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Billy Jenkins

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Recordings + Shop

By paying for a recording on Billy's BANDCAMP,
you will be
helping to support his work!


Albums


Retail                   
   -  DOWNLOAD ONLY
Ghost Music        -  DOWNLOAD ONLY
Death, Ritual & Resonation
    -  DOWNLOAD ONLY
The Semi-detached Suburban Home
     -  DOWNLOAD ONLY
Jazz Gives Me The Blues       
- CD + DOWNLOAD

BORN AGAIN (And The Religion Is The Blues)  - CD + DOWNLOAD
I Am A Man From Lewisham!    - CD + DOWNLOAD
Songs of Praise - Live!        - DOWNLOAD ONLY
When The Crowds Have Gone   -  DOWNLOAD ONLY
LIFE               -  CD + DOWNLOAD
sadtimes.co.uk     - CD + DOWNLOAD
S.A.D.             - DOWNLOAD ONLY
East/West      - DOWNLOAD ONLY
Suburbia       -  DOWNLOAD ONLY
Mayfest '94   -  DOWNLOAD ONLY
Still Sounds Like Bromley       -  DOWNLOAD ONLY
Entertainment USA                    -  DOWNLOAD ONLY
First Aural Art
      - CD ONLY SAMPLER
Blues Zero Two
                             - DOWNLOAD ONLY
UNCOMMERCIALITY VOL. 1    - DOWNLOAD ONLY
UNCOMMERCIALITY VOL. 2    - DOWNLOAD ONLY
UNCOMMERCIALITY VOL. 3    - DOWNLOAD ONLY
Sounds Like Bromley         - DOWNLOAD ONLY 
Greenwich                               - DOWNLOAD ONLY
True Love Collection     - DOWNLOAD ONLY
Scratches of Spain       -  DOWNLOAD ONLY  
Motorway At Night      -  DOWNLOAD ONLY
Beyond E Major           -  DOWNLOAD ONLY
Piano Sketches 1973-1984        -  DOWNLOAD ONLY


DVD 

Ain't Going Yet     - DVD 
Blues Al Fresco    - DVD


HOW TO PURCHASE RECORDINGS:

VARIOUS ALBUMS CAN BE DOWNLOAD FROM YOUR FAVOURITE ONLINE STORE, OR VIA BILLY'S OWN BANDCAMP PAGE!

bandcamp


BY BUYING FROM BILLY'S BANDCAMP
YOU WILL BE HELPING TO SUPPORT HIS WORK!
 





Retail

Retail album cover

VOTP


1.  White Van Man – from Blues Zero Two (recorded in 2002)    
2.  High Street/Part Pedestrianised  - from Still Sound Like Bromley (1997) 
3.  Terraced Fast Food – from I Am A Man from Lewisham (2010)  
4.  Fat People – from Sounds Like Bromley (1981)  
5.  Corner Shop With Security Grills – from Suburbia (1999)  
6.  Crap Swedish Settee – from The Semi-Detached Suburban Home (1994)
7.  Consumerism – from Uncommerciality Vol.3 (1991)  
8.  Peopleless Towns – from Ghost Music (2018) 

A Forty Years of Aural Art Sampler 
Recycled sounds! Eco-friendly!



In 1992, the first CD release on Billy's then fledgling label VOTP Records, was the First Aural Art Exhibition, a collection from
the cassette and vinyl recordings released between1984 and 1991.

Now, to celebrate 40 years of Aural Art, VOTP are proud to present a sampler available only on the composer's own bandcamp site.

‘Retail’ is a carefully constructed 42 minutes of recycled (thus eco-friendly) sound, featuring eight previously available recorded works ranging from 1981 to 2018.

Unsettled, worrying but life affirming times deserve an unsettling, worrying but life affirming soundtrack - enjoy some ‘Retail’ therapy!

Bandleader Jenkins, known for his work with Ginger Baker and nurturing
 new generation talent who included notably altoist Nat Facey early
in his career, is a one-off.
BJ's zany humour, that sits nicely with the routines of Stewart Lee
 these days (as it did as long ago as the 1990s), his astute ability to
 lampoon and skewer sacred cows mercilessly as well as
delivering dazzling, anarchic, bluesy and avant riffs
 into the bargain is second to none.


Stephen Graham / marlbank.net


UPDATE:


'Retail' how now been removed from Billy's
bandcamp site, so folks kindly paying for all releases don't pay twice for the same recordings.


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Ghost Music

VOTP   VOTP  VOCDD 119


Ghost Music

Music for solo piano - another exclusive download only album.

1.   Self Sleep Beds
2.   Drinkless Cups
3.   Footless Shoes
4.   Driverless Cars
5.   Peopleless Towns
6.   Self Talk Phones
7.   Self Spending Money
8.   Selfless Selfies
9.   Self Watch Television
10.  Readerless Books
11.  Self Lived Lives
12.  Humanless World


Twelve solo piano studies for background listening.

All music composed by Billy Jenkins (PRS/MCPS)

Engineered and produced by Charlie Hart at Equator Studios, London SE4 in early 2018
Edited at RMS Studios by Andy le Vien  
  
Creative consultant – Andrew Leitch

Many thanks to Harumi Leitch for the use of her lovely piano for preparatory work
Photography by Beowulf Mayfield


AVAILABLE AS A DOWNLOAD FROM YOUR FAVOURITE ONLINE STORE, OR VIA BILLY'S OWN BANDCAMP PAGE!

Follows on from the 2015 download album
Death, Ritual & Resonation, which, in effect, was the funeral of the guitarist...

That guitarist is now a ghost... and is playing a piano, the instrument he last used exclusively on ‘Piano Sketches 1973-84’, the vinyl only album released in 1984. The guitar, it appears, is missing….

‘Ghost Music’ is created as background 
music – like distant wind chimes...
But it comes towards you, the ear drawing in, becoming mid- field music...

And then, as one starts to appreciate the overtones, ambient noises and piano mechanics, it ends up as near- field music...

Music that will haunt you. For after several plays, you will start imaging you’re hearing it in the background. But it’s not playing....

And, believe it or not, cats really like it too! In fact, if you listen closely to track one, you can hear Patsy, the studio cat approaching the piano with a lovely purr...


Also, each theme has a hidden Morse code message..!


Listed at No.4 in Jez Nelson’s Somethin’ Else chart
in Jazzwise Magazine July 2018


'Jenkins is intent on making a societal statement here as well as a musical one. As an extension of this, maybe he feels that the more reflective, meditative approach he has adopted might be an appropriate antidote for a modern, obsessively self-absorbed and materialistic world in which we live.'

Roger Farbey / allaboutjazz.com


'One could muse on musical associations: Chopin’s preludes, Morton Feldman and Marty Feldman, shades of Messiaen, Mingus’ solo piano meditation, but Ghost Music is simply all Jenkins. Well, except for Patsy the cat.'


Andy Robson / jazzwise magazine


'It is difficult to imagine who might be the intended audience for this new collection of mysterious piano reveries, so different from Jenkins’ raucous
and hilarious blues and jazz adventures. Perhaps he will discover a
new following among New Art Music aficionados. Let’s hope so.'

Jane Mann /
londonjazznews.com


AVAILABLE AS A DOWNLOAD FROM YOUR FAVOURITE ONLINE STORE, OR VIA BILLY'S OWN BANDCAMP PAGE!

bandcamp

BY BUYING FROM BANDCAMP YOU WILL BE HELPING TO SUPPORT HIS WORK!











Death, Ritual & Resonation  
          

VOTP   VOTP  VOCDD 118


Death, Ritual & Resonation

Music for Low Strung Guitar - another exclusive download only album.

1. Six Pallbearers Big and Strong
2. Shocked, Stunned & Disbelief
3. Thoughts on Life & Loss
4. We Grieve For Ourselves
5. Comfort & Pride
6. Rejoice That They Lived
7. The Affirmation of Life
8. Walk On In Eternal Gratitude

Eight improvised solo studies on low strung guitar by Billy Jenkins


AVAILABLE AS A DOWNLOAD FROM YOUR FAVOURITE ONLINE STORE, OR VIA BILLY'S OWN BANDCAMP PAGE!


As with the ‘The Semi-Detached Suburban Home’ (and, indeed, many of his compositions) Jenkins turns to the universally accepted and ancient energies of chakras, using the primal vibration of sound and pitch as a template for each study.

Billy Jenkins writes:
‘Too many influential folks who are responsible for music making and planning know nothing about the power of pitch. Most are well versed in tempo and the effect of rhythm.
Yet, along with harmony, pitch is the third element of music. That’s all music is – rhythm, pitch and harmony! Yet most remain naïve to the ‘whole’.


Not surprising then, that we live in a ‘crazy, mixed up world’….!’


The order of the eight pieces follows a typical humanist funeral and although they will always be played in the same order and in the stated pitch, the player is free to connect with time and place when improvising. Thus, in the way that every single person is truly unique, so is every performance.

Although the chakra musical pitches concur with Western perceived pitch, with the guitar being tuned two tones lower than normal tuning, the technical variations of the fretting hand and fingers take the player (and the listener) into a new, ‘out of tune’ dynamic – much like the painful discombobulation one feels when one loses someone close to them…..

Give yourself 19 minutes of real music for a meditative re-affirmation of the human spirit.



'Few in jazz or blues have defined themselves so particularly....
Each song is a meditation, each breath and sigh as intimately
recorded as each stroked harmonic....

We could carp at the brevity of this special release. But as human
kind's never been cool at bearing too much reality, perhaps for now
Jenkins has given us all we deserve.'

Andy Robson / jazzwise magazine


 ‘He's the descendent of John Dowland here, still playful and borderline feral, but with an insistent coffin-tapping emphasis on last things and the failure of transcendence, which is a fair working definition of humanism. Jenkins has never been more rawly compelling or relevant.’

