John Cameron has had some career. The British jazz pianist, arranger and composer of film, TV and stage scores began his career at the height of Swinging London in the mid-1960s. He grew up in Wallington, and played his first professional piano gig at 14 in nearby Croydon. He went on to attend Cambridge University.
One of his first pop jobs was arranging Donovan's Sunshine Superman on the album of the same name in 1966. John brought in a range of jazz players and two young studio guys—guitarist Jimmy Page and bassist John Paul Jones, who would go on to make up half of Led Zeppelin. John also arranged all of the songs on Donovan's Mellow Yellow album, except the title track (that was arranged by Jones), as well as Donovan's hits Jennifer Juniper and Epistle to Dippy.
His TV work began soon after, followed by the scores for films such as Kes (1969), The Ruling Class (1972), Night Watch (1973) and A Touch of Class (1973), for which he was nominated for an Oscar. Sandwiched in during that period was Off Centre, a powerful jazz quartet LP.
Released in July 1969, the album featured Harold McNair (fl,as,ts), John Cameron (p), Danny Thompson (b) and Tony Carr (d). The music is driving and angular, with an avant-garde feel in places and Thelonious Monk-ish and soul-jazz in others. Now the long out-of-print album has been reissued on vinyl by UMR/Decca.
The new release was remastered at Abbey Road using high definition 24bit/192kHz audio files, copied directly from the original stereo analogue master tapes. Images of those tapes are included in the new package along with liner notes by author, compiler and documentary filmmaker Tony Higgins.
The highlights throughout are John's confident, eclectic piano and the reeds and flute by McNair, who gives the record a Rahsaan Roland Kirk feel. In some ways, the record feels like a film score too jazzy for the big screen, akin to Sonny Rollins's Alfie soundtrack. But if you listen carefully, you'll hear London in the late 1960s, which featured jazz at the highest level that also was suitable for freestyle dancing.
JazzWax tracks: You'll find the John Cameron Quartet's Off Centre (UMR/Decca) here and here.
You can listen to the album here.
JazzWax note: Past posts on John Cameron are here and here.
JazzWax clips: Here's Go Away Come Back Another Day...
And here's Omar Cheyenne...
Bonus: Here's Donovan's Sunshine Superman with John Cameron's arrangement. Listen for the jazz textures...
