless The Child
6. Travellin’ All Alone
7. For All We Know
8. I Ain’t Got Nothing But The Blues
July 5 2011. Billy Jenkins turns 55. What could be more appropriate than a retro 'Fifties late night jazz album - a celebration of that thing called jazz - another cliché in the land we call jazz. NO! STOP! We don't want no more of that groovy dinner jazzy lounge piano soft-focus wide screen smooth talking tasteful jazz thang. Man, jazz gives me the blues! Jazz is the blues. Blues is the new jazz.
After years of following the jazz rainbow Billy saw the light way back in the nineties and formed a blues band (the marvellous Blues Collective and then the recession proof Trio Blues Suburbia). Adding a vocal element to his music allowed Billy to confront those perennial blues issues: dogs (he don't like 'em), parents (ditto), tea (very much in favour), Cliff Richard (no position at all really but he did meet him once) and the Duke (just can't get enough). So maybe moving away from jazz brought him back to a renewed appreciation of those hoary old numbers we all love to hate and an understanding that the blues underpins jazz.
Whatever, here we have a Billy Jenkins album of standards (OK, so that's like a Lady Gaga guide to comfy cardigans but there we go). Just to contextualise, the album kicks off with a homage to the ultimate in 50s hipness - the Hammond organ trio - yes, in the Jimmy Smith corner Mr Jimmy Watson (not playing Hammond) and in the Grant Green corner the heavy weight guitar string champion of the world, let's hear it for Mr B Jenkins Esq.! Mike Pickering's in the drum seat (he makes up the last third of the Trio Blues Suburbia) and guest soloist and Jenkins novice, lauded and award winning altoist and flautist Finn Peters rocks in with a bluesy chorus or two and some kissing noises.
[Maybe this is a good time to list the wonderful saxophonists who have passed through Jenkins' groups and gone on to great things (must be something in the water). Step forward if you please Ian Trimmer, Iain Ballamy, Mark Lockheart, Mark Ramsden, Andy Shepherd, Martin Speake, Jason Yarde, Nathaniel Facey etc etc. OK, step back again.]
Billy takes these old jazz standards and does unmentionable things to them, lyrically and musically metamorphosing them into something new and strange - reinterpreting the hackneyed old images, injecting anger where anger never was, blueing the jazz. The guitar, that guitar, still strikes like lightning, illuminating as it incinerates, but the emphasis here is on mood - a fifties late night mood for a fifty-somethin' guitarist.
"Billy Jenkins is a joker. He takes the mickey – not out of jazz but out of jazz cliches. The easy way would be to play badly, but his way is to get everything going, sounding rather good and perfectly serious until… whoops! He is abetted by his Trio Blues Suburbia, the superb Jim Watson on organ, saxophonist Finn Peters and drummer Mike Pickering, who create the kind of subdued groove that some other musicians strive for and never quite achieve. My favourite track is "I'm Just a Lucky So-And-So", with Mr Jenkins essaying a vocal-guitar unison which comes out sounding like George Benson on acid." Dave Gelly, The Observer
credits
released May 1, 2020
Billy Jenkins – electric guitar, voice, harmonica
Finn Peters - alto saxophone & flute
Jim Watson – NORD organ
Mike Pickering – drum kit
Recorded and produced by Charlie Hart in one take instant time and space on 26th July 2010 at Equator Studios, London SE4
As a teenager BJ recorded for legendary Clive Davis with artrock band Burlesque (72-77); with 'alternative musical comedy'
duo Trimmer & Jenkins (79-82) before founding (81) the Voice of God Collective. He has recorded 40+ albums incl Motorway At Night, Entertainment USA and recordings about SE London Sounds Like Bromley, Greenwich, Still Sounds Like Bromley and Suburbia....more
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