 

Brian Morton / The Wire


'Hypnotically addictive, demanding frequently repeated plays, its kaleidoscopic nature revealing ever-changing tonal colours and moods.
A compact slice of musical brilliance.'


Roger Farbey / allaboutjazz.com


Read the detailed and knowledgeable full review here.


'There are no displays of virtuosity: just a quiet exploration of figures and motifs, with powerful overtones of the country blues and occasional piquant undertones of the English hymnal.
The playing is beautiful throughout, in both the tone Jenkins draws from his instrument and the balance and development of his phrases.
Anyone still in mourning for the late John Fahey’s solo guitar meditations should find it particularly rewarding.'

Richard Williams / The Blue Moment

Read the full article here.



A 'BEST ALBUM OF 2015' IN R2 MAGAZINE!
+
'AN UNDERGROUND TOP TEN ALBUM OF 2015' IN MOJO!

- A MOJO MAGAZINE TOP TEN TWO YEARS ON THE TROT!!

AVAILABLE AS A DOWNLOAD FROM YOUR FAVOURITE ONLINE STORE, OR VIA BILLY'S OWN BANDCAMP PAGE!

bandcamp

BY BUYING FROM BANDCAMP YOU WILL BE HELPING TO SUPPORT HIS WORK!

 
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The Semi-detached Suburban Home

VOTP VOCDD 117

Music for Low Strung Guitar - an exclusive download only album.

1. Steps & Front Door
2. Reluctant 'How Do's'
3. Halltalk
4. Washing Hands
5. Looking In The Mirror

6. Wallpaper
7. Gaps Between The Floorboards
8. Adjusting The Aerial
9. Crap Swedish Settee
10. Ancient Antimacassar

11. Dead Flower Arrangement
12. Desk
13. Studying A Tax Return Form
14. More Paperwork
15. Batik In Bamboo Frame

16. Grease Stained Carpet
17. Brown Oak Sideboard
18. Tall Straight Back Chair
19. After Dinner Talk
20. A Toast To Absent Friends

21. The Kitchen Sink
22. The Plastic Bags Under The Stairs
23. Traditional Kitchen Scales
24. Tidying Up
25. I Lock The Back Door

26. Climbing The Stair
27. Pee Stained Rim
28. Brown Stained Towel
29. The Stinking Sheet
30. Bedtime

Billy Jenkins - solo low strung acoustic guitar.

AVAILABLE AS A DOWNLOAD FROM YOUR FAVOURITE ONLINE STORE, OR VIA BILLY'S OWN BANDCAMP PAGE!
 

"Billy Jenkins 'new' album The Semi-Detached Suburban Home (Music for Low Strung Guitar) may date from sessions in the 90's but you need to 
hear it now. It’s my album of the year already and I'm confident that its still going to be at the summit when midnight strikes on 31 Dec.

 It’s a Semi-Detached Suburban Home recording which takes you round the house of Life itself, or at least as close to Catford as you can be on this 
plane of reality. The music is sublime, a series of miniatures (i.e. always captivatingly brief) which veer  from the reflective to the disturbing , the solo low strung guitar is a genius re-invention/adaptation of the guitar...indeed right across this divine work the familiar becomes unfamiliar."

(Max Reinhardt, presenter of ‘Late Junction’ BBC R3 March 2014)

Spank the SoundCloud to hear extracts: 

• Music expressly designed for listening using the medium of the digital download!

• A solo guitar recording made available for concentrated listening as a near field headphone experience!

• As a digital signal is based on the simple binary formation: 1 or 0, so the solo performance – music at its simplest – can be expressed through the digital medium whereas ensemble played music loses out!

• Includes the finest quality digital silence between each track!

'These are suburban hymns of despair for Bromley pilgrims.
This could turn out to be Jenkins's best loved album....'
     
Clive Bell
/ Wire Magazine

'What seems set to be my album of the year.'
Max Reinhardt
/ ‘Late Junction’ BBC R3

'Raise a glass to a masterpiece in miniature!'
Andy Robson / jazzwise magazine

'AN UNDERGROUND TOP TEN ALBUM OF 2014' IN MOJO!


AVAILABLE AS A DOWNLOAD FROM YOUR FAVOURITE ONLINE STORE, OR VIA BILLY'S OWN BANDCAMP PAGE!

bandcamp

BY BUYING FROM BANDCAMP YOU WILL BE HELPING TO SUPPORT HIS WORK!

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Jazz Gives Me The Blues

VOTP VOCD 116

A Billy Jenkins Calling Card Collection CD 
in digifile free standing card wallet
 

1.  Jazz Give Me The Blues
2.  I’m Just A Lucky So And So
3.  Black Coffee
4.  Do Nothing Till You Hear From Me
5.  God Bless The Child
6.  Travellin’ All Alone
7.  For All We Know
8.  I Ain’t Got Nothing But The Blues

AVAILABLE AS A DOWNLOAD FROM BILLY'S OWN BANDCAMP PAGE.


Billy Jenkins – electric guitar, voice, harmonica

Finn Peters -  alto saxophone & flute
Jim Watson – NORD organ
Mike Pickering – drum kit

PRODUCED BY CHARLIE HART IN ONE TAKE REAL TIME
 

'A 'Best Release Of The Year 2011' - allaboutjazz.com
 

July 5 2011. Billy Jenkins turned 55. 

What could be more appropriate than a retro 'Fifties late night jazz album. Taking tunes from, amongst others, the Duke Ellington, Billie Holiday & Nat King Cole songbooks - it's a celebration of that thing called jazz - another cliché in the land we call jazz. NO! STOP! We don't want no more of that groovy dinner jazzy lounge piano soft-focus wide screen smooth talking tasteful jazz thang. Man, jazz gives me the blues! Jazz is the blues. Blues is the new jazz......

Whatever, here we have a Billy Jenkins album of standards (OK, so that's like a Lady Gaga guide to comfy cardigans but there we go). Just to contextualise, the album kicks off with a homage to the ultimate in 50s hipness - the Hammond organ trio - yes, in the Jimmy Smith corner Mr Jimmy Watson (not playing Hammond) and in the Grant Green corner the heavy weight guitar string champion of the world, let's hear it for Mr B Jenkins Esq.! Mike Pickering's in the drum seat (he makes up the last third of the Trio Blues Suburbia) and guest soloist and Jenkins novice, lauded and award winning altoist and flautist Finn Peters rocks in with a bluesy chorus or two and some kissing noises.

Billy takes these old jazz standards and does unmentionable things to them, lyrically and musically metamorphosing them into something new and strange - reinterpreting the hackneyed old images, injecting anger where anger never was, blueing the jazz. The guitar, that guitar, still strikes like lightning, illuminating as it incinerates, but the emphasis here is on mood - a fifties late night mood for a fifty-somethin' guitarist. 
 

    'Billy can’t sing and it really shows in the studio. Strip out the vocals and this is a rather groovy soul jazz accompaniment to your chicken in a basket.'

                                                             Gary Booth / Jazz Journal
 

     'An intensely, joyously visceral, up-against-the-wall album, and one of Jenkins' recent best'. 
                                                           Chris May / allaboutjazz.com
 

    'Memorably assisted by a crack band, Jenkins taps into the blues spirit of the likes of Jimmy Smith, Fats Waller collaborator J. C. Johnson (via his Ethel Waters/Billie Holiday song 'Travellin' All Alone') and the man of whose music Jenkins 'just can't get enough',  Duke Ellington, to produce an album packed not only with the Bromley bluesman's trademark scrabbling, eloquent guitar playing, but also with all the punch, power and emotional urgency that have led Claire Martin to comment: 'He mixes elements of the blues with the spirit of punk rock all beautifully gift wrapped with the joy of jazz'.

                                          Chris Parker / londonjazz.blogspot.com
 

        '....he is abetted by his Trio Blues Suburbia, the superb Jim Watson on organ, saxophonist Finn Peters and drummer Mike Pickering, who create the kind of subdued groove that some other musicians strive for and never quite achieve. My favourite track is "I'm Just a Lucky So-And-So", with Mr Jenkins essaying a vocal-guitar unison which comes out sounding like George Benson on acid'.
                                                               Dave Gelly / The Observer

      '...A standards set, give or take a few rude noises, crunching disonances and nightmare wailings, is what this is. Jenkins enlists Jim Watson's organ-grooving and cutting edge saxist Finn Peters' ingenuity for his personally demented take on low-lights smooth jazz.'
                                                         John FordhamThe Guardian 
 

  '.....he teeters between pastiche and homage (pamage?) but it’s an absorbing tightrope act.'
                                                                John Bungey / The Times 
 

AVAILABLE AS A DOWNLOAD FROM  BILLY'S OWN BANDCAMP PAGE!

bandcamp



BY BUYING FROM BILLY'S BANDCAMP, YOU WILL BE HELPING TO SUPPORT HIS WORK!

 

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BORN AGAIN (And The Religion Is The Blues)

VOTP   VOCD 111

A Billy Jenkins Calling Card Collection CD 
in digifile free standing card wallet

1.  Born Again  (and the religion is the blues) 
2.  Ain’t Getting Married In the Morning 
3.  I Felt So Guilty 
4.  I Don’t Want Another Night Like That 
5.  I Hate Dogs 
6.  Looking For Mr Happy 
7.  When The Parents Come To Stay 
8.  Chained 
9.  I Took A Walk

AVAILABLE AS A DOWNLOAD FROM  BILLY'S OWN BANDCAMP PAGE.

