Mike Gavin, label manager at Cadillac and Ogun Records, has a new monthly radio show over on One Jazz! Jazz Progression looks at the growth of community music in the 1970s – the DIY ethic forced on musicians by the social, economic and cultural changes at the beginning of the decade (sound familiar?) – and plays music gems which maybe aren’t getting played so much elsewhere.

Read more here, and listen to the latest episode now:

For future episodes, listen live at onejazz.net, or:

• Get the Tunein app
• Google & Apple smart speakers: “play One Jazz on Tunein”
• Alexa smart speakers: “play One Jazz”

Cadillac Records, Ogun Records and My Only Desire Records will be sharing a stall at the excellent Independent Label Market Sat 10 May 2025 at Coal Drops Yard round the back of Kings Cross. Come along and say hullo… there’s beer, music and loads of like-minded labels selling their wares.

My Only Desire Records is a recorded music label based in Plumstead, SE London, exhuming lost sounds and celebrating ‘60s, ‘70s & ‘80s jazz and the music it has inspired.

Nice review by Stewart Smith in the current issue of The Wire: Adventures In Modern Music of the Cadillac/Ogun 50th anniversary gig:

For the latest issue I’ve reviewed the wonderful Cadillac/Ogun Records 50th birthday celebration at Café OTO featuring Mike Westbrook, Alexander Hawkins Jason Yarde, Neil Charles, Ntshuks Bonga, Steve Noble et al.

Check out the December issue here.

Jez Nelson put together a tribute to Cadillac and Ogun Records and a celebration of their 50th anniversaries on his excellent show Somethin’ Else on Jazz FM last Sunday night.

Over three hours he provides a thorough overview of the history of both labels and features music from Mike Westbrook, Louis Moholo-Moholo, The Brotherhood of Breath, Harry Miller, Elton Dean, Joy and many others. Listen again at this link…

“A cleverly constructed and joyous evening”

The words of Geoff Winston, in his beautiful review for London Jazz News, reflecting on the Cadillac & Ogun records joint 50th anniversary celebration at Café OTO on 28th September.

Recently rediscovered and remastered footage of The Blue Notes playing at Ronnie Scott’s Old Place held us spellbound, the great Mike Westbrook took to the stage with Chris Biscoe to enchant us with an “unpremeditated” collaboration, and Alex Hawkins’ septet rounded off the night with a transcendent intensity well worthy of the occasion.

Many, many thanks to all who have been part of the Cadillac and Ogun stories over the years – too many to mention – and to the staff at Café OTO. Photos below courtesy of Riccardo Bergerone and Karen Wishbone. See also the Cadillac facebook page for more pics and this review (in Italian) in Roman ‘communist’ newspaper Il Manifesto.

Keith Bailey, drummer and composer with Joy, was in the process of mastering the album from the original vinyl when Jim Dvorak put us in touch – serendipity, the great wheel turning, call it what you will. We were delighted to find that he, and the rest of the band, were completely on board with our plans to reissue Joy. We sent transfers of the original 1/4″ tapes and Keith took it from there.

Keith and the other members of the band provided some remarks about the history of the album, which we had to edit down to fit into the CD packaging for the release. We are pleased to be able to publish them in full here – and to correct an error in crediting Keith for the wrong section of text on the packaging. We applied his name to the introduction (which we wrote and Keith edited) but not to his original words. In the spirit of making this right, we present Keith’s comments about the record in full:

“Since I have been the band member who remastered this recording from the master tapes to digital, I have been asked to say a few words about the history of the band. Perhaps it is fair to say that the genesis of the band, JOY, was formed in the early 1970’s initially from the association between Chris Francis and myself. When I was the drummer with the Graham Bond Initiation, and whilst performing at the Speakeasy Club in London, Alexis Korner brought Chris down to meet with me. Alexis always had an insight for bringing musicians together. We instantly struck up a bond, being of the same age, and subsequently played together in whatever situation we found ourselves. We constantly played together, even as a duo, performing free-style improvised jazz, and played together in all kinds of conventional and free-jazz ensembles.

“Shortly thereafter, we met up with and added Frank Roberts on piano to our sound-space. Through a mutual friend, Tony Gomez, I met up with trumpet player Jim Dvorak. We spent many long nights listening and analysing music together. Jim had received superb training from the Eastman School of Music in Rochester, NY, USA, and had landed in the UK upon his graduation after receiving his draft card to go to Vietnam to get killed. His mother wisely packed him off to the UK, where we instantly met up and became the best of friends.

