Under Milk Wood, The Stan Tracey Quartet's landmark UK jazz album, gets premium vinyl reissue in May

One of the most celebrated and timeless recordings from what's increasingly referred to as the 1960/early 70s ' Golden period of British jazz', the Stan Tracey Quartet's Jazz Suite Inspired by Dylan Thomas's Under Milk Wood, first released on EMI/Columbia in early 1966, has been remastered and will be reissued on premium vinyl on 12 May 2023 by ReSteamed Records. The label is run by his son, drummer and band leader, Clark Tracey and is the first vinyl release in almost 40 years since it was reissued on Stan Tracey's own Steam Records in 1976, where it won a best reissue award.

Pianist Tracey, who died in December 2013 and was one of the UK's foremost jazz musicians, was hugely inspired by the 1954 BBC Radio drama of Dylan Thomas's quirky, moving masterwork, Under Milk Wood, and composed eight thematic compositions which he recorded with his quartet, tenor saxophonist Bobby Wellins, bassist Jeff Clyne and drummer Jackie Dougan, in one swift, highly productive session with esteemed producer Denis Preston at London's Lansdowne Studios in March 1965.

From the jaunty Monk-like, salty swing of 'Cockle Row' and 'I Lost My Step in Nantucket', with Tracey turning the most unexpected corners, to 'Under Milk Wood's' exquisite, haunting mood and the blistering bluesy-bop of 'A.M. Mayhem’, the music's broad imaginative scope evolves around the masterful interplay between Tracey and Wellins. None more so than the title track and the forever atmospheric beauty of 'Starless and Bible Black', featuring an utterly unforgettable, otherworldly Wellins' solo, which The Observer referred to as, "probably the finest single recorded performance by a British jazz group." In Jazzwise's 100 Jazz Albums That Shook the World book, published last year and available from www.jazzwise.com, the album is placed at no 47 in the album rundown: the highest British jazz entry, and, the nearest the UK has ever come to an equivalent of acknowledged American jazz masterpieces

Jazzwise's May issue will feature a longer piece on the history of this iconic recording.

For more visit www.resteamed-records.com