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| Forgotten Esquire recordings - 1..........Tommy Whittle... |
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| From the 11th April, 1953 until the 6th July 1956 Tommy Whittle recorded 40+ tracks for the Esquire label. The first eleven titles were under the heading Tommy Whittle with the Tony Kinsey Trio, followed by eighteen titles as the Tommy Whittle Quintet. Eight more were recorded with an eight piece band as the Tommy Whittle Orchestra, followed by four as the Tommy Whittle - Keith Christie Quintet. These all remained in vinyl format, much sought after by collectors, until in 2012 the Acrobat label included the recordings made with the Tony Kinsey Trio in their marvellous 6 CD set titled The Tony Kinsey Collection 1953-61. Apart from two tracks included in a long out of print CD collection the rest remain availabe only in vinyl (if you can find and afford them!). Detailed discography... |
The Tommy Whittle Quintet sides include baritone sax star Harry Klein and pianist Dill Jones. These eighteen titles were masterpieces of the mid 1950s jazz era and deserve to be enjoyed by a wider audience. Of the eighteen tracks six were released on a 10" LP (Esquire 20-048), the other twelve were not released on LP... The Tommy Whittle - Keith Christie Quintet titles, with pianist Derek Smith, were originally issued on a 10" LP (Lullaby & Rhythm, Esquire 20-068) but remain in limbo... The Tommy Whittle Orchestra" is a seven piece group including trumpet player Kenny Wheeler and baritone sax man Joe Temperley. Again the playing is first rate with some lovely arrangements. |
The eight Tommy Whittle Orchestra tracks were released on a 10" LP (Spotlighting Tommy Whittle and his Orchestra, (Esquire 20-061) and again remain in limbo... So there are three 10" LPs and eighteen other tracks of superb playing by Tommy Whittle and others that have never seen the light of day in the CD era. These recordings are getting towards sixty years old now and are surely due a re-issue. It would be a marvellous tribute to Tommy, who died earlier this year (2013), if a double CD set of these tracks could be released... Some of us have transferred our own, worn LPs to CD, and while these are OK it would be marvellous to have them professionally restored to CD... |
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