One of the great, yet relatively unsung, heroes of British jazz, Gordon Beck was a world-class jazz pianist (his recordings with the Phil Woods European Rhythm Machine illustrate this perhaps more than any other recorded examples), yet this excellent compilation – comprising four live sessions, two in London, and one each of Liverpool and Edinburgh; plus five radio broadcasts for the BBC and Capital Radio – should be snapped up right away as it is a valuable representation of his work.

His original Gyroscope album was by a trio with Jeff Clyne and Tony Oxley and released on Morgan Records in 1969. The album name was maintained here as a working title for Beck’s quintet of the period – none of the compositions on the trio album appear on this compilation – and the only Gyroscope group album released was One, Two, Three, Go! and that on cassette by Beck’s own Jaguar label, which is included in this compilation. It forms an excellent, if unintended, companion to the Gordon Beck Jubilation! collection (1964-84) on the Turtle label.

Always ahead of the crowd, unlike the pianists who arrived about the same time as he did on the UK scene, such as Johnny Burch, Alan Branscombe, Brian Dee, Beck did not feel any obligation with his own group to conform to the then prevailing trend of what he called “straight forward jazz.”

On offer here, in reasonable fidelity, are some fine examples of Beck’s playing; certainly there’s a debt to Bill Evans (but then what contemporary pianists were not taking account of his playing) that was marked by technical finesse and at times sparking invention. These characteristics are certainly on evidence on the extended examples of Beck’s quintet – ‘Here Comes the Mallet Man,’ ‘Variations’ both first and second versions, and ‘Suite No. 6’.