Trio Blues Suburbia:

Billy Jenkins     -  electric guitar & vocals
Jim Watson      -  Korg BX3 organ
Mike Pickering  - drumkit

with

Carol Grimes, Dorie Jackson, Louise Marshall – backing vocals

special guests including Dylan Bates (violin), Richard Bolton (electric guitar), Thad Kelly (electric bass), Roy Dodds (sidecar drumkit), Dave Ramm (cruiseship organ) , Perry White (piano) & Sam Pickering 
(ukulele & voice).

and the secular gospel VOGC Junior League Choir:

Chris Batchelor, Ella Batchelor, Georgia Batchelor, Dylan Bates, Richard Bolton, Gary J. Brady, Roy Dodds, Thaddeus Kelly, Tony Messenger, Kit Packham, Mike Pickering,  Carol Tighe, Gerry Tighe, Katy Tighe, Sophie Tighe & Joe Wilkes.
 

Modern morality suburban blues tales written over the last decade and served up by Billy's Trio Blues Suburbia with the usual collection of wide ranging and 'must be listened to' guests. 

Award winning organist Jim Watson provides the unique sound canvas upon which Jenkins lets rip with some terrifying one take blues guitar - captured in all its sweat, blood and torn sinew by recording engineer and producer Charlie Hart.
 

Chris Parker, writing for vortexjazz.co.uk offers this pre-release review:

   'Billy Jenkins's ability to produce compelling, utterly convincing but uncompromisingly English blues is unrivalled, and this album contains some of his finest work in the genre. 

   'The form is addressed in all its varieties, from the rollickingly gritty and gospelly (the opening, title track), through the defiant shuffle ('Ain't Getting Married in the Morning') and achingly slow confessional blues ('I Felt So Guilty'), to the slide-guitar-led 'I Hate Dogs' (Amen!) and the cri de coeur that is 'When the Parents Come to Stay', an unflinching reaction to the problems arising from a combination of the generation gap and the effects of senile dementia (bathtime staples: 'Steradent, Anusol, TCP, Warfarin'). 

   'Perhaps its standout track, however, is ironically the least bluesy: the haunting closer 'I Took a Walk', which is Jenkins's 'Not Dark Yet', a typically dispassionate, unsentimental, yet touching meditation on the suicidal impulse.

   'Jenkins's own highly distinctive scrabbling, blistering guitar is heavily featured throughout, and his core blues trio (completed by drummer Mike Pickering and organist Jim Watson) performs impeccably whatever the tempo and mood; with guest appearances from violinist Dylan Bates, guitarist Richard Bolton, bassist Thad Kelly et al., this is another Jenkins triumph, to be launched (at a Purcell Room concert also featuring the BBC Big Band) as part of the London Jazz Festival on Sunday, 21 November 2010.'

                                                  Chris Parker / vortex.co.uk
 

    'Jenkins is one of the most original songwriters on today’s British blues scene. He guitar work is unique, exhilarating and manic as ever and Watson gets the chance to stretch out in a manner that may not go down too well on his other gig with Katie Melua. Jenkins’ music may be an acquired taste but one certainly worth acquiring'.

                                                             Jon Taylor / Blues in Britain
 

    'With the reissues of his 1980s Uncommerciality recordings, this south London blues guitarist and chronicler of Lewisham's mean streets reminded audiences how much substance as well as suburban-nightmare comedy there is in his work. If you aren't consoled by Billy Jenkins's lyrics about maddening dogs and parents, then Born Again – a favourite melange of chugging boogie, staggering guitar solos (in both senses), cameos for family members, and backing choirs of handy mates, relatives and stars (Carol Grimes in this case) – is unlikely to convert you. 

    'But Jenkins regulars will love these blues rants about lousy nights out ("I don't want/ another night like that/ the drinks were too expensive/ and the food was crap") or suicide in the local duck pond ("And there I'll be if I go missin'/ you will find me when you're fishin"), as well as some fierce Hammond-organ bursts from Jim Watson, and plenty of shrapnel-scattering guitar solos from The Man from Lewisham himself.'
                                  John Fordham / The Guardian
 

    ‘Tremendously exciting, sometimes unashamedly bracing, Jenkins takes old clichés and refashions them with wild wit and considerable charisma. He celebrates the poetry of the everyday in a language that completely lacks pretence or affectation.

    ‘Musically, Born Again is a ferocious, energised tour through what is in Jenkins' hands the varied terrain of the blues. For those who prefer the blues to be delivered in blistering, abrasive, confident and idiosyncratic form, Jenkins proves that the form can still be more inspiration than limitation’.
                                                   Daniel Paton / musicOMH.com
 

AVAILABLE AS A DOWNLOAD FROM  BILLY'S OWN BANDCAMP PAGE!

bandcamp


BY BUYING FROM BILLY'S BANDCAMP, YOU WILL BE HELPING TO SUPPORT HIS WORK!
!

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I AM A MAN FROM LEWISHAM

VOTP     VOCD 105

A Billy Jenkins Calling Card Collection CD 
in digifile free standing card wallet

1. I Am A Man From Lewisham
2. On (Catford) Broadway
3. Francis Drake Bowls Club
4. Deptford Market
5. Church of the Ford Transit Mini Bus
6. Terraced Fast Food
7. Clock Tower of Power
8. Throw Them Blues In The Recycling Bin

AVAILABLE AS A DOWNLOAD FROM BILLY'S OWN BANDCAMP PAGE.
CD's AVAILABLE (UK ONLY) FROM MADE IN BROCKLEY
.

Billy Jenkins – guitar, vocals, harmonica
Nathaniel Facey – alto Saxophone
Dylan Bates – violin & pocket cornet
Gail Brand – trombone
Oren Marshall – tuba
Charles Hayward – drum kit, percussion, melodica

with

Carol Grimes – backing vocals
Ayanna Witter-Johnson – backing vocals
Merlin Hayward – backing vocals
Dave Ramm – organ
Jim Howard – trumpet
Charlie Hart – violin

and the VOGC Junior League Choir:

     Nathaniel Facey, Carol Grimes, Lesley Hayward, Merlin Hayward, Caitlin Howard, Ella Howard, Jim Howard, Phoebe Howard, David Marshall, Oren Marshall, Ralina Marshall, Rachel Marshall, Angela Menezes, Joe Wilkes, Ayanna Witter-Johnson.
 

Coming in like a kind of ‘evangelist group therapy’ this is cross-genre experimentalism from a crack team of musicians. The band, held together by Billy’s rabid guitar work, features iconoclastic drummer Charles Hayward originally known for his work with This Heat and Oren Marshall on tuba who can effortlessly cross from free form to nailing a tight bass line. Innovative improviser Gail Brand on trombone, Blues Collective member Dylan Bates on violin and pocket cornet, and Empirical band member Nathaniel Facey on alto saxophone (who met Billy when he was taught by him at the Royal Academy of Music) complete the line up. Spontaneously directed by Billy, the ensemble rides and falls on his ability to pick up on subtle inflections from his players and to capitalise on their instant creativity.
 

     "They don't make records like this any more. Stuff a load of musicians in a recording room, switch the red light on and hear them resonate off one another, as they scrape sounds out of the air. We need the sound of people, not machines. Machines break down, as do people, but when musicians are a' buzzing it's the stuff of life! And we all need more of it!” 
                                                                                                    - Billy Jenkins 2010
 

    'The south Londoner's eruptions of punk-improv guitar-playing, knack of assembling gloriously incompatible ingredients, and his underlying ire about the urban downside always cut through. I Am a Man from Lewisham is the surreal, chaotic and disarmingly charming result.' 

                           John Fordham / The Guardian
 

      'One of the great unclassifiable forces in the British underground. His ever-fascinating career takes a joyful turn on an album of pubsy knees-ups, blues growling and deliriously rude brass. He also conducts 
humanist funerals. Versatile!' 
                                                         Gavin Martin / The Daily Mirror

       'If there were any second takes along the way, it doesn't show. This is honest, rough edged music of immense vitality and charm. In a post-millennial world tilted towards the bland and the consumerist, Billy Jenkins is worth his weight in gold. Anyone yet to encounter him is in for a treat when they do so.'

                                    Chris May / www.allaboutjazz.com

     'Jenkins teases with his mastery of blues, ragtime, ironic rock soloing and Carpathian folk, and astounds, as he invites these various forms to mate.'
                         Stewart Lee / The Sunday Times

     ' The punk-ish outbursts and spontaneous invention are balanced by infuriatingly catchy tunes and some tight ensemble work, and it's all grand, inventive fun.'
                                                     Kenny  Mathieson / The Scotsman
 

    'If you're a musician and you want to learn the art of thinking and playing differently, this album would be a great place to start. Don't be put off by the naff artwork.'
                                                                       Robert Shore / METRO


AVAILABLE AS A DOWNLOAD FROM  BILLY'S OWN BANDCAMP PAGE!

bandcamp

BY BUYING FROM BILLY'S BANDCAMP, YOU WILL BE HELPING TO SUPPORT HIS WORK!


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SONGS OF PRAISE Live!

Babel BDV 2768
 

1. Brilliant 
2. Donkey Droppings 
3. Blues Is Calling Me 
4. First Time The Earth Shook 
5. Dancing In Ornette Coleman’s Head 
6. Bhopal 
7. Sunny 
8. Blues Stay Away From Me 

Currently unavailable on CD

Billy Jenkins - guitar, shouting and singing 
Nathaniel Facey - alto saxophone 
Dylan Bates - violin 
Gail Brand – trombone
Oren Marshall - tuba 
Charles Hayward – drums
 

Recorded very live and dangerous off the desk in October 2006. A 'forward thinking retrospective collection'. Jazz funk, free form danger, corny pop tunes and serious political work all wrapped up with a blanket of blues....

