The radio broadcaster Jez Nelson refers to Dave Green as ‘British Jazz Royalty’ in the liner notes of this archive 2004 ‘live session’ CD release for BBC Radio’s Jazz on 3, and perhaps only the bass man himself would be too humble to acknowledge it. From performing with jazz giants as house band bassist at Ronnie’s in its 1960-70s halcyon days, through to recording with everyone from Ben Webster, Don Rendell/Ian Carr to Joe Harriot and Lol Coxhill, Green has shuffled between differing shades of modernism on a world-class stage. His still current post-bop trio shifted further in the direction of more radical freer music on this excellent little session recorded 18 years ago now.

The undoubted catalyst for that change was Evan Parker, not someone you’d ordinarily associate with Green, but whose presence the bassist had requested following Jazz on 3’s brief to “try something you’ve always wanted to do”. Green had previously shared a bandstand with Parker when first-call bassist for his close friend, the late Charlie Watts’ big band. Jez’s interview with Dave Green on track 1 provides a bit of background before we hear five tracks, three of which come from the lesser covered Thelonious Monk songbook - ‘Shuffle Boil’, ‘Played Twice’ and ‘Raise Four’ - the latter’s short cartoon-like motif triggering a stirring, freely improvised duel between reedist Iain Dixon and Parker with Green and drummer Gene Calderazzo conjuring a whirlwind of edge-of-the-seat swing that has sonic as well as rhythmic excitement; Dixon’s clarinet is Dolphy to Evan’s Trane on ‘Shuffle Boil’ but both display a contrastingly heartfelt dreamy, fragile lyricism on Billy Strayhorn’s ‘A Flower is a Lovesome Thing’.