You may recall, when Graham was at Ray’s Jazz, he was promoting the release of this CD recorded live at the Bracknell Jazz Festival in 1983.

Collier is the composer and he directs this specially invited 19 piece band that includes Geoff Warren (who played the sax and flute on the UK jazz-funk classic ‘Southern Freeez’ a couple of years earlier), John Surman, Kenny Wheeler and Tomasz Stanko for this one-off occassion.

The ‘Hoarded Dreams’ come in seven parts, conveniently entitled Part 1 to 7. It starts like a manic mass horned ‘Flight Of The Bumble Bee’ which knocks the stuffing out of the audience. Thankfully, mid-way through Part 2, the audience has caught up and you can feel their joy throughout an incredibly powerful 14 and a half minutes.

Little wonder that by Part 3, they all need to catch their collective breath and the guitar of Ed Speight (one for fans of Mr. Lamdin) and Juhani Aaltonen (sax) gets all late night downtempo before Collier lets off the reins and they’re at the races again. As an aside, I also see Aaltonen was on last years’ big 12”, the Didier’s 06 Edit of ‘Ufology’ by the Finnish Big Band Jazz.

And then can you imagine what a trio of trombones can do? Malcolm Griffiths, Eje Thelin and Conny Bauer get their chance to lead a big band on a ‘free’ Ellington style number. A hoarded dream of Mr. Collier?

Part 5 is another long one and starts minimal with Tomasz Stańko getting all-experimental on a solo (with Ashley Brown getting busy on the drums). Very UnSafe as Roger Dean breaks down on the piano with Conny Bauer doing an ‘Alan Tomlinson’ of sorts. Not to be outdone, Wheeler, Surman, and Stanko join Bauer on a blow out at the end which sounds an unholy mess compared to, say, ‘Southern Freeez’.

‘Part 6’ is like a sax-lead version of ‘Part 5’ with Themen taking on all comers including John Schröder on guitar. Makes you wonder what Mr. Lamdin could do with a remix project if he wasn’t so busy releasing his own albums?

Talking of which, If you thought the Nostalgia 77 Octet’s live CD recorded live at the Jazz Café, Seven’s & Eight’s (which included a version of Collier’s ‘Down Another Road’) was good, Hoarded Dreams is even better.

As “jazz happens in real time, ONCE!”, it’s a good job someone recorded this and nearly 25 years on, a wider audience of jazz fans have finally “caught up” with the folks at Bracknell that day and the collective Hoarded Dreams of Graham Collier.

Reviewed: Graham Collier — Hoarded Dreams recorded live at the Bracknell Jazz Festival in 1983 (Cuneiform Records) Cat. No. Rune 252 Released: 07 Mar 2007
Credits: Guitar [Electric] — Ed Speight , John Schröder Producer, Composed By — Graham Collier Saxophone [Alto}, Flute [Alto] — Geoff Warren Saxophone [Tenor, Alto] — Juhanni Aaltonen Trombone — Conny Bauer , Eje Thelin , Malcolm Griffths Trumpet, Flugelhorn — Tomasz Stanko , Kenny Wheeler , Henry Lowther , Manfred Schoof , Ted Curson Tuba — Dave Powell Bass — Paul Bridge Piano — Roger Dean Drums, Percussion — Ashley Brown Saxophone [Tenor, Alto] — Matthias Schubert , Art Themen Saxophone [Baritone], Clarinet [Bass] — John Surman

Tracklisting:
1 Part 1 (2:53)
2 Part 2 (14:30)
3 Part 3 (11:21)
4 Part 4 (10:30)
5 Part 5 (14:35)
6 Part 6 (13:54)
7 Part 7 (2:30)

Links:
www.jazzcontinuum.com the web site of Graham Collier
www.myspace.com/raysjazz
www.foyles.co.uk