4**** review in The Times
4**** review in Sunday Times
4**** review in Evening Standard
4**** review in Jazzwise
5**** review in Time Out
 

       'Blues has always been a wonderfully cathartic music that's captured here with the band and audience sharing a kind of baptismal group therapy. Jenkins is completely non-religious but the life affirming verve that one and all display is nothing short of a devotional Sunday session in the local parish church.'
                            Mike Flynn / Jazzwise
 

     'This live set by the guitarist, comedian and bowls enthusiast is one of the finest of his long career. The wayward world of Jenkins has never sounded more enticing.'
                       John Bungey / The Times 
 

     'Featuring one of the Bromley bluesman's most inspired bands, this album preserves what sounds to have been a great gig, at Leeds's Wardrobe, for posterity. Like much of Jenkins's work, Songs of Praise is deadly serious at heart.'
                                         Chris Parker / Vortex Jazz CD Reviews


Currently unavailable on CD

Download purchase from the Babel Label

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WHEN THE CROWDS HAVE GONE

Babel           BDV 2450


 

1.    In My Bones 
2.    I Like Rain 
3.    Get The Poison Out 
4.    If I Where A Lollipop Man 
5.    The Tide Is Out 
6.    Blues Is Calling Me 
7.    When Money's Really Tight 
8.    Come Round And See Me 
9.    Sitting On The Dock Of Ebay 
10.  Trouble In Mind 
11.  Everything's Too Fast 
12.  This Room 
13.  Cry Your Eyes Till They're Red 
 

Currently unavailable on CD

AVAILABLE AS A DOWNLOAD VIA BILLY'S OWN BANDCAMP PAGE!
 

A veritable blubfest from a bandleader without any bookings for his wonderful musicians. Armed with a handmade Lucas Parlour acoustic guitar, blues harp and rack, Billy sings how he feels. One minute washed up, the next one drowning. Isolation offset with the intensity of commercial intrusion. The stark reality of possibly seeking a non musical subsistence. 

Joined by Steve Watts (double bass) and violinist Dylan Bates on three tracks, this is perhaps Billy’s most intense release, recorded during the hot summer of 2003 with the complexity of new UK public performance laws hanging heavy in the air. The present is bleak for the practising musician. The future is even more uncertain.

But ultimately, the warm vibrations of steel string and bitter sweet vocal chord, captured with fine sensitivity and spontaneity by producer Pete Bennett leave the listener bathed in optimism and survival.

All lyrics are reproduced in the CD booklet.

Blues CD of the Week in the Birmingham Post.

Jazz CD of the Week in The Observer.

    'Billy Jenkins' latest release finds him channeling personal angst into 
self-penned songs that let warmth temper pain. His own 'Blood On The Carpet Tiles' perhaps ?‘ Pete Sargeant / Blues Matters!
 

   ‘His darkest record yet. The odd moment of humour and the inimitable guitar playing (notably Sitting on the Dock of eBay) leaven the message'.                             John Bungey / The Times
 

   'The guitar lines are so tightly wound they may unravel in a premature heap. A perverse pleasure, but a pleasure nonetheless.'
                                                                  Mike Butler / City Life

Currently unavailable on CD

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LIFE

VOTP      VOCD 023

LIFE

1.   I Wanna Be Connected
2.   First Day In Hell
3.   My Waters Run Clear
4.   There Is No Lord Up There
5.   Blues Stay Away From Me
6.   I Ain't Going Yet
7.   Bye Bye Blues

AVAILABLE AS A DOWNLOAD FROM BILLY'S OWN BANDCAMP PAGE.

LIFE. A tricky subject. BJ addresses this one by tweaking the Blues Collective A-team and adding shades of VOGC format madness. The result is five new pieces of music and two golden oldies from the 1930s and the '50s - unleashed in a soundwall of Secular Gospel, performed by an eight piece band and the 16 strong VOGC Junior league Choir. 

Such was the complexity of addressing such a wide subject matter, Billy utilised no less than ELEVEN(!) consultants, even including an unconscious one! 
Musician and recording engineer Jon Franchi was in a coma from a terrible bike accident when sent mixes for his approval. The ruse was simple. If John came round, the mixes were fine. If he remained comatose - re-mix until lucid. 
We are very happy to announce that: 
a) Jon has pretty much made a full recovery, and,
b) 'LIFE' is definitely a life-enhancing record! 

    'Only one in 20,000 English bluesmen inhabits a recognisable reality. 
Step forward Billy Jenkins, anarcho guitarmeister and arch-demythologiser. Pure genius.'  Mike Butler / City Life

    ' 'Life' is essential listening from a man well on his way to establishing himself as a national treasure.' Chris Parker / Jazz Review

   'You probably need to see one of Jenkins’s gently deranged shows to appreciate the joke fully but this is the Blues Collective’s best album yet.'    John Bungey / The Times

AVAILABLE AS A DOWNLOAD FROM  BILLY'S OWN BANDCAMP PAGE!

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sadtimes.co.uk

VOTP      VOCD 002

sadtimes.co.uk

1.  Badlands 
2.  Cliff Richard Spoke To Me 
3.  Resting On My Bed Of Blues 
4.  sadtimes.co.uk 
5.  I'm Happy
6.  The Duke and Me 
7.  I Love Your Smell 
8.  Like John Lee Said 
 

AVAILABLE AS A DOWNLOAD FROM BILLY'S OWN BANDCAMP PAGE.


Blues Collective touring band raise the studio roof! Electric electric violinist Dylan Bates, electric electric guitarist Richard Bolton, electric electric bass guitarist Thaddeus Kelly and the acoustic Mike Pickering on drums, join BJ and friends for what is already becoming a classic release. 'I Love Your Smell', 'Cliff Richard Spoke To Me', 'Badlands' - every Jenkins-penned tune destined to become a blues standard.

 

    ''His phrases smash through the iron bars laid down by Thad Kelly (bass) and Mike Pickering (drums) - eeerrrgh! - with a gestural panache that has NEVER heretofore been achieved by British electric guitarists.' 
                                                                   Ben Watson / The Wire

   'Very bluesy, very guitary and also great fun. As for the band, they are in perfect harmony all the way.'
                                     Laurie Stead / Huddersfield Daily Examiner

AVAILABLE AS A DOWNLOAD FROM  BILLY'S OWN BANDCAMP PAGE!

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S.A.D.

Babel        BDV 9615

S.A.D.

1.   Ain't Gonna Play No Jazz No More
2.   Don't You Turn Your Back
3.   Pissed Off Boy
4.   Every Night You Turn Away
5.   Where Did I Stay Last Night?
6.   I'm On An Island
7.   Where Are You?
8.   I'm Stuck On You
9.   Walking Back To Crappiness
10. Jazz Had A Baby (and they called it avant garde)
11. Give Me The Money Quick
12. Goodbye Blues

Currently unavailable on CD

AVAILABLE AS A DOWNLOAD VIA BILLY'S OWN BANDCAMP PAGE!

The first Blues Collective recording. BJ takes all the solos, Thad Kelly and Mike Pickering hold down the groove, whilst organist Dave Ramm and harp player Whispering Gerry Tighe gently caress the melancholia. The Fun Horns of Berlin are just some of the guests. Contains the classics 'Pissed Off Boy', 'Jazz Had A Baby (And They Called It Avant Garde)' and many others. In fact - twelve tunes. One for each bar of the blues.....

    ''Anyone who loves the blues well played will enjoy this music, since Jenkins consistently produces the goods with a series of blistering guitar solos set against a tight, vigorous band. S.A.D. should be required listening for all aspiring (and many practising) blues musicians.' 
                                                                 Chris Parker / The Times

   'The album's a winner for style and quirky British originality.' 
                                                                      Mel Wright / Blueprint

Currently unavailable on CD

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East/West

Babel        BDV 9601

East/West

1.   (Not) Close To You
2.   And The Wall Came Down
3.   Wanderin' Star
4.   Trabants Into The Sunset
5.   We All Wear Socks
6.   Club Re-unification
7.   We All Eat Food
8.   Hopes
9.   Fears
10. What A Wonderful World
11. The Unquestioned Answer
12. Commercialism Is A Cancer

Currently unavailable on CD

The Fun Horns of Berlin come from the old East . The Voice of God Collective from the West. Jenkins 're-unificates' an eleven piece band that includes Huw Warren and Dave Ramm on keyboards & Roy Dodds and Steve Noble on drumkits. 'Close To You' (yes, The Carpenters!), 'Wanderin' Star' and 'What A Wonderful World' jostle with mega ensemble scoring. It all ends in tears.....

  'Deliciously understated, so that when the temperature rises during the improvised parts, you feel the heat instantly. Irresistible.'
                                                          Chris Blackford / Rubberneck

    'Even better than his live performances.'
                                                   Steve Henwood / Venue Magazine

Currently unavailable on CD

Download purchase from the Babel Label

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Suburbia

Babel       BDV 9926

Suburbia

'Suburbia - how I love you, how I love you,
Suburbia - there's no stars above you.
Suburbia - dormitory from life,
Suburbia - margarine for the knife,
Suburbia, Suburbia - a place to come from......'
 

1.   Pointless Adornments
2.   Hello, I'm Your Next Door Neighbour
3.   The Perfect Lawn
4.   The Unknown Car Across Your Drive
5.   Corner Shop With Security Grill
6.   Coke Cans In Your Garden
7.   Silence Stalks The Sleeping Streets
8.   Suburbia (A Place To Come From)

Currently unavailable on CD

AVAILABLE AS A DOWNLOAD VIA BILLY'S OWN BANDCAMP PAGE!

BJ directs saxophonist Mark Lockheart, Dave Ramm, Martin France, Roy Dodds, Steve Watts, The Fun Horns Of Berlin, a string quartet, screaming kids, a theremin, lawn mowers, a washing machine and the kitchen sink.......

