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  "... that band gets a distinctive, almost contrapuntal, ensemble sound and hits some great tempos - I like it"
Humphrey Lyttelton on playing Marching Through Georgia, track 1 of the band's latest CD 'WINDJAMMER' on 'Best of Jazz' BBC Radio 2, 22 May 2006

Coincidentally, the very same track was chosen by Campbell Burnap to play on his show on Smooth FM

 WINDJAMMER

sound samples available soon !

	TRACKS	MUSICIANS
1	Marching Through Georgia	Roger Marks (tbn/ldr)
2	The Glory Of Love	John Shillito (tpt/vocs)
3	Cabaret	Ken Rennison (alto/sop)
4	Fidgety Feet	'Eddie' Edwards (bjo)
5	Our Love Is Here To Stay	Terry Turland (bs guitar)
6	Moose March	Terry Lidiard (dms)
7	Georgia On My Mind
8	Lady of Spain (Take II)
9	Bei Mir Bist Du Schön
10	Martha
11	The Way You Look Tonight
12	Too Busy
13	What A Wonderful World

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This CD is the second volume of a companion set of two, recorded over the course of three live sessions at the band's weekly residency at the Odd Wheel, Wembury near Plymouth. Every effort has been made to present a varied selection, so that numbers from each of the sessions have been included in the compilation.

Marching Through Georgia and Moose March, for example, are there to stoke up some fervour in the way that only a march can. Incidentally, if the trombone solo in the former sounds familiar its because Acker Bilk's clarinet solo on his 1958 recording of the same is so indelibly imprinted in my sub-conscious that I couldn't help but quote from it. Sorry!

Lady of Spain is referred to as Take II because two versions were recorded, the first of which appears on Volume I ('Broadside'). I felt that this version, with its slightly different arrangement and quite different solos was equally as good and ought to be issued too. Comparison between the two versions will prove once and for all that jazzers never do it the same way twice (well, not us anyway!).

Fidgety Feet and Too Busy are what I would loosely term 'belters', up tempo and frenetic, and designed to raise the temperature to gasket blowing levels; all credit to our rhythm section for pushing them along, so that the blowers are able to really stretch out.
Conversely The Glory of Love, with its sweet melodic lyricism exudes calm and equilibrium.

And then there are the vocals! When you are lucky enough to have a singer as talented as John Shillito it would remiss not to feature him. Both he and I share a love of Louis Armstrong so we have chosen Cabaret and What a Wonderful World as his showcases. They are always popular in live performance, our versions having been arrived at incrementally on stage by trial and error, most definitely not being slavish copies of the originals.

'Eddie' Edwards is an accomplished banjo player who will happily solo on anything you throw at him yet his feature Georgia is an unlikely choice - however he revels in the slow tempo and the space that opens up for him.

Martha, with its loping cadence, is just 'one of those good old ones' and Bei Mir Bis Du Schön is a number of a different genre to the others in that it calls for block phrasing and good harmonies.

The two trombone features Our Love Is Here To Stay and The Way You Look Tonight are tunes from the so called Great American Song Book and are normally associated with piano or guitar based rhythm sections. I have often overheard musicians say 'you can't play that without a piano', or words to that effect, - I think that that is nonsense and I hope that this goes some way towards proving it.

If the foregoing sounds somewhat opinionated it is probably because it is, but at least it may help the listener to understand some of the reasons and motivations that shape the planning of a new recording.

My hope is that these small insights enrich your perceptions and that you enjoy our music all the more as a result.

Roger Marks - March 2006

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Roger Marks' Armada Jazz Band - WINDJAMMER
Odd Wheel Series, Vol 2 - Leap Frog Records - LF9678CD

All tracks recorded live at The Odd Wheel, Wembury, Plymouth courtesy of Alan and Nada Gordon ("....best landlord and landlady in the West").
Track 6 on 26th January 2006
Tracks 2, 5, 7, 8, 10, 13 on 2nd February 2006
Tracks 1, 3, 4, 9, 11, 12 on 2nd March 2006
Recording Engineer - David Baker
Mixed & produced by Roger Marks & David Baker
Cover paintings abstracted from originals by
Henry Scott FRSA by kind permission of
Tony Haynes, Haynes Fine Art of Broadway
Graphic design by Anthony Smith

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