The big band represents a continuing theme in Tubby Hayes discography. At the age of 20 he was recording as Tubby Hayes and his Orchestra for Tempo in 1955 – actually a mid-band – and just three months before his death in June 1973 he was leading his big band for a broadcast on BBC Jazz Club. He did of course record his big bands for the Fontana label, but the spaces in between those albums have been slow to fill; IAJRC and Mastermix labels are among those who attempted to fill in the blanks with short lived issues. But with the recent release of Rumpus (Savage Solweig) – interestingly with the same rhythm section of guitar, bass and drums that features on Tubby Hayes Quartet Live at the Hopbine 1968 (see What's New In Vinyl page 48) – and now Tubby Hayes and the Downbeat Big Band with two concerts from 1959 and 1960 by the Downbeat Band, his parallel career as a leader of big bands in addition to his well documented small group work is becoming a little clearer. Co-founded with baritone saxophonist Jack Sharpe in 1956, the Downbeat band was to all intents and purposes a forerunner of the Tubby Hayes Orchestra. The 1959 concert, according to annotator Stephen Spillett, may have been a tape for a BBC audition. It captures the band at a very early stage in their development. Enthusiasm makes up for cohesion while some of the arrangements are a bit bland and predictable. By the 1960 broadcast on BBC's Jazz Club, these shortcomings have largely been ironed out. The band sounds far more together, the arrangements are more inspired and the band is lifted by a masterful performance on drums by Victor Feldman, on honeymoon from the West Coast of America, where he had moved to better exploit his talent as a multi-instrumentalist. With excellent solo work from Hayes, Deuchar and Ronnie Scott plus very good contributions from Alan Branscombe and Keith Christie, plus on occasion some rousing ensemble work, this is an essential addition to the Hayes discography and an important representation of British jazz of the period, when all eyes were focussed on developments in the USA.