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The New Jazz Orchestra (NJO) was a British jazz big band that was active from 1963 to 1970. Neil Ardley recorded several more albums with many of the NJO's members, which were released under his own name.
The NJO was the offspring of a popular weekend jazz club, the "Jazzhouse" based at the Green Man, Blackheath (demolished to make way for Allison Close) where the "house" band was the Ian Bird Quintet [1] (initially comprising Ian Bird, tenor sax; Clive Burrows, [2] baritone sax; Johnny Mealing, piano; Tony Reeves, bass and Trevor Tomkins, drums - Mealing and Tomkins left to join the newly formed Rendell-Carr Quintet and were succeeded by Paul Raymond and Jon Hiseman respectively.
The ensemble featured many London-based jazz musicians, such as Harry Beckett, Jack Bruce, Ian Carr, Dave Gelly, Michael Gibbs, Dick Heckstall-Smith, Jon Hiseman, Henry Lowther, Don Rendell, Frank Ricotti, Paul Rutherford, Barbara Thompson, Trevor Tomkins, Michael Phillipson, Les Carter, Tom Harris, Trevor Watts and Lionel Grigson. [3] Ardley, Gibbs, Carter, Rutherford, Michael Garrick, and composer Mike Taylor all contributed pieces and arrangements. [3]
The idea for the NJO was born in the autumn of 1963 out of an enthusiastic late night conversation "about big bands and possibilities" between Clive Burrows and Les Carter (one of the club's regular helpers and poster writer). [3] The conversation ended with the decision to form such a band around the kernel of the Ian Bird Quintet - Burrows had the "book" (of musicians' telephone numbers) and Carter (himself a developing amateur flautist) undertook to write some arrangements to help swell the initial repertoire.
The newly formed band finally debuted at The Green Man at Christmas, 1963 as "The Bird/Burrows Big Band". Following the departure (in 1964) of Ian Bird from the group, the band briefly became "The Neoteric Jazz Orchestra" but later settled for "The New Jazz Orchestra" (NJO).
Later in 1964, the NJO found itself leaderless (Burrows had left to go pro), largely gigless and somewhat wanting in enthusiasm. Ian Carr (who had by then joined the trumpet section) approached Les Carter (who was directing rehearsals) with the suggestion that a friend of his might bring along an arrangement for the band to play through. The "friend" turned out to be pianist and composer Neil Ardley, [3] and the arrangement was of Duke Ellington's "In a Mellow Tone". It was not long after this that Ardley was invited by the members to take over the leadership of the NJO - a mantle that he assumed until 1971.
Under Ardley, a self-confessed disciple of Gil Evans, the NJO personnel and instrumentation varied in a chameleonic fashion, following the colours of his evolving arranging and composing style. However, the (almost) original palette of instruments and personnel was at last reunited in 1993 for a celebratory 30th-anniversary gig at the Barbican Centre, London.
Donald Percy Rendell was an English jazz musician and arranger. Mainly active as a tenor saxophonist, he also played soprano saxophone, flute, and clarinet.
Colosseum are an English jazz rock band, mixing blues, rock and jazz-based improvisation. Colin Larkin wrote that "the commercial acceptance of jazz rock in the UK" was mainly due to the band. Between 1975 and 1978 a separate band Colosseum II existed playing progressive rock.
Ian Carr was a Scottish jazz musician, composer, writer, and educator. Carr performed and recorded with the Rendell-Carr quintet and jazz-fusion band Nucleus, and was an associate professor at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama in London. He also wrote biographies of musicians Keith Jarrett and Miles Davis.
Peter Naphtali Lemer is an English jazz musician. He worked with the Pete Lemer Quintet, Spontaneous Music Ensemble, Annette Peacock, Harry Beckett, Gilgamesh, Baker Gurvitz Army, Seventh Wave, Harry Beckett's Joy Unlimited, Pierre Moerlen's Gong, Mike Oldfield Group, In Cahoots, and Miller/Baker/Lemer. He currently works with In Cahoots, Peter Lemer Trio/Quartet, Barbara Thompson's Paraphernalia, and the Peter Lemer-Billy Thompson Quartet and Duo.
Neil Richard Ardley was a prominent English jazz composer and pianist, who also made his name as the author of more than 100 popular books on science and technology, and on music.
Michael Garrick was an English jazz pianist and composer, and a pioneer in mixing jazz with poetry recitations and in the use of jazz in large-scale choral works.
Nucleus was a British jazz-fusion band, which continued in different forms from 1969 to 1989. In 1970, the band won first prize at the Montreux Jazz Festival, released the album Elastic Rock, and performed both at the Newport Jazz Festival and the Village Gate jazz club.
Graham John Clifton Bond was an English rock/blues musician and vocalist, considered a founding father of the English rhythm and blues boom of the 1960s.
Michael Ronald Taylor was a British jazz composer, pianist and co-songwriter for the band Cream.
Philip John Albert "Jon" Hiseman was an English drummer, recording engineer, record producer, and music publisher. He played with the Graham Bond Organisation, with John Mayall & the Bluesbreakers and later formed what has been described as the "seminal" jazz rock/progressive rock band, Colosseum. He later formed Colosseum II in 1975.
Barbara Gracey Thompson MBE was an English jazz saxophonist, flautist and composer. She studied clarinet, flute, piano and classical composition at the Royal College of Music, but the music of Duke Ellington and John Coltrane made her shift her interests to jazz and saxophone. She was married to drummer Jon Hiseman of Colosseum from 1967 until his death in 2018.
Trevor Ramsey Tomkins was a British jazz drummer best known for his work in a number of British bands in the 1970s, including Gilgamesh.
Jeffrey Ovid Clyne was a British jazz bassist.
Michael Clement Irving Gibbs is a Rhodesian-born English jazz composer, conductor, arranger and producer as well as a trombonist and keyboardist.
Anthony George Coe was an English jazz musician who played clarinet, bass clarinet, and flute as well as soprano, alto, and tenor saxophones.
Albert Ronald Ross was a British jazz baritone saxophonist.
Stan Robinson was an English jazz tenor saxophonist and flautist.
Lionel Grigson was an English jazz pianist, cornettist, trumpeter, composer, writer and teacher, who in the 1980s started the jazz course at the Guildhall School of Music. As Simon Purcell wrote in The Independent, "Whether he inspired or inflamed, Grigson's energies often acted as a catalyst and his interest in, and support for, young jazz musicians contributed significantly to the growth and consolidation of jazz education in Britain....Within the context of a leading international conservatoire, the Guildhall School of Music, in London, Grigson did much to demonstrate and explain the underlying principles common to jazz, classical and indeed all music, and as a result produced a generation of jazz educators possessing a thorough grounding in an area where much educational work is left to chance." Among his published books are Practical Jazz (1988), Jazz from Scratch (1991) and A Jazz Chord Book, as well as studies on the music of Charlie Parker, Louis Armstrong and Thelonious Monk.
Anthony Reeves is an English bass guitarist/contrabassist, noted for his "distinctive and complex bass sound" and use of electronic effects.
Dave Gelly MBE is a British jazz critic. A long-standing contributor to The Observer, he was named Jazz Writer of the Year in the 1999 British Jazz Awards. Gelly is also a jazz saxophonist and broadcaster, presenting a number of shows for BBC Radio 2 including Night Owls for much of the 1980s.
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