   'Lounge muzak, avant garde minimalism, cheery music hall, 60's cellar-groove, unclean blues and Faustian-pact heavy metal are amongst the delightful elements compressed into Billy's kinetic kick-ass tumbleweed.'       Martin Longley / Birmingham Post

  'A conceptual masterpiece... a concept album about Bromley as a home of the blues, with all its attendant irritations and virtues alike. The music is vintage Jenkins, bits and pieces from all over the place, fused by great playing and sheer determination. American readers will be baffled by him; but he is, along with the Princess Royal and Walthamstow dog stadium, one of our national treasures.' 
                                Penguin Guide To Jazz On CD (5th Ed)

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Mayfest '94

Babel       BDV 9502

Mayfest'94

1.   Arrival Of The Tourists
2.   Fat People/Clowning Glory
3.   Heavy Metal/Eurostern
4.   Cuttlefish
5.   Greenwich One Way System
6.   Bilbao (St. Columbus Day)/ 4.Saxophonie Nr.3 - The 
      Mayfest Variations

Currently unavailable on CD

Live and very dangerous. The Fun Horns of Berlin had not played with BJ, Huw Warren, Steve Watts and Martin France for half a year when they stepped onto the stage of the Old Renfrew Ferry on Glasgow's River Clyde. Jenkins might not consider himself a jazzman - but if pushed would agree this is how jazz should be made.

A 'Jazz CD Of The Year' in The Scotsman 1995

   'An astonishing display. Sounds like it was conducted by Carl Stalling.'                    Stewart Lee / The Sunday Times

   'Alternating imaginative and idiosyncratic ensemble arrangements with dazzling soloing, incredible passages of free playing, and large dollops of humour.'           Kenny Mathieson / The Scotsman

Currently unavailable on CD

Download purchase from the Babel Label

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Still Sounds Like Bromley

Babel        BDV 9717

Still Sounds Like..

1.   High Street/Part Pedestrianised
2.   Old Men In Flairs
3.   They Built A Ring Road In My Garden
4.   Barry Mitchell/Wing Music
5.   Suburban Socialising/Saturday Night
6.   Dressing Up For Church
7.   The Rust On The Screws Of The Churchill Theatre
8.   We Don't Like There (Anymore)

Currently unavailable on CD

AVAILABLE AS A DOWNLOAD VIA BILLY'S OWN BANDCAMP PAGE!

'Sounds Like Bromley' (Plymouth Sounds LBB1) was released on vinyl in 1982. This is the update, a decade later. Heavier, more crowded, more metal, concrete and commerce. David Vine's steel pans, Django Bates' and acid king James Taylor's keyboards form the aural backdrop for saxophonist Iain Ballamy, trombonist Roland Bates, bass guitarist Mark Mondesir and drummer Martin France. Stylistically set in the early Seventies, it is a companion CD to the 'True Love Collection' (Babel BDV 9821).

A 'Top Twenty Jazz CD Of The Year' for the Virgin Megastore 1997

   'A zany but curiously touching portrait of the Jenkins home town as it is now.'                                               Dave Gelly / The Observer

  'This is classic Jenkins material. Billy's music may sound off-centre at times (well, all the time really) but when listening with a smile you can fully appreciate his reasoning and enjoy his musical view of life.' 
                                                    David Lands / Jazz Journal

Currently unavailable on CD

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Entertainment USA

Babel        BDV 9401

USA
 

1.   Ronald Reagan
2.   Ray Charles
3.   Johnny Cash
4.   Doris Day
5.   Don King
6.   Oliver North/Twisted
7.   Charles Manson
8.   Elvis Presley

Currently unavailable on CD

AVAILABLE AS A DOWNLOAD VIA BILLY'S OWN BANDCAMP PAGE!

Back porch ruminations on a far away country as perceived from media and second-hand information alone. Especially written for alto saxophonist Martin Speake, who shares the soloing with BJ playing a Squire Stratocaster with whammy bar. Ex-President Ronald Reagan sings the opening track. Honestly.

   'Only reveals its treasures on repeated listening; Jenkins has a finely judged sense of form, so when he twists country and radio swing the results are morbidly fascinating.' Ben Watson / Hi-Fi News

   'Some inspired alto saxophone work by Martin Speake (fortunately Bill Clinton wasn't available). Essential listening at the White House.'
                                                      John Lewis / Time Out

Currently unavailable on CD

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First Aural Art Exhibition

VOTP      VOCD 921

Aural Art

1.   Brilliant
2.   Expensive Equipment
3.   Fat People
4.   The Blues
5.   Sade's Lips
6.   Johnny Cash
7.   Discoboats At Two O'Clock
8.   Cooking Oil
9.   Donkey Droppings
10. Elvis Presley

Currently unavailable on CD 

Confused? First time buyer? Start Here! Favourites culled from the cassette and vinyl collection 1984-91 by eighteen Jenkins aficionados. Many of the regular Collective musicians are featured, inc. saxophonists Mark Ramsden, Mark Lockheart, Iain Ballamy, Martin Speake; trombonists Ashley Slater and Dave Jago, and drummers Roy Dodds, Dawson Miller and Martin France. 

A 'Top Ten CD Of The Year' in GQ Magazine 1992.

    'Billy Jenkins's music sounds better the more you listen to it. His garrulous, assiduously planned arrangements are an inspiring assault on snobbery and mystification. His musicians (and he has managed to collect some of the best) have no choice but to play more attentively, more spikely - better.'  Ben Watson / The Wire

   'Jenkins channels his wayward anarchy with deceptive ease whilst saxophonist Ian Ballamy is captured at close to his best. Magnificent.' 
                                  Neville Hadsley / Birmingham Post

Currently unavailable on CD

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BLUES ZERO TWO

VOTP     VOCD 024

1.   Blues Zero Two
2.   This Is A Day To Forget
3.   I Wanna Stay Here
4.   Don't Eat That Cake
5.   White Van Man
6.   Down In The Deep Freeze
7.   A Virus Called The Blues
8.   I'm Staying In The Car
9.   I Want My Tea
 
AVAILABLE AS A DOWNLOAD VIA BILLY'S OWN BANDCAMP PAGE!

The 2002 CD 'BLUES ZERO TWO' is hardcore Blues Collective.
Trains, consumerism, food fads, work ethics and the socio-industrial infrastructure all come under the microscope - and this time we can guarantee there are no screaming kids, cruise ship organs, or 'kitchen sink' rattling. 
Produced by Jon Wilkinson at Steam Room Studios in London's East End - BJ, Dylan Bates, Richard Bolton, Thad Kelly & Mike Pickering  have been captured in all their raw magnificence, as they serve up another wry aural cartoon collection of society's foibles. 
All pieces are BJ penned except Charles Brown's  'A Virus Called The Blues'. 

A 'Pick Of The Year' in Blues In Britain magazine 2002

   'The fantastic Blues Collective drive him along to new heights. His lyrics, as ever, are full of wit, profundity and crap jokes. This man should be knighted. Now.' Martin Longley / Sheffield Telegraph

    'If you're a Jenkins fan, this update on his Blues Collective is right in the pocket. The guitar-playing is often manically breathtaking, and tracks such as I Wanna Stay Here touch the heart as well as the head and the funny bone.' John Fordham / The Guardian

     'The present Blues Collective line-up kicks ass with Thad Kelly's pulsating, mesmeric bass grooves and Mike Pickering's precision drumming providing the perfect backdrop for some vintage Jenkins guitar work (and not a pedal board in sight).     Peter Quinn /Jazzwise

    'Throughout, Jenkins' angry guitar playing is powerfully effective and the contributions from Dylan Bates (violin), Richard Bolton (guitar), Thaddeus Kelly (bass) and Mike Pickering (drums) - all outstanding musicians - are masterful. Trevor Hodgett / Blues In Britain
 

AVAILABLE AS A DOWNLOAD FROM BILLY'S OWN BANDCAMP PAGE!

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UNCOMMERCIALITY VOL. 1

VOTP VOCAD 108 


 

1.  Brilliant
2.  Pharoah Sanders
3.  Margaret's Menstural Problem
4.  Sade's Lips
5.  Spastics Dancing
6.  Bhopal
 

     'All in all it is not only Jenkins's finest hour, but a landmark in contemporary UK jazz.' ****'          John Fordham / The Guardian

   'Three sprawling, inspired sets - a  landmark in warped jazz pleasure.'
                                          John Bungey / The Times

Billy Jenkins - electric guitar; Iain Ballamy - alto + tenor sax; Dai Pritchard - alto, baritone sax; bass clarinet; Tim Matthewman - electric bass; Dawson Miller – percussion; Roy Dodds – drumkit. 

Plus: additional voice on track 1 - James Matthewman. 

Recorded Jan/Feb 1986 at Waterfront Studios, Rotherhithe, London SE16. 
Produced by Tony Messenger.
 

A milk chocolate music selection with easy listening centres......

    ‘An impressive example of a man in absolute command of his materials. Vibrant in a way that often recalls the spirit of the late Charles Mingus, Uncommerciality is an accomplished and sometimes provocative piece of work’. 
                                                             Richard Williams / The Times

  'South London free-jazz catalyst Jenkins issued this large-scale set of musical collisions – with UK jazz giants including Django Bates, Iain Ballamy, Mark Lockheart, Martin France and many others – on vinyl and cassette in 1991. For all its outward lawlessness, however, this is some of Jenkins's most subtly conceived and orderly music'. 
                                 John Fordham / The Guardian

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UNCOMMERCIALITY VOL. 2

VOTP VOCAD 109


 

1.   Commerciality
2.   Isn't It a Great World We Live In
3.   Girl Getting Knocked Over
4.   Black Magic
5.   I Will Always Love You
6.   Blue Broadway
 

     'All in all it is not only Jenkins's finest hour, but a landmark in contemporary UK jazz.' ****'          John Fordham / The Guardian
 

   'Three sprawling, inspired sets - a  landmark in warped jazz pleasure.'
                                       John Bungey / The Times

Billy Jenkins - electric guitar, piano, voice; Iain Ballamy - Soprano, alto + tenor sax; Dai Pritchard - Trumpet, alto, baritone sax, clarinet; Ashley Slater - tuba, bass trombone, percussion; Charlie Hart - electric bass, accordion, violin; Roy Dodds – drumkit. 

