Chaz Jankel 50 Years

I guess some think of Chaz Jankel as a one-hit guy with Ai No Corrida, but he has done much, much more and in fact is still musically active!

Chas (the 'z' would come later!) started early with taking musical lessons, first guitar, later piano. At first inspired by Lonnie Donegan's skiffle sounds, his biggest influence was probably Sly and the Family Stone, laying a solid base for his funk and soul work over the years.

He first played professionally with folk-rock band Byzantium as a vocalist, guitarist and keyboardist, but his funky clothes were in sharp contrast with the rest of the band's blue jeans look. Even so, he lasted for 2 albums before moving on to a very different band...

Through a chance meeting with the band's guitarist Chas joined Kilburn & The High Roads, the beginning of a highly successful partnership with the lead singer: Ian Dury. Musically the band were rather odd to say the least, playing a mix of pub rock and music hall style songs with vocals handled by the charismatic Dury. Despite the live reputation their studio recordings didn't sell much and Chas suggested to Ian to try something different...

Exit Kilburn & The High Roads, and welcome Ian Dury and The Blockheads, a very different brew thanks to Chaz(!)'s soul and funk input. Quite a few hits followed but Chaz kept on writing other style songs as well. As these were more suitable for himself he started a solo career with considerable success, songs like Ai No Corrida, Glad To Know You, Number One, a.o., became serious hits.

Besides his occasional work with The Blockheads (even after Ian's death), Chaz has also been active as a composer of soundtracks (D.O.A.), jazz musician (Out of the Blue), and surprisingly enough as a blues guitarist releasing an excellent album with Michael Messer last year.

Although a few compilations of Chaz's solo funk and soul work for A&M have been released over the years, this 19 track collection focuses more on his total career, from his first 1974 solo single One Morning One Evening to I Have Seen The Light from the 2024 album Mostly We Drive. 

There are no recordings of Chaz playing with Kilburn & The High Roads, but I found a later version with him: Ian Dury and The Kilburns' I Made Mary Cry, a rather gruesome tale! Ian Dury's New Boots And Panties!! (2004 Expanded Remaster) album had a lot of bonus tracks of Ian & Chaz making demos together of the tracks, such as I'm Partial To Your Abracadabra, that later would be finalized with The Blockheads.

Highly-respected portrait artist Humphrey Ocean was a close friend of Ian Dury and had briefly played bass in Kilburn & The High Roads. In 1979, the lanky painter had his own novelty song released on Stiff, under the title of Humphrey Ocean & The Hardy Annuals.  The A-side of BUY 29 was Whoops A Daisy, a joint effort by Ocean, Dury, Jankel and one-time Kilburns pianist and co-writer Russell Hardy. This is followed by a selection of tracks from his solo albums, Chasanova / Questionnaire, Chazablanca, and Looking At You.

The remainder of this collection consists of later work, such as one-off single Nicaragua and single tracks from the following albums: Out Of The Blue, Zoom, Greed, Flow, and The Submarine Has Surfaced. 

A song from a later version of The Blockheads is included as well: Greed (radio edit), plus Chaz's tinkering about with the D.O.A. soundtrack...

Bonus track: I'll Always Be Your Friend from Byzantium's 1973 Seasons Changing lp with Chas on lead vocal!