The Kenny Clarke-Francy Boland Big Band – At Her Majesty’s Pleasure (180gr.)

The LP was made in Cologne in September 1969 and has some magnificent playing by the soloists and the ensemble.The opening track, Pentonville, features some delicious Sulieman trumpet leading to one of Boland’s rare piano solos and the pensive tenor of Ronnie Scott. Ake Persson’s masculine sounding trombone also comments on the predicament before the band unravel that glorious wall of sound which is one of their trademarks.The second theme, Wormwood Scrubs, should prove evocative: dawn comes very abruptly, whatever peace there may have been, shattered by the appearance of the three tenors, Griffin, Ronnie Scott and Tony Coe and another day begins in Her Majesty’s famous London penal establishment. The tenors all contribute beautifully virile solos followed by a lovely “singing” effort by Derek Humble and a forthright gem from the trumpet of Kenny Wheeler.Doing Time is just that! Klook and Kenny Clare out in the yard at exercise. A fabulous tour de force and a forcible reminder of just why this band swings like no other.Broadmoor , perhaps the most notorious of Britain’s penal institutions. Francy sees not so much mental unbalance, musically, as one might expect although some of the solos teeter occasionally on the edge of harmonic stability. Ronnie gets off a great, wailing solo before Shihab’s fluent soprano saxophone paves the way for the three tenors to rejoin the rumble. Holloway, a beautiful ballad in which Tony Coe’s tenor sympathises with the desolation of being, stuck behind bars.