Twenty years ago the band Loose Tubes to the consternation of their fans and admirers were on the point of breaking up. But a new album released next month recalls the final days of the influential big band, recorded live at Ronnie Scott’s club on 13-15 September 1990. A whistle from the London crowd and cheers open the South African township-flavoured first track ‘Yellow Hill’ on Dancing On Frith Street, now confirmed for a Lost Marble Records release via Proper Note on 27 September.

Swiftly followed by a second Django Bates tune, the staccato offbeating ‘Discovering Metal’, the seven tracks in all clock in at just under 47 minutes and also number Eddie Parker’s ska-tinged tune ‘Last Word’; Steve Berry’s ballad ‘Shelley’; Bates’ Zawinul-esque ‘Godbucket’ and his serene ‘Like Life’; and the wonderful closing multi-faceted dirge ‘Village’, written by Chris Batchelor. The sleevework has typography in keeping with the graphic design of the original 1985 eponymous Loose Tubes album cover sleeve. Bates celebrates his 50th birthday during the first week of the album's release on 2 October with a special gala concert at The Base in Kings Place.

Django Bates during his Loose Tubes days kicked against the machine, harnessing the ramshackle power of the most anarchic and stimulating big band around. Influenced chiefly by Joe Zawinul in terms of his approach to the keyboards and composing jazz, Bates was involved with Loose Tubes for six years from 1984 with a big band of young virtuosos and performing jazz player/composers many of whom are now well known as recording artists, producers and leaders both in the UK and internationally including from the record Iain Ballamy, John Parricelli, Martin France, Chris Batchelor and Ashley Slater.

Loose Tubes albums are now all out of print and hard to find. Yet the band was an inspiration for Brit- and Euro Jazz bands then and now with Polar Bear and bands connected to the F-IRE Collective some of Loose Tubes' heirs, along with the recently disbanded Vienna Art Orchestra and the work of Darcy James Argue in New York. Bates says in a statement: “From 1984-1990 I was privileged to share the company of 31 musicians whose passion, zeal and commitment to music came before everything else. It amazes me that during the band’s final week at Ronnie Scott’s, we had the foresight to document the quintessential sound of Loose Tubes, capturing the exuberance and energy I remember so well.”

– Stephen Graham

Look out for a feature on Loose Tubes and a review of the album in the October issue of Jazzwise