Ray Russell

Among the musicians comprising the final configuration of the John Barry Seven, guitarist Ray Russell achieved the widest recognition through his subsequent work across jazz and rock. Although celebrated first and foremost as a technically masterful jazz guitarist, he has also composed, arranged, and produced extensively across multiple styles. He joined Barry’s ensemble at age 15 and contributed to seven James Bond film scores spanning Thunderball in 1965 through Octopussy in 1983. His own recording career opened with the 1968 album Turn Circle, which rapidly confirmed his stature in jazz, whereas the 1971 release Rites and Rituals extended his reach into forward-looking electric jazz. As a sought-after session player he appeared on numerous 1970s albums by performers that included Bill Fay and Julio Iglesias. At the same time he composed, arranged, produced, and performed on numerous sound-library projects; his website lists more than 10,000 such credits. During the 1980s and 1990s he continued issuing dozens of library albums, formed the fusion trio RMS alongside Mo Foster and Simon Phillips, and maintained a long association with Gil Evans that lasted until Evans’s passing. He also took part in notable recordings by Tina Turner, Heaven 17, and Scott Walker, and supplied guitar to the David Bowie vocal theme for the film Labyrinth. The 2006 archival album Goodbye Svengali assembled previously unreleased sessions he had recorded in Evans’s company. In 2008 he helped establish Made Up Music, a library whose tracks are delivered digitally while hard drives are dispatched directly to music editors. In 2015 he and Henry Kaiser issued the well-received Celestial Squid.

Russell, born in 1947, learned of an opening in the John Barry Seven when he read that longtime guitarist Vic Flick was departing; on a day off from his day job he auditioned, secured the position by claiming he could read music, and subsequently acquired notation skills while already demonstrating his command of the instrument. His ability was never in doubt, and he proved a capable replacement for Flick, beginning his film-score work with Thunderball in 1965. He remained until the band dissolved in early 1965 and, through his continued connection with Barry, participated in seven additional James Bond soundtracks over the next two decades. He next occupied the guitar chair in Georgie Fame & the Blue Flames, and by the close of the 1960s he was collaborating regularly with Chris Spedding in the Mike Gibbs band—an association that had begun intermittently in 1963—alongside bassist Jack Bruce and reedman Alan Skidmore. Signing with CBS, he issued his first solo album, the acclaimed Turn Circle, in 1968.

In the 1970s he delivered another CBS set, Dragon Hill, featuring horn players Harry Beckett and Nick Evans with his trio; reviewers highlighted its display of his blues and jazz technique while noting his growing interest in freer forms. His final CBS outing, the 1971 album Rites and Rituals—initially underappreciated yet now viewed as a classic—drew equally from free jazz and post-bop. He served as guitarist for both of Bill Fay’s early albums, the self-titled debut and the celebrated Time of the Last Persecution, and the two maintained a friendship and professional relationship into the twenty-first century. In 1973 he explored free improvisation on Secret Asylum, issued by Black Lion, the label founded by Blue Note’s Alfred Lion.

Russell’s path also led through the Rock Workshop and Ian Carr’s jazz-rock ensemble Nucleus. With keyboardist Ann Odell and drummer Simon Phillips he co-founded Chopyn. He appeared with Roxy Music’s Andy Mackay on the soundtrack for the British television series Rock Follies and spent a period as a member of Stackridge. He played guitar for Smith & D’Abo and took part in the benefit concerts known as The Secret Policeman’s Ball with Eric Clapton, Neil Innes, and others, both onstage and on recordings. Additional credits include the soundtrack for the Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band film and the original cast recording of Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice’s Evita. In 1977 he released the fusion album Ready or Not with Phillips, Peter Van Hooke, Foster, Tony Hymas, and strings. While his sideman work encompassed seminal recordings by Frankie Miller and the Sensational Alex Harvey Band, he simultaneously began contributing to British library-music companies, first as a session guitarist and later as composer, arranger, and producer.

Early in the 1980s he performed and recorded the music of Gil Evans. His library-music output expanded rapidly; he issued dozens of albums for Bruton Music and other catalogs, occasionally in tandem with Alan Hawkshaw. Sideman appearances continued on releases by Heaven 17, Mike Batt, Lucio Battisti, Julien Clerc, Tina Turner, Julian Lennon, and Scott Walker, among others.

Russell subsequently led his own Ray Russell Band. Throughout the 1980s and 1990s he performed frequently at the Montreux Jazz Festival in varying ensembles, including Simon Phillips’s group, while continuing to produce library albums. He also issued Childscape in 1987—featuring Evans and Mark Isham—on the Theta label (later reissued repeatedly), A Table Near the Band in 1990 on Last Chance Music, 1993’s Centennial Park with RMS, and the 2006 Evans tribute Goodbye Svengali on Cuneiform, which combined previously unreleased Evans collaborations with newly recorded material. In 2007 he released Secret Asylum, a 1973 tape that had remained unissued until then; it later received wider distribution, and some of his early pop recordings made with Joe Meek likewise resurfaced. In 2008 he, drummer Ralph Salmins, and engineer Rik Walton established Made Up Music, an archive and licensing operation whose holdings were sold digitally and supplied on hard drives to film music editors; the company later merged with 5 Alarm Music. In 2012 he and drummer Alan Rushton appeared on Bill Fay’s comeback album Life Is People.

Russell resumed his own recording with the 2013 jazz-rock album Now, More Than Ever for Abstract Logix. Persuaded by guitarist Henry Kaiser in 2014 to revisit the improvisational language of his earliest work, he co-led the octet release The Celestial Squid, recorded live at Fantasy Studios and issued by Cuneiform in early 2015—the same year he appeared on Fay’s Who Is the Sender? In 2018 he again collaborated with Mackay on 3 Psalms, and the following year joined Mackay and guitarist Phil Manzanera on Roxymphony while also guesting on Greg Foat’s The Mage. In May 2020 the archival label Jazz In Britain released the Ray Russell Quartet’s Spontaneous Event: Live, Vol. 1: 1967-69. September 2020 brought Fluid Architecture on Cuneiform, featuring Phillips, Salmins, Foster, saxophonist Chris Biscoe, and bassist/Chapman Stick player George Baldwin.