Jazz Sabbath

7 Jazz tracks from the 1969 lost tapes (later made famous by Black Sabbath).

Formed in 1968, Jazz Sabbath were considered by many to be at the forefront of the new English jazz movement. The eagerly awaited debut album, scheduled for release on Friday 13th February 1970, but the album was cancelled when news broke that founding member and pianist Milton Keanes was hospitalised with a massive heart attack which left him fighting for his life. The record company took the decision to shelve the album and cancel the scheduled release out financial uncertainty of releasing a debut album from a band without its musical leader.

When Milton was finally released from hospital in September 1970, he found out that a band from Birmingham, conveniently called ‘Black Sabbath’, had since released two albums containing metal versions of what he claims were his songs.

Milton tried to contact his record label, Rusty Bedsprings Records, only to find out it didn’t exist anymore and the label owner was in jail. All recalled Jazz Sabbath albums had been destroyed when the warehouse burned down in June 1970; which turned out to be a case of insurance fraud by the label owner, leaving only a few bootleg tapes of Jazz Sabbath’s live performances between 1968 and 1969 as proof of existence.

The album masters were said to be lost in the fire, but were actually misplaced and gathered dust in the basement vaults of the recording studio for many years, destined never to see the light of day.

In late 2019, nearly 50 years later, the man who bought the building where the recording studio had been located found the master recording tapes, which contained the original masters from the 1969 recording sessions. These tapes have now been remixed and will finally be heard.

The album will prove that the heavy metal band worshipped by millions around the world are in fact nothing more than musical charlatans, thieving the music from a bedridden, hospitalised genius.