BMG has announced that on June 30, 2023 it will release Anthology, a collection of Charlie Watt’s jazz recordings, drawn from a 20-year period during which he led a big band, as well as smaller groups like a quartet, quintet and tentet. Amongst the musicians featured on the 2-CD/2-Vinyl compilation from the late Rolling Stones drummer are saxophonists Peter King, Evan Parker and Courtney Pine, trumpeter Gerard Presencer, bassist Dave Green and vocalist/percussionist Bernard Fowler.
The set pulls music from numerous jazz albums Watts recorded beginning in 1986 with Live at Fulham Town Hall. Other albums include From One Charlie (1991) A Tribute to Charlie Parker with Strings (1992), Warm and Tender (1993) and Long Ago and Far Away (1996), Charlie Watts – Jim Keltner Project (2000), and Watts at Scott's (2004). The double album also includes three tracks from a performance by Watts and his group at Swindon Arts Centre, featuring versions of “Rockhouse Boogie,” “Ain't Nobody Minding Your Store,” and “Swindon Swing.” Liner notes for Anthology are written by music journalist and radio host Paul Sexton, author of Charlie's Good Tonight: The Authorised Biography of Charlie Watts.
"Everyone knows he was a big jazz fan," bassist Darryl Jones told me in an interview for JazzTimes, shortly after Watts' death. "You can certainly hear Papa Jo Jones in his playing. I know he loved all the swing and bebop guys: Dave Tough, Kenny Clarke, Max Roach, Philly Joe Jones … he was friends with Roy Haynes. I can’t say specifically which drummers influenced him but when he played a fill, that wasn’t a rock & roll fill. It wasn’t really straightforward. He also dug the Motown guys like Benny Benjamin and Al Jackson from Al Green’s band. He had all of those influences and all of those things went together into him creating this school of rock & roll drumming. He was also self-taught, so that creates a very particular kind of thing. If you’re self-taught, there’s less of a blueprint. It’s not easily copyable."