The Discography written by Gerard Biedeman in 2017 list over 200 known recordings with Colin on drums. There is no point listing all of those albums here, but we’ll mention some albums that stands out.
In time order the first album in the list has to be when Ken Colyer’s band The Jazzmen played with George Lewis in 1957. George Lewis had made it a condition that he would only play with Ken Colyer’s band when he came over to England for the first time (he came back in 1959 again, and this time he brought his own band with him). The concert was in Manchester and the album is called The Famous Manchester Free Trade Hall Concert 1957.
Here is an extract of one of the songs It Looks Like A Big Time Tonight. We can only play you a part of it because of copyright rules, but you hear some short drum solos by Colin at the end of the clip.
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The next album on this list is from 1959, Ken Colyer’s Jazzmen in Concert 1959. The excerpt is from the classic Muskrat Ramble. Such jolly music. Ian Wheeler on clarinet.
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Now we jump forward in time a bit. Colin didn’t work full time as a musician now, but still played a lot. He was frequently asked to play with former band mates in different constellations, and one of those groups were The Crane River Jazz Band. This is what the record label Upbeat writes about them: “The Crane River Jazz Band is one of the most revered jazz bands of the 20th Century. In 1949 they took the UK by storm appearing on BBC TV and Studio 51 in Leicester Square and in 1951 played at the newly opened Royal Festival Hall. In 1972 the Cranes re-formed and their first London appearance was at the 100 Club in Oxford Street. The result was sheer joyousness and almost relaxed telepathic teamwork. All the players are world renowned in their own right. Ken Colyer trumpet/cornet/vocal, Sonny Morris trumpet/vocal, Monty Sunshine clarinet, Pat Hawes piano/vocal, John R T Davies trombone/alto sax, Ben Marshall piano, Julian Davies string bass and Colin Bowden drums”.
We’ll play you an excerpt from the lovely Panama from the 1975 album Crane River Jazz Band – The Legend.
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This live album from the Pizza Express in London, May 1988, show a slightly different side of Colin. He was asked to play drums in what was called the Kenny Davern Trio. This is from the booklet for the album The Last Reunion: “There is a long standing affection in jazz for the distinctive music which often emerges when you combine clarinet with piano and drums. Think of the early trios organised by the New Orleans pianist Jelly Roll Morton which features the likes of Johnny Dodds and Barney Bigard, with drummers like Baby Dodds or Zuthly Singleton in support”. And further . . . “Here he [Kenny Davern] is reunited with [Art] Hodes, the two working with the impactive English drummer Colin Bowden. The attraction of this format were summarised by Davern (in an interview with Max Jones) thus: ‘I prefer to work with a trio, because I can control the thing. You can play and make more things happen. The piano, clarinet, drums unit is perfectly self-contained in jazz’. Asked wheter the absence of a bass player hindered a trio’s momentum, Kenny added, ‘Most of the pianists I like to work with are people who have a very good left hands – bass players normally cancel out the pianist’s left hand.”
Here an excerpt from the wonderful Love Me Or Leave Me.
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We can’t list favourite songs with Colin doing a drum solo and not include Dinah. A good example is from the 2001 album The Delta Jazz Band with Colin Bowden. Dinah is the last song on that album and Colin makes an extended drum solo here. We start with an excerpt from the beginning of the song, and then you have an excerpt from the later part of the drum solo. Magic.
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