Perhaps it was something in the local water that made Nottingham, that old East Midlands city of lace, tobacco and fabled forest outlaws a fertile breeding ground for jazz in the 1950’s. Amongst several promising instrumentalists there was reed-man John Crocker who presents here the third CD collection under his own name (following on from Fine and Dandy in 1983 and Easy Living from 1989)

John was on the road as a member of the very successful jazz/R&B combo “The Mike Cotton Sound” before he was signed up in 1968 by one of Britain’s most famous and respected bandleaders, Chris Barber. I assume Chris knows how to treat musicians because you will find that Barber sidemen stay for a very long time. John Crocker’s own 24 years service might be seen as a handicap in terms of advancing his own name on the international jazz scene, but Chris barber encourages ‘artistic moonlighting’ by his musicians and has supported their freelance recording projects – much in the same way as the mighty Duke Ellington, who knew that glorious small\group achievements by Messrs. Hodge, Brown, Stewart, Williams etc.