Friday 20 June 2014

Gurney Slade

I was wandering around the house doing a few jobs the other month when a tune came on the radio that I'd not heard in years!
It took me right back to being a child in the 70's but I couldn't recall where I knew it from.
I listened to the end and discovered it was "Gurney Slade" by Max Harris.
Now this rang no bells with me whatsoever so I turned to Google to help me out. It transpires that the tune was the theme to "The Strange World of Gurney Slade" a six part TV series broadcast on ITV in 1960. 

Clearly my memories of the tune could not be from that (it predates me by 10 years), a few clicks later and I discovered that the tune had also been used in "Vision On", a series that I remember well and defines a particular era of my childhood, so mystery solved.


Anyway, it's a great piece of flute jazz music, I do love these "Jazz" theme tunes from the 60's (see also my post for Johhny Dankworth's "Tomorrows World" theme here)
There have been a few versions recorded over the years and I've started to buy the original 7" singles, this download includes a rip straight from the original Max Harris 7" as well as a 7" released by Steve Stannard in the same year. The original version is the smoothest and classiest but the Stannard version is faster and swings a bit more during the solo, leave you to decide which is the best. 
I'm still looking out for other versions and will post them as I find them....links in comments (24Bit 96KHz & 320K MP3)

Max Harris

Steve Stannard


3 comments:

Mark Morb said...


24Bit 96KHz: http://bit.ly/Gurney_Slade_24_96

320K MP3: http://bit.ly/Gurney_Slade_320

Mr. Primate said...

Very nice, thanks!

Anonymous said...

Thanks for this!