Plus: Roland Dartnell (electric drill + plates); VOGC Junior League Vocal Chorus - Choir Mistress Suzy M., Laura, Leanne + Nicola Dartnell; Grace + Roxanne Messenger, Joanne Green, on track 3: Steve Berry – cello, on track 4+5: Steve Berry - double bass, on track 6: Chris Batchelor – trumpet; Mark Lockheart - tenor saxophone; Django Bates – organ; Martin France - ride cymbal.

Recorded June/Aug 1988 at Waterfront Studios, Rotherhithe London SE16 & Studio 99, SE18. Produced by Tony Messenger.
 

A dark chocolate music selection with mysterious centres.....

     'This (Vol. 2 ) is jazz saying something to a generation so used to music that doesn’t say anything. If there are any jazz fans at all under the age of sixteen it’s Billy Jenkins’ fault. But where Hancock and Davis were precious and po-faced about their mysterious arts, Billy takes it into the real world of car crashes and the scandalous price of sweets.' 
                                   Richard Russell / Billy Jenkins webzine.com
 

  'South London free-jazz catalyst Jenkins issued this large-scale set of musical collisions – with UK jazz giants including Django Bates, Iain Ballamy, Mark Lockheart, Martin France and many others – on vinyl and cassette in 1991. For all its outward lawlessness, however, this is some of Jenkins's most subtly conceived and orderly music'. 
                                 John Fordham / The Guardian

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UNCOMMERCIALITY VOL. 3

VOTP VOCAD 110


 

1.  Marching Into Middle Age
2.  Commuting
3.  Dancing In Ornette Coleman's Head
4.  Consumerism
5.  Expensive Equipment
6.  Land of the Free
 

     'All in all it is not only Jenkins's finest hour, but a landmark in contemporary UK jazz.' ****'          John Fordham / The Guardian

   'Three sprawling, inspired sets - a  landmark in warped jazz pleasure.'
                                       John Bungey / The Times

Billy Jenkins - electric guitar, keyboards, violin, electric bass voice; Mark Ramsden - alto saxophone; Stuart Hall - electric violin; Winston Blissett - electric bass on tracks 1,2,5; Steve McManus - electric bass on track 3, double bass on track 4; Steve Watts - double bass on track 6; Thebe Lipere - djembe, calipers + clanging; Martin France - quite a big drumkit. 

Plus: Track 1: Harriet Jenkins - spoken word; Dave Ramm - Philicorda organ; Dad’s Horn Section & VOGS Male Voice Choir: John Eacott – trumpet; Mark Lockheart - tenor saxophone; Frank Mead - alto sax; Ian Trimmer - tenor sax; Dave Jago – trombone, on Tracks 2+3: Maria Lamburn - viola+violin; Huw Warren - cello + piano on track 2, on Track 4: Robin Aspland – piano, on Track 5: Davo Cooke - heavy metal guitar, Robin Aspland – piano, on Track 6: Steve Nobel –bugle. Pre-recording research tyrumpet by Chris Batchelor.

Recorded May/Nov 1991 at Wood Wharf Studios, Greenwich SE10. Produced by Tony Messenger. 
 

A plain chocolate music selection with vibrant aftertaste......

     'Each track (on Vol. 3) has a real edge, while retaining the jazz vocabulary in mock form, at times in free counterpoint, other times as a Bonzo Dog show-band from hell. While successive critics praise Billy for his humour and what they perceive as pastiche, the single most abiding quality in Billy’s music is actually his anger, his rage against our tepid and tedious modernity in all its moulded plastic forms.'
                                   Richard Russell / Billy Jenkins webzine.com
 

       'South London free-jazz catalyst Jenkins issued this large-scale set of musical collisions – with UK jazz giants including Django Bates, Iain Ballamy, Mark Lockheart, Martin France and many others – on vinyl and cassette in 1991. For all its outward lawlessness, however, this is some of Jenkins's most subtly conceived and orderly music'. 
                                                             John Fordham / The Guardian

AVAILABLE AS A DOWNLOAD FROM BILLY'S OWN BANDCAMP PAGE!


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SOUNDS LIKE BROMLEY

VOTP VOVD 106

1. High Street/Saturday
2. Fat People
3. Parking Meters
4. Sunday Morning
5. Supermarkets
6. Council Offices
7. Growing Up In Bromley
8. Exodus From Bromley

AVAILABLE AS A DOWNLOAD VIA BILLY'S OWN BANDCAMP PAGE!

Billy Jenkins - Guitar, Piano 
Simon Etchell - trumpet 
Neill MacColl - Guitar
Dawson - percussion
Ian Trimmer - tenor saxophone
Dave Jago - trombone 
Tim Matthewman - bass 
Roy Dodds - drums

Executive Producer - John Steel 

Originally released as a 12" album in 1982 (Plymouth Sounds LBB1), the album has been especially remastered by Andy Le Vien at RMS Studios for digital download direct from virgin vinyl.
 

Paul Colbert, writing in the sleevenote to the original release of Sounds Like Bromley claimed “…the Voice of God Collective are making a sound rarely heard – their own.” Which is why, listening to the album a millennium and several decades later, we can say that the band still sound fresh and modern.

That alone would be a good reason to reissue this, the first BJ and the Voice of God Collective album, and the first of Mr Jenkins’ series of pungent observations of his South East London manor. Other good reasons include the quality of the musicianship (Billy has consistently brought great young musicians together for his recordings) and the talents of the Trimmer/Jenkins writing team, already almost a decade old by the early 80s.

It is also instructive to reassess 'Sounds...' in the light of the current interest in so called  ‘punk jazz’. You could make the argument that this was the first attempt to make jazz with punk attitude (the original press release points out the ‘deliberate insertion of an instrument performed by a musician unfamiliar with it’s technique…). Billy’s extraordinary guitar playing, all sharp elbows, still sounds revolutionary today.

What is extraordinary is that this ground-breaking album has languished in the analogue version of a Bromley lock up for 25 years. It’s not before time that Sounds gets a digital release, re-mastered from the virgin vinyl, and that a new generation get the chance to hear one of the essential British records – of any genre.

'A vastly underrated work that manages to combine post-Ellington composition, concrete effects, pop and a world upside down version of English pastoral'.   
                                                           Brian Morton
/ The Wire

'Delightfully witty, it contains some of the most tongue-in-cheek instrumentals you have ever heard.'
                                         Cedric Porter / South London Press

'Brave and serious to the point of madness - a curious, at times stunning, slab of jazz and humour'.
                               
           Gill Haydon / Bromley Advertiser

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GREENWICH

VOTP VOVD 107


 

1. Greenwich One Way System
2. Dreadnought Seamens' Hospital
3. Rope
4. Arrival of the Tourists
5. An Empty River
6. Meridian Council Estate (Vandalise Tourists' Property Not Residents')
7. Discoboats at Two O'Clock

AVAILABLE AS A DOWNLOAD VIA BILLY'S OWN BANDCAMP PAGE! 

Billy Jenkins (e gtr)
Iain Ballamy (a sax, t sax)
Dai Pritchard (a sax, bar sax, b clt)
Skid Solo (tpt)
Dave Jago (tbn)
Steve Berry (db)
Dawson (per)
Roy Dodds (dms)

with the VOG String Trio - Andy McFarlane (vln); Patrick White (vla) & Steve Berry (cel). 

Produced by Tony Messenger
 

Originally released as a 12" album in 1985(Wood Wharf Records WWR852), the album has been especially remastered by Andy Le Vien at RMS Studios for digital download direct from virgin vinyl.
 

The 1985 press release for Greenwich, Billy Jenkins’ second Voice of God Collective album, describes his compositions as ‘Post Punk Impressionistic’. The acerbic opener, a peon to the ‘Greenwich One Way System’, is certainly that… but more, with the advantage of hindsight, it’s an indication of just how unique Jenkins’ vision was and is. 

Following the earlier and also reissued Sounds Like Bromley, and predicting the latest I Am A Man From Lewisham, Greenwich offered a fiercely critical, furious, humourous response to the area of South East London that Billy has, and still does, call home. While critics have concentrated on the quirky themes and the left-field humour, they’ve often overlooked just how brilliant Billy’s music is and how cleverly his fantastic Voice of God groups have interpreted these tricky themes.

After a quarter of a century Greenwich is once again available, this time as a digital download (but re-mastered from the virgin vinyl), providing the opportunity to reassess one of the landmark albums of the 1980s. 

Billy recalled his thoughts on each 'Greenwich' composition for The  Billy Jenkins Webzine - which can be read here.

    "Jenkins as tone poet. The aural imagery is magnificent. All questions about the guitarist's seriousness (in the sense of viability) as a musician are settled by 'Greenwich,' which remains one of the most distinctive British jazz albums of the 1980's."

                                  * * * *  The Penguin Guide to Jazz on Record.

      "Hugely entertaining."    Ron Atkins / The Guardian

    "'Greenwich One Way System' is not the most exciting title for a track on  
      an album."                          Sarah Ward Capital Radio

       "A left field stunner"        John Gill / Time Out
 

AVAILABLE EXCLUSIVELY VIA BILLY'S OWN BANDCAMP PAGE!

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True Love Collection


 DOWNLOAD RE-EDIT RELEASE:

VOTP        VOCD 119
 
TLC cover


1.   Invocation I
- Mellow Yellow
2.   Invocation II - Yesterday Once More
3.   Invocation III - Everybody's Talking
4.   Invocation IV - How Deep Is Your Love
5.   Invocation V - Feeelin' Groovy
6.   Invocation VI - Sunny - Altercation
7.   Invocation VII - Dancing In The Street - Consummation

En route back to the blues and his guitar playing roots, BJ starts the reverse trend by exploring Seventies Pop tunes. Originally released on CD in 1998 (Babel Label BDV 9821), it has now been re-edited for download release.

