Lumped a little clumsily together into a single CD here are two vinyl albums which evoked considerable national pride in the early days of British modern jazz. The first was recorded when Paul Gonsalves was in London with the Duke Ellington orchestra and fell ill on the eve of the concert. Tubby Hayes was asked to dep for him, an invitation that confirmed the Londoner’s international stature, as did Gonsalves’ subsequent offer to record with him and share top billing. As Duke’s principal tenor-sax soloist Paul was a major star, best known for his marathon solo on ‘Diminuendo and Crescendo in Blue’, a famous track recorded live with the Ellington band at the Newport Jazz Festival. His style, which bridged the swing and bop divide, might not have blended ideally with Tubby’s neobop fury yet it certainly did so, thanks to their many similarities. Both were prone to emotive leaps into the top register and frequent bursts of brilliant double-timing, albeit with their own highly distinctive sound and phrasing. Another striking aspect about these tracks is how much arranging was involved. Today’s producers would simply have given the two stars a rhythm section and let them get on with it, but in those days London’s modernists were all big-band and palais-band pros for whom new arrangements were meat and drink.

The remaining tracks were originally issued as London Swings, an arranger’s album in which Johnny Scott jazzed up a dozen songs with London affiliations, including ‘Limehouse Blues’, ‘Chelsea Bridge’, ‘A Nightingale Sang in Berkeley Square’ and surprisingly many more. It’s skilful music but rather dated now, apart from high-quality solos by an uncredited vibist (Bill LeSage?) and baritonist Ronnie Ross.

Far hotter is Dancing In The Dark, a 1964 session by the Hayes quintet. Tubbiologists will recognise it as a desirable bootleg from the Dancing Slipper, a Nottingham night club which, like the Opposite Lock in Coventry, was a regular Midlands stop on the band’s UK tour circuit. It’s Tubby in his small-group element, loping through ‘Younger Than Springtime’ on Vic Feldman’s old vibes, framing Horace Silverish frontline harmonies with trumpeter Jimmy Deuchar and taking several gripping unaccompanied tenor-sax choruses on the title track, another standard with unusual changes. The rhythm section, with big Dutch bassist Freddy Logan, the ever-funky Terry Shannon on piano and the ever cool Allan Ganley on drums, hangs tight even at warp speeds and Deuchar has never sounded better – alert, confident and tonally even meatier on his mellophonium, a sort of narrow-gauge French horn, than on trumpet.