For decades Ray Russell, the prolific British guitarist, composer & arranger, has featured across a mind boggling array of recordings. Bond soundtracks, guitarist for a time with Georgie Fame, Stackridge and collaborated with Gil Evans. In the studio, he was sideman to Bill Fay, Joe Meek, The Sensational Alex Harvey Band, Tina Turner, Heaven 17 and Scott Walker, to name a few. On the big screen he contributed to the Sgt Pepper soundtrack, Labyrinth, and the original cast recording of Evita. For TV, he recorded the atmospheric Frost soundtrack and features on Rock Follies. In addition, Russell has amassed at least 10,000 credits as a sound library recordist.
It’s his career as a jazz guitarist we focus on here. Debuting with Turn Circle in 1968, he moved through numerous ensembles and fronted his own band in many settings. Later Russell favoured a freer approach to his music and broke into fusion and rock. However, these live recordings, captured in London, take us back to the late 60s with Russell’s Quartet highlighting numbers from his first two albums. A wonderfully tight, yet spontaneous album, which is alive with possibilities and wondrous musicality. A flavour of a time and place as his blossoming talent was showing early sparkle.
