Artist Spotlight

Daryl Runswick

The Jazz Years CD

Daryl Runswick jokes that he was educated at Cambridge University and Ronnie Scott’s Club. He spent his early career writing and performing jazz and pop; more recently concert pieces. He has also been involved with free improvisation and indeterminate music, one of the few (to quote John Wickes) who can claim to have worked with both Ornette Coleman and John Cage. This duality has permeated his career as an improvising pianist, singer with Electric Phoenix, bassplayer, arranger, record producer, broadcaster, educator, community animateur and film / TV composer. Head of Composition at Trinity College of Music in London for 10 years before retiring, he has searched for a synthesis of the improvising skills of jazz with the more complex structures of concert music.

Late Jazz CD Big Bands CD Playdreaming CD Jazz Years CD Young Man Songs Headlong, Heartlong CD 

New Daryl Runswick CD on ASC Records

ASC CD195/6 Kerry Lee Crabbe Memorial Album (£15 2-CD £20 Double Vinyl)

"I first set Kerry Lee Crabbe’s words to music in 1967; for the last time in 2010. Our most prolific period was 1970-1980, during which time we had considerable success as a songwriting team, though we didn’t have big hits. The pinnacle for us was when Cleo Laine recorded a whole album of our songs (One More Day: well worth looking out for on vinyl or CD).

The earliest song on this album dates from 1969 and the latest is our final collaboration forty years later. They are not presented here in chronological order: I have ordered them to make four satisfying sides of a double LP, whatever format you are listening in now. Sides 1 and 2 (CD 1) are historic recordings from our salad days, sides 3 and 4 (CD 2) newer recordings made over the last couple of decades and edited and tweaked right up to the present. You will hear me sing aged 24 in 1971 (‘Whiskey Haze’), aged 77 in 2023 (‘Take 3 Of A Simple Song’) and at many dates between. My voice has changed over the years and I was mildly surprised to find that I could approve the more recent results for issue: well, if you can listen to Mick Jagger recorded today you can certainly listen to me. 

This album represents in one way a completion. Together with Young Man Songs (ASC ASCCD18/ASCLP003) it contains nearly all the songs Kerry and I wrote and I sang which are good enough as songs and well-enough recorded to be issued. The subject matter here is wider ranging than on Young Man Songs, most of which were love songs. Here we have those, yes, but also other concerns. Kerry’s range is wonderfully wide. If you want the human condition, here it is."
Daryl Runswick

All songs: words by Kerry Lee Crabbe, music by Daryl Runswick, sung by Daryl Runswick.
All routining and arrangements by Daryl.
The lyrics can be found in Kerry Lee Crabbe The Song Lyrics published by the Dal Segno Press, 2024.

Musicians on CD 1 include John Marshall, Ray Russell, Phil Lee, Tony Hymas, Linda Hirst.
Recorded at Wembly, Livingstone Studios Barnet, CTS Studios and Essex Music Studios.

On the second CD Daryl does everything including vocals, keyboards, piccolo bass guitar, fretless alto guitar, bass guitar, harmonica, fingersnaps and sequenced backings.
Recorded and mixed by Daryl between 2006 and 2024 in London, Italy and Wales except Take 3 Of A Simple Song mixed and produced by Reynalod Young in Sani, Greece, 2024.

Daryl on film

We released 'The Jazz Years' in 2017 to celebrate Daryl's 70th birthday and we also filmed his One Man Show at Cadogan Hall (part of his 70th Birthday Concert), which you can view here: