This is the first ‘lost’ album Jazz In Britain has discovered. We’ve released albums that were only previously released on vinyl, or even cassette tape, ie never on CD, or albums produced from sessions by groups that never made a record, or we’ve included unreleased tracks that never made it only albums… but this is a real first for us.

In 1979 Tony Coe and Bob Cornford composed pieces for an unusual, and unrepeated, combination of a six-piece jazz ensemble (two reeds, bass trombone, piano, percussion and double bass) with a string quartet. The main piece Tony called The Buds of Time. The music was rehearsed, pieces for an album were recorded and, under the auspices of an Arts Council Contemporary Music Network tour, concerts took place at six venues around the UK. We had read about this in John Wickes’ book Innovations in British Jazz Volume One 1960-1980.

Early in 2024 we were given lists of recordings in the Bob Cornford tape archive and spotted references to a number of Buds of Time recordings in there. We secured consent from Tony Coe’s family to release those recordings and also acquired (from Tony’s and Bob Cornford’ archives) memorabilia from the Arts council tour, photographs from some of the concerts, examples of the musical scores plus contemporaneous reviews. We’ve included as much as we could of this in a comprehensive booklet which tells the complete story of this remarkable and unique album. In terms of the actual music, it’s very different from anything you’ll have heard on a ‘jazz’ label but we’ll leave you to discover that and make your own mind up!