“Together we crafted the band that became JOY. The three became four, and eventually, after several great bass players, we added the beautiful melodic bass of Ernest Mothle, from South Africa. I had met Ernest whilst performing with Chris McGregor’s Brotherhood of Breath.

“Being a drummer, I had secured my London apartment as a space for rehearsals (for many bands) and we rehearsed almost every other day for many years, thrashing out our sound and identity.

“Eventually, we began to perform gigs in the London circuit and began to pack venues. We became ‘hot,’ and ‘super hip,’ and began to be interviewed for national music magazines. We were different to other bands, in that we were ‘straight ahead,’ and had emerged from the ‘free-style’ that was prevalent at that time, although we had all enjoyed playing in that style and idea, or rather, idea and style, since the idea must come before the ‘style.’

“In 1976 we were entered for and received the Young Jazz Musician’s Award from the Greater London Arts Association, which gave us two years of guaranteed paid gigs throughout the UK, plus the LP recording (produced by John Jack of Cadillac Records) and the sponsor of the 100 Club in Oxford Street, London, an important venue at that time.

“Hence, this album. Due to the pecuniary time constraints, this recording is mainly of one-take studio performances of each piece all in one day without edits.

“For many years, I never listened to this vinyl recording and forgot all about it.  I think I listened to it just once, and never again, because initially it was such a bad press.  And then in 2019, since I work a lot in a local San Diego studio (near to where I now live), I decided to convert the vinyl recording to digital and remastered it.  I found myself amazed at the performance virtuosity of the band members of JOY.  It was a sort of revelation to the effect of: “The older I get, the better I used to sound!” And then, as a sort of déjà vu, Mike Gavin from Cadillac Records contacted us to propose a re-release of this album on both digital and vinyl. And so, I remastered the recordings again in the same studio in San Diego, this time from the original Master tapes kindly provided by Mike.”

April 5th 2023 marks the 50th anniversary of Cadillac Records, the DIY label set up by John Jack and Mike Westbrook in 1973 to release Mike’s album Live! (SGC1001). To commemorate this momentous event ace designer Frode Sorensen has reworked the famous Cadillac logo for the anniversary – cleaning it up and giving it a modern spin – and the label will celebrate with a selection of reissues from our back catalogue and a live event at Cafe Oto on 28th September 2023 with our sister label Ogun Recordings.

Schedule for the first half of 2023:

SGCS1023 Younger Zen – Oy Me Redentor – Third digital single from Trinidad steel pan project.

SGC020 Jazz Doctors – Intensive Care: Prescriptions Filled – The Billy Bang Quartet sessions 1983/1984. Reissue of the 1984 LP for the first time on CD including a whole new session. Featuring Frank Lowe, Billy Bang, Rafael Garrett, Dennis Charles, Wilbur Morris, Thurman Barker.

SGCLP020 Jazz Doctors – Intensive Care. The original 1984 album, remastered and reissued on vinyl.

SGC022 Joy – Joy. First time on CD, remastered from the tapes with extra tracks and new notes. Brilliant lost recording from great 70s British band featuring Chris Francis, James Dvorak, Frank Roberts, Ernest Mothle, Keith Bailey.

SGCLP022 Joy – Joy. Reissue of the 1976 LP remastered from the tapes and including extended versions of 2 tracks.

SGCLP023 Johnny Dyani – Rejoice. Reissue on vinyl LPSGCLP024 Johnny Dyani – Together. Reissue on vinyl LP.

Cadillac Records was founded by John Jack and Mike Westbrook in 1973. It was a DIY label before the term was invented, a vehicle initially intended to release Mike’s albums when, as part of a wider malaise that affected jazz in the mid 70s, the major labels that had supported the new generation of artists withdrew into the conservative, money-minded cul-de-sac that has in retrospect proved their downfall.

John Jack took the opportunity offered and ran with it in characteristic fashion, fashioning a boutique label that reflected his wide tastes and anarchic personality. From his old friends Ken Colyer and Stan Tracey, to albums by modern tyros Frank Lowe, David Murray and up and coming UK artists Joy, Andy Sheppard & Hornweb, the only rationale was the musical one. 

When Cadillac Music & Publishing owner John Jack died on 7 September 2017 he was still working on a number of projects for release on the label. In order to bring some of these projects into the light Cadillac will continue to trade as a label, reissuing out of print recordings and bringing out never before issued gems from Cadillac’s dusty archive.