Sad to hear of the death of Bobby Wellins at 80 but trying not to be by relistening to his orchestral jazz record released just three days before the crucial Scottish independence referendum in which the Scottish National Jazz Orchestra explored the enduring historic hurt of Culloden felt in Scotland since 1746 as the theme of this new setting of Bobby Wellins’ ‘Culloden Moor Suite.’
Wellins was a much loved Scottish jazz saxophone icon since appearing on Stan Tracey’s Under Milk Wood, and composed this five-part suite in 1961, four years before Tracey’s great work, inspired by reading an account of the bloody battle that took place to the east of Inverness. Read top Scottish jazz writer Rob Adams (Glasgow Herald) on what Wellins meant to Scots who love jazz and know their nation’s history.
Wellins in 1961 found himself in pre-Beatles London recording with the likes of Gordon Beck, Tony Crombie, and Harold McNair on Crombie’s record Whole Lotta Tony. The album, arranged over “five acts”, begins incredibly well, Wellins emotive and understated, the SNJO deftly orchestrated by German arranger Florian Ross moving into a Gil Evans space by the end of ‘Gathering’. The following sections, ‘March’, like something Art Blakey might have powered in on at the beginning; the engrossingly tense ‘Battle’; tender ‘Aftermath’, with its pristine liquidy piano accompaniment early on lapping up around fragile Coltranian saxophone providing a unique atmosphere; and ultimately ‘Epilogue’ with a quietude to it the orchestra restrained for a time before moving to a brassy peak. Making peace – it’s as if to say – as challenging as waging war.
I heard Wellins play as recently as a couple of years ago during Hallowe’en playing with his quartet at the Vortex club in London and when he stood his head was bowed sometimes with a slight smile on his face when he wasn’t in full flow, pianist Liam Noble to his right a spirit in itself to behold on his tremendously abstract improvisation during ‘Love For Sale’, bassist Mark Lewandowski tucked in behind the Scot and drummer Dave Wickins to the side, a quality timepiece alert to the tick-tocking flow of the music tapping an urgent alarm call when needed.
Wellins’ reading of Monk, the character in the phrasing so appealing. Wellins, adding a little ‘o’ deliciously to his Sphericalness’ first name as he quietly announced ‘Little Rootie Tootie’, Lewandowski in his solo was able to quote another tune of Monk’s (‘Nutty’) as did Noble in one section (‘Straight No Chaser’) and they weren’t even showing off. Wellins' place in jazz history, from these islands, is guaranteed because of Under Milk Wood, above, communing with Tracey so hauntingly it is more than reasonable to say. SG