Archie Semple - Night People

The 1960s was the era of the traditional jazz clarinet. Archie Semple never had the chart success of British clarinet players like Monty Sunshine, Acker Bilk and Terry Lightfoot, but he has become a cult figure of British jazz and is widely regarded as one of the true individualists the scene ever produced. Stylistically he took inspiration from the legendary Pee Wee Russell, but he was no mere copyist. He rose to prominance first of all in Freddy Randall's Band (where he replaced Bruce Turner) and then Alex Welsh (with whom he had played in Edinburgh). Continual health problems and alcoholism led to his early death in 1974. The two LPs comprising this CD have long become collector's items.Part of the new Lake series of British Traditional and Mainstream Jazz - Denis Preston's Record Supervision Archives - music from one of the greatest archives of the British Traditional Jazz revival