Django Bates, Iain Ballamy, Martin France, Dave Ramm, Christine Tobin, Steve Watts, Mike Pickering, The Fun Horns of Berlin and others weave their unique skills over 'Mellow Yellow', 'Everybody's Talkin', 'Feeling Groovy', 'How Deep Is Your Love', 'Sunny' and other imitation paste gems.

NOMINATED BY THE BBC AS ONE OF
THE
TOP 50 GREATEST JAZZ ALBUMS EVER !!

'True Love Collection can only work because, at heart, Jenkins, who's
pathologically incapable of bullshit, has a real affection, a real
caring for the music. More, more, more please.'
Andy Robson / Jazzwise

'There is a kind of genius on our doorstep. Don't let him die in poverty.'  
Stewart Lee /
Q Magazine

'This fusion of piss-take with passionate musicianship succeeds in laying bare the process by which music manipulates our emotions.
You know you have been conned - and you loved every minute of it.'
   Lisa Gee / The Guardian


AVAILABLE AS A DOWNLOAD FROM YOUR FAVOURITE ONLINE STORE

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Scratches of Spain

VOTP VOVD 120

Scratches
 

Vinyl + CD OUT OF PRINT

DOWNLOAD RE-RELEASE

1.   Monkey Men
2.   Cuttlefish
3.   Barcelona
4.   Benidorm Motorway Service
5.   Bilbao/St. Columbus Day
6.   Cooking Oil
7.   McDonalds

AVAILABLE AS A DOWNLOAD FROM BILLY'S OWN BANDCAMP PAGE!

 
All compositions by Billy Jenkins PRS/MCPS

Bass Guitar [Fat Electric Bass Guitar] – Tim Matthewman
Bass Guitar [Skinny Acustic Bass Guitar] – Simon Edwards
Cello [Proper Cello] – Jo Westcott
Drums [Experienced Hand Drums, Midget Drumkit] – Steve Argüelles
Guitar [Heavy Metal Guitar] – Dave Cook
Guitar [Spaß Guitar], Violin, Composed By – Billy Jenkins
Keyboards [Doodle Keyboards] – Django Bates
Percussion [Excited Percussion], Drums [Spastic Drumkit] – Roy Dodds
Percussion, Drums [Experienced Hand Drums] – Dawson
Saxophone [Bigtime Saxophone] – Iain Ballamy
Saxophone [Spaß Saxophone], Clarinet – Dai Pritchard
Saxophone [Straight Saxophone] – Steve Buckley
Trombone [Grown Up Trombone] – Dave Jago
Trumpet [Spaß Trumpet] – Skid Solo
Trumpet [Straight Trumpet] – Chris Batchelor
Trumpet [Trad Trumpet] – John Eacott
Vibraphone [Golden Vibraphone] – Jimmy Haycraft
Vocals, Tuba, Trombone [Juvenile Bass Trombone] – Ashley Slater

Recorded By – Jimmy Haycraft at Waterfront Studios, Rotherhithe, London.


PRODUCED BY TONY MESSENGER

ART WORK BY NICK CORKER

Some call this Jenkins' classic recording. From the micky-take Miles cover spoof to the pathetic trumpet playing of Skid Solo over such gems as 'Benidorm Motorway Services', 'McDonald's, 'Cuttlefish' and 'Cooking Oil' - it would be hard to disagree. Billy does. But then he would.....

NOMINATED BY THE GUARDIAN AS
'ONE OF THE 1,000 ALBUMS TO HEAR BEFORE YOU DIE'!

'The LP sleeve pastiched Miles Davis, and the music served as a strange collision of post-punk anger, Gil Evans-ish chamber jazz and bathetic English satire (sample title: Benidorm Motorway Services). This convinced us that erstwhile glam punk guitarist Jenkins really had become an inspiringly maverick bandleader of great importance.'

~

'…Jenkins’s most celebrated single record…Jenkins has been around on the British scene long enough now for pieces like Benidorm Motorway Services and Cooking Oil to become minor classics, albeit harder to hum than the adagio from Concierto De Arunjuez…'
 Penguin Guide To Jazz

   'The ensemble is swollen, the intentions are ambitious, the lunacy gets out of control, and Jenkins succeeds in all his target areas. This incredibly dense and detail-stuffed epic feels like a massive-budget project, even though it almost certainly wasn't.'
                                           Martin Longley / Jazz on CD

   'Oh no, it's Billy Jenkins. Listen and be rudely awakened, or better still get blind drunk and re-live those package tour nightmares.' 
                                         Lindsay MacRae / Q Magazine

'It's crazier than a box of frogs on LSD but more entertaining.'  
Charles Waring / Record Collector

~

A 'Top Twenty Re-issued Album of 2017' in Jazzwise Magazine!

Vinyl + CD unavailable. 

AVAILABLE AS A DOWNLOAD FROM BILLY'S OWN BANDCAMP PAGE!

bandcamp

BY BUYING FROM BANDCAMP YOU WILL BE HELPING TO SUPPORT HIS WORK!

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Motorway at Night 

VOTP

motorway at night


1. Motorway at Night - 1
2. Motorway at Night - 2

AVAILABLE AS A DOWNLOAD FROM  BILLY'S OWN BANDCAMP PAGE.

All compositions by Billy Jenkins PRS/MCPS

Motorway At Night -1 recorded in one take on 4th August 1987 with:

Mark Lockheart – Big Bollocks tenor saxophone
Frank Mead – Aerodynamic alto saxophone
Dai Pritchard – Midget Football Boot trumpet, baritone sax, clarinet
Dave Jago – Sore Bottom trombone
Django Bates – Wireless keyboards
Nick Page – Back Seat Driver five string electric guitar
Billy Jenkins – Navigator six then five string electric guitar
Simon Edwards – Crankshaft electric bass
Steve Berry – Real leather cello
Dawson – Final Drive hand drums, percussion
Roy Dodds – Back Wheels drumkit
Steve Argüelles – Tappets drumkit
Tony Messenger – Panelling producer
The VOG String Trio - Respect For Tradition Andy Mcfarlane (violin), Patrick White (viola) Steve Berry (cello)


Motorway At Night -2 recorded in one take on 7th October 1987 with:

Iain Ballamy – Heart alto, tenor saxophones
Andy Sheppard – Spark Plus tenor saxophone
Chris Batchelor – Fly In Car slide trumpet, trumpet with biscuit tin
Django Bates – Wireless Again keyboards, tenor horn
Neill MacColl – Another Back Seat Driver electric guitar
Billy Jenkins – More Navigation electric guitar
Simon Edwards – Crankshaft electric bass
Roy Dodds – Back Wheels drumkit
Steve Argüelles – More Tappets drumkit
Tony Messenger – Wax & Polish producer
The VOG String Trio - Respect For Tradition Again Andy Mcfarlane (violin), Patrick White (viola) Steve Berry (cello)

Recorded by Tony Messenger at at Waterfront Studios, Rotherhithe, London.
Followed by VOG String Trio and other overdubs and mixing.

PRODUCED BY TONY MESSENGER

ART WORK BY NICK CORKER & MARK WALLIS

Originally released as a 12" album in 1988 (DCM Records 108-1), the album has been especially remastered by Andy Le Vien at RMS Studios for digital download direct from virgin vinyl.


Said Billy to Wire Magazine:

      ‘I briefed the players for each 'Motorway' closely. Twenty minutes at 70mph, no U-turns, no stopping. I like to hear the person, the potential, the inherent skills. Every player who records with me knows that if they blow it, it will be documented forever.. We did no re-takes, no editing. We over-dubbed the String Trio using 'real notes' from 'real scores.

     By having a 160bpm click in the drummer's ear, we ensured a repetitive measure, thus placing lateral improvising into an 'easier to absorb' vehicle to those who might well turn off to improvisations less structured.’

                                                           ~

                                         ‘Goddam but this cooks!’
                                            Bill Tilland / Option

                    ‘Hilarious, explosive, disarming - essential acid jazz.’
                            Ben Watson / Leeds Other Paper

    ‘The ‘real new Age’ sounds of ‘Motorway At Night’ throb to a decidedly          unrelaxing metronome setting and chaotic instrumental mixes. Jenkins’s      Voice of God Collective draws on the work of his earlier Burlesque band       and on it successor, Trimmer & Jenkins; ‘Motorway At Night’ also draws             on the laddish big band Loose Tubes, who rehearsed at Wood Wharf                             Studios, Greenwich, centre of Jenkins’s operations.’
                       * * *(*) The Penguin Guide to Jazz on Record.

AVAILABLE EXCLUSIVELY VIA BILLY'S OWN BANDCAMP PAGE!

bandcamp

BY BUYING FROM BANDCAMP YOU WILL BE HELPING TO SUPPORT HIS WORK!


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Beyond E Major

VOTP

beyond e major


1.  Country & Western
2.  The Blues
3.  Heavy Metal
4.  Rock and Roll

AVAILABLE AS A DOWNLOAD FROM  BILLY'S OWN BANDCAMP PAGE.

All compositions by Billy Jenkins PRS/MCPS


Billy Jenkins - Yamaha SG1000 electric guitar
Steve Berry – double bass
Roy Dodds – drumkit

Accompanied by:
John Eacott – trumpet
Steve Buckley – tenor saxophone
John Harborne – trombone

All compositions © Billy Jenkins

Recorded by Tony Messenger on the 11th and 29th June 1984 at Waterfront Studios, Rotherhithe, London.

