STEVE JOHNSON recommends that you catch an unforgettable tribute to Woody Guthrie
‘An ability to marry flawless technique with passionate spontaneous creativity’
CHRIS SEARLE speaks to saxophonist and jazz historian Simon Spillett about Tubby Hayes, whose self-taught virtuosity was emblematic of the ’Swinging London’ of the 1960s

THERE have been many rediscovered tapes of Tubby Hayes’s (1935-1973) live sessions from the 1960s, when the tenor saxophonist was playing at his creative apex. Tubby’s punctilious scholar and biographer and a powerful saxophonist himself, Simon Spillett, considers his double album, No Blues: The Complete Hopbine ’65, to be one of his best and most illuminating.
The Hopbine, a London pub-jazz club in North Wembley, organised by fellow tenor saxophonist Tommy Whittle, who doubles up with Tubby on two of the album’s tracks, was a familiar and receptive venue where Tubby felt much at ease, and his performance is relaxed, full of discovery, impetus and creative energy, and lucky were the patrons who heard it.
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