Tubby Hayes - The Lost And Found

For fans new and old of this legendary London tenorman this is a surprising and exciting event. And in case the precious tapes of this 1959 album should ever go walkabout again, a remastered version is being released this month on Candid Records. One of the sleuths involved in the search, and among the first to hear the good news, was Simon Spillett, author of a forthcoming book on Tubby and himself a prominent London tenorist. He listened to the tapes and promptly contacted Candid’s boss Alan Bates, a businessman noted for his divining-rod instincts, having unearthed buried treasures by Thelonious Monk and Charles Mingus in the past. Bates didn’t hesitate for long. Stirred by the excitement of “a scholar who knows more about Tubby Hayes than he does about Simon Spillett”, Bates paused only to ask Malcolm Addey, an English recording engineer in New York, whether the tapes could be remastered. The answer was in the affirmative and the ball was now rolling.

How these two spools of 7½ IPS recording tape came to be found is a longer and more involved tale, explained at some length in Spillett’s sleeve notes. Briefly, the story began when Tom Davis, a Canadian discographer, asked Mosaic Records boss and former Blue Note producer Michael Cuscuna to confirm a rumour that Alfred Lion had once received master tapes of Tubby from London. Cuscuna recalled that years earlier he did find some 7½ IPS tapes in Lion’s archive and donated them to Rutgers Institute of Jazz Studies in New Jersey. The college librarians then searched their shelves without success but Cuscana, by now thoroughly intrigued, took a longer look through his own stash of Blue Note office files and finally found the Tubby tapes in a box in his garage.

This is an extract from Jazzwise Issue #153 – to read the full article click here to subscribe and receive a FREE CD...