Mixdown at Gateway Studios, Wandsworth with the kind cooperation of Dave Ward and Mick Parker. Original vinyl mastered by Mike Walker at Trident Studios.

PRODUCED BY TONY MESSENGER

ART WORK BY MARK WALLIS

This Album Has Been Contour Edited
A Rock Against Rock Record
Music Not Business

Originally released as a 12" album in 1985 (ALLMUSIC ALMS1), the album has been especially remastered by Andy Le Vien at RMS Studios for digital download direct from virgin vinyl.


‘Beyond E Major’ was, in effect, the ‘album of the column’ that Billy had been writing in the mid 1980’s for the monthly music magazine One Two Testing.
Advocating, over thirteen months, the art of music and guitar study at the ‘school of self education.

Having come to the conclusion that ‘the written word is not a good medium for musical tuition’, Jenkins, inspired by the album ‘East Broadway Rundown’ by saxophonist Sonny Rollins (where his trioextemporise at length from a simple theme) took the Loose Tubes double bass player Steve Berry and (then) Working Week drummer Roy Dodds into the studio to explore four distinct different styles of music – Country and Western, The Blues, Heavy Metal and Rock and Roll.

The column ‘Beyond E Major’ and other articles Billy wrote for One Two Testing, can be found online here.


‘Certainly not for the fainthearted, the album is a gloriously uninhibited affair.’
Julian Cole / The Mercury

‘I like it, I like it! It’s a brash, enthusiastic document, a lot of humour and wistful improvisation in the playing, ensuring that the
undoubted musical virtuosity of the players doesn’t lead to ego-tripping, pretentions and superficiality. Here surely is the essence of a man who not only knows the real power of music but also the evils of the big, bad industry and the necessity of keeping your fee firmly on the ground.’
Phil England / Elephant Weekly

‘Cast in ‘Rockschool’ format in four generic chunks, the performances treat genres as if they were ‘standards’ in themselves, bases for improvisation. To call the results unpredictable is to miss the point somewhat.’
* * * The Penguin Guide to Jazz on Record

‘Surely the worst record ever released. ‘Beyond E Major’ is a staggering testimony to the bankruptcy of contemporary jazz musicianship. Jenkins might fancy himself as the thinking man’s Billy Bragg, but to me he sounds more like a lobotomised Al DiMeola after a year’s intensive training at the New Musical Express school of pseudery…’
Garry Johnson / Sounds


AVAILABLE EXCLUSIVELY VIA BILLY'S OWN BANDCAMP PAGE!

bandcamp

BY BUYING FROM BANDCAMP YOU WILL BE HELPING TO SUPPORT HIS WORK!


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Piano Sketches 1973-1984

VOTP

piano sketches

1.  A Cup of Tea
2.  Donkey Droppings
3.  My Dead Cleaning Lady
4.  Slimming Advert
5.  Helsinki Waking Up
6.  Cooking Oil
7.  Ragtime
8.  Fat People
9.  2nd April ‘78
10. Snowbound
11. Young Lovers
12. Laban Dance School Early Morning
13. A Quiet Sunday Afternoon
14. Jack Loussier’s Beard
15. The Unborn Child
16. The Unborn Child Of The Comedian
17. Invention

AVAILABLE AS A DOWNLOAD FROM BILLY'S OWN BANDCAMP PAGE!

Billy Jenkins – solo piano

All compositions © Billy Jenkins, except ‘Fat People’ © Trimmer & Jenkins

Originally released as a 12" album in 1985 (Wood Wharf Records WWR841), the album has been especially remastered by Andy Le Vien at RMS Studios for digital download direct from virgin vinyl.

Recorded by Julia Carney

COVER ART BY COLIN BROSTER.
DIGITAL COVER LAYOUT BY MARK WALLIS

On the 18th March 1984, using a majestic Bösendorfer 9 and a half foot grand piano and beautifully recorded and engineered by Julia Carney, guitarist Billy Jenkins laid out his stall playing, what he described as, ‘composer piano’, bringing into the session compositions created between 1973 and 1984. Amongst them where two of them scored in his teens, one co-composed with Ian Trimmer and seven improvised on the day.
One of these improvisations, ‘Donkey Droppings’, he later scored for the
VOG Collective. Thus, the moment when heart, hand and mind combine can truly be heard on this recording.
  
    Invention.

    In your ears.
    Then.
    And now….

This recording startlingly bookends the ‘Ghost Music’ album, the solo ‘composer piano’ album recorded 34 years later.......

                                                            ~

   ‘Billy Jenkins is a musical anarchist. Notably resistant to ideology, he    
   espouses a version of the kitchen-sink Situationism which lay behind the         British punk movement. If music has become business (an equation he 
  rejects), then the only refuge is a kind of unselfconscious anti-technique  
  which encourages the retention of ‘wrong’ notes and false starts.
He calls
  his own compilation of Piano Sketches ‘the result of musical suppression’.
     A response to certain assumptions about ‘professionalism’ and  
  marketability. The themes are simple, unoblique, stripped of irony.’

                   * * (*) The Penguin Guide to Jazz on Record


‘Unlike the shaded stillness of dockland wastes which adorn the album sleeve, ‘Piano Sketches 1973-84’ buzzes with unbridled energy – and a penetrating dry wit. It’s a hop, skip ‘n’ jump from early ‘Tune-A-Day’ style ‘correctness’ to a now less evenly-polished finish – frenzied ivory chases and protrusive discords jammed into spartan structures from all odd angles. ‘Erik Satie meets Les Dawson’ suggests Mr Jenkins.
I’d plump for Steve Beresford vs Blue Gene Tyranny with Fats Waller as ref!’

David Ilic / City Limits

‘In a sense, in a hand-made, working-class, South-East London sense, the 'Piano Sketches' is a composer's note-book made real,
like Bach's 'Art of Fugue' or Bartok's 'Mikrokosmos.'
Richard Russell / Billy Jenkins Webzine


AVAILABLE EXCLUSIVELY VIA BILLY'S OWN BANDCAMP PAGE!

bandcamp

BY BUYING FROM BANDCAMP YOU WILL BE HELPING TO SUPPORT HIS WORK!


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AIN'T GOING YET

Flickering Light Productions

DVD Lawn Bowls Documentary

Music by Billy Jenkins

A delightful, gently crafted 45 minute film, made by Dave Eyre and Peter Cordwell celebrating the centenary of Francis Drake Bowls Club, Hilly Fields, Brockley, whilst also inviting other people to play the 'gracious game'. Music in the film and the narrative is voiced over by jazz/blues icon Billy Jenkins, who is also captain of Francis Drake BC.

Three Jenkins compositions are featured:

The title track 'Ain't Going Yet' is taken from the Blues Collective CD 'LIFE' (VOTP 2002) and the first half of the match itself is accompanied by 'Benidorm Motorway Services' from 'Scratches of Spain' (reissued by Babel 1994 but currently out of print) - featuring Bollywood Brass Band trombonist Dave Jago and keyboard gymnast Django Bates.

The second half of the match is edited to 'The Perfect Lawn' from 'Suburbia' (Babel 1999), which features Polar Bear lynchpin Mark Lockheart on tenor saxophone, Dave Ramm on keyboards and drummer Roy Dodds.

The film has been made by Plumstead film-maker Dave Eyre and local journalist Peter Cordwell, editor of Greenwich Council's newspaper, Greenwich Time. 

The DVD also features the three music tracks set to bowls images as stand alone extras.  All proceeds go to the bowls club.
 

  'Lovely, gently eccentric and utterly charming'   Mike Flynn / Jazzwise

  'I absolutely loved it. Incredibly well done and put together.Really should be sold to the BBC as an quintessentially English Docu-drama.' 
    Helena Argüelles / Essential Time Out

  'Wonderful! Loved it!'           Simon Thackray / The Shed

Currently unavailable on DVD

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BLUES AL FRESCO 

Espresso Animation          DVD 1

The Blues Collective on DVD !

1.   opening titles
2.   The Duke And Me
3.    I'm Happy
4.   This Is A Day To Forget
5.    White Van Man
6.    I'm Staying In The Car
7.    There Is No Lord Up There
8.    Thaddeus' bass solo
9.    Jazz Had A Baby (and they called it avant garde).....
10.   ....continued & credits

 
Captured for the first time on video! The master stage performer tells it 'like it wasn't, isn't and never will be' as the Blues Collective startle  unsuspecting lunchtime picnickers at London's Victoria Embankment Gardens. 
By filming in the daylight, director Phil Vallentin fully captures the way Billy and his band bring one and all into their strange blues world of suburban melancholia. 
Great playing, great sound and great directing. 

Running at 41 minutes, the film sees the band execute wonderful renditions of Jenkins classics such as The Duke And Me, I'm Happy, This Is A Day To Forget, White Van Man, I'm Staying In The Car, There Is No Lord Up There and Jazz Had A Baby (and they called it avant garde).

The format is DVD/PAL Region 0 - which means it should be playable worldwide.
 

    'Catches the band at their chaotic, deadpan best. Touches the heart, the funny bone and the soul in equal measure.'
    John L. Walters / The Guardian

  'The Blues never felt so good.'     Cedric Porter / South London Press

'   Not for the faint hearted, or those suffering a humour bypass, Jenkins' very British take on the blues is never boring, full of unabashed playing, rich lyrical irreverence: overall, hugely entertaining.' 
                                                   MIke Flynn / Jazzwise Magazine
 

Currently unavailable on DVD

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HOW TO PURCHASE RECORDINGS:

VARIOUS ALBUMS CAN BE DOWNLOAD FROM YOUR FAVOURITE ONLINE STORE, OR VIA BILLY'S OWN BANDCAMP PAGE!

bandcamp

BY BUYING FROM BILLY'S BANDCAMP,
YOU WILL BE HELPING TO SUPPORT HIS WORK!
 

 


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