BRIAN RUST

That 1967 has been an excellent year for connoisseurs of classic jazz is due almost entirely to Parlophone and the Vintage Jazz Music Society. Parlophone have given us "Blue Guitars", that superb anthology of guitar duet jazz by Eddie Lang and Lonnie Johnson (mono PMC7019); all the electrically-recorded OKehs by Luis Russell and his Orchestra and Burning Eight (mono PMC7025); and more recently, all 15 of the great OKeh sides by King Oliver's Jazz Band (mono PMC7032). The last two records present the material in the order in which it was recorded, and thus earn the approval and gratitude of all of us, and there is no doubting the greatness of each performance. The Vintage Jazz Music Society get more enterprising as the years pass. Not everything they issue has the same merit, of course, but if you like early white jazz, or if you consider there is none but Negro jazz, buy mono VLPI2 by The Georgians and learn the facts. Swiftlymoving, wholly competent and thoroughly enjoyable, not to say considerably in advance of its time, their music is still great after 45 years. Less expensive is mono VEPI9, an EP with all four sides by the Dixie Jazzers Washboard Band, whose unique combination of cornet, harmonica, piano, guitar and washboard makes delightful, intimate, after-hours jazz. Then there is the Music for Pleasure mono MFPI 158 set of Bert Firman and the Rhythmic Eight reminding us that the best dance music of the late twenties wasn't all vo-do-de-o, but that it was firmly based on 'hot' jazz, and played by musicians who thoroughly understood the idiom. Here is a true bargain.