Stan Tracey was house pianist at Ronnie Scott’s during the 1960s: Video

Stan Tracey’s ReSteamed Records catalogue is being made available for downloading or streaming on all digital platforms for the first time, from this February.

Proper Music Distribution and ReSteamed Records have announced that Stan Tracey’s ReSteamed catalogue will be available to download and stream via all digital platforms worldwide from 16th February 2018.

Stan Tracey CBE died in 2013 at the age of 86. He was one of the most significant and celebrated British jazz musicians, known affectionately as “The Godfather of British Jazz” and responsible for a hugely impressive back catalogue of albums dating back to the 1950s. Tracey was house pianist at Ronnie Scott’s during the 1960s, performing with an array of legendary jazz musicians including Sonny Rollins, Yusef Lateef, Roland Kirk and Ben Webster (who played with Tracey on two of his ReSteamed releases).

In 1965 Tracey released a jazz suite inspired by Dylan Thomas’s Under Milk Wood. It’s been praised as one of the finest British jazz albums, appearing at number 69 on the 2006 Jazzwise list of The 100 Jazz Albums That Shook the World and contained Starless and Bible Black, with its solo by Scottish tenor saxophonist and Tracey collaborator Bobby Wellins.

The 2006 reissue of Under Milk Wood marked the first release on Tracey’s ReSteamed Records, his new activation of Steam Records. He went on to issue a further twelve recordings on ReSteamed – both archival and new. All of these albums will be available on these streaming and download services.

Drummer Clark Tracey, Stan’s son, played extensively with his father. He has now taken over the running of the ReSteamed Records label. He’s also the author of The Godfather of British Jazz: The Life and Music of Stan Tracey which was published by Equinox Publishing in 2017.

The complete discography of ReSteamed Records is as follows:

RSJ101 The Stan Tracey Quartet – Under Milk Wood: Jazz Suite
RSJ102 The Stan Tracey Big Band – Alice in Jazz Land
RSJ103 Stan Tracey Orchestra – At the Appleby Jazz Festival
RSJ104 Stan Tracey & Bobby Wellins – Tracey/Wellins Play Monk
RSJ105 Stan Tracey & Keith Tippett – Supernova
RSJ106 Ben Webster & Stan Tracey – Soho Nights Vol. 1
RSJ107 Stan Tracey Octet – The Early Works
RSJ108 Stan Tracey Quartet – Senior Moment
RSJ109 Stan Tracey Octet – The Later Works
RSJ110 Stan Tracey – Soundcheck
RSJ111 The Stan Tracey Quartet – A Child’s Christmas: Jazz Suite
RSJ112 Ben Webster & Stan Tracey – Soho Nights Vol. 2
RSJ113 Stan Tracey Quintet – The Flying Pig