A Jazz Club Session With Chris Barber's Jazz Band & Ottilie Patterson (2CD)

Chris Barber led the UK's most successful Jazz band from its first recordings in 1949 until Chris's retirement in 2019. Chris Barber's discography runs to around 200 pages. Starting off as a standard, but highly accomplished, Traditional Jazz band, from the 1960s onwards the band started to expand its horizons and widen the repertoire without losing sight of its roots.

This previously unreleased CD from 1963 shows that development in place: alongside the standard Trad Jazz fare there are Gospel tunes, Duke Ellington material as well as two tunes by Kurt Weill and originals by Chris Barber himself. Blues singer Ottilie Patterson also broadens her Blues scope with songs by Memphis Minnie, Ray Charles, Aretha Franklin and a reworking of an old Bessie Smith song.

Most of Chris Barber's 'live' recordings have been large concert ones, but this sees the band in a Jazz club setting, less formal with the band relaxed, on top form and enjoying itself. These excellent recordings come from those made by the late Allan Gilmour in Nottingham and are part of an on-going series by LAKE Records.