During the 58 years of his day job with the Rolling Stones Charlie Watts released eight albums with his own jazz ensembles and two with the ABCD of Boogie Woogie prior to his death in 2021: a catalogue that Variety magazine described as, “the most successful Stones solo projects”.
This officially authorised double album cherry-picks from seven of his jazz titles, all of which are firm testament to his life-long love of jazz, particularly 1940s/50s repertoire, and his ceaseless advocacy and high regard of British jazz musicians; none more so than his first venture, Charlie Watt’s Orchestra Live at Fulham Town Hall from 1986. Easily one of the most exuberant British big band recordings, it features a colossal 30-piece dream-team, from Jimmy Deuchar, to Courtney Pine and Stan Tracey, and kicks off here with the double punch of Edgar Sampson’s ‘Stompin’ At The Savoy’ and Benny Goodman and Lionel Hampton’s ‘Flying Home’. Watts’ deft touch and uncomplicated but effective swing, bolstered by John Stevens and Bill Eyden, drives the electrifying arrangements.
Slimming down to a quintet for 1991’s warm eulogy to Charlie Parker, From One Charlie, featuring Gerard Presencer and Brian Lemon alongside Peter King and Dave Green, Watt’s found his sweet spot with this gifted, empathic band heard here on two excellent King pieces and two Parkers. The same quintet’s live A Tribute To Charlie Parker with Strings offers up four tracks augmented with a string section and Bernard Fowler’s narration. Selections from his next two albums, Warm and Tender and Long Ago & Far Away, are delightful dips into the great American Song Book with enticing new arrangements, Fowler’s assured vocals and lush strings by the London Metropolitan Orchestra.
Watts took a left turn in 2000 with Charlie Watts Jim Keltner Project, where the two drummers concocted an impressionistic percussion and electronics tribute to their favourite jazz drummers, from which come ‘Roy Haynes’, ‘Elvin Jones’, and the highlight ‘Airto’, but he soon returned to what he did best. This time his quintet was extended to a formidable tentet, adding Henry Lowther, Evan Parker, Julian Argüelles, Mark Nightingale, Anthony Kerr and Luis Jardim for the 2001 live Watts at Scott’s. As compelling as the 1986 Orchestra but more agile, this was Watts’ finest hour and here includes Ellington and King selections alongside ‘Tin Tin Deo’ and a storming finale of Strayhorn’s ‘Take The A Train’.
Also included are three previously unreleased 1978 live tracks from Rocket 88, Watts’ loose boogie-woogie band. But where are tracks from Watts’s 2010 final jazz recording, the excellent Charlie Watts Meets The Danish Radio Big Band, featuring sparkling Presencer arrangements of standards and Jagger/Richards classics, including ‘Paint It Black’?
A careless omission, which, along with the lack of musician credits, would not have pleased Charlie.
