Friday 24 July 2009

1766 And all that Jazz

On Thursday 24th July 2009 I watched and listened to Chris Barber and Acker Bilk play live again for the first time in close on fifty years, along with Kenny Ball who I have never seen, although I have one of his records. In order to set the scene for the concert at the 02 Indigo arena in the former Millennium Dome Building I had walked the streets of Soho and along Oxford Street in the morning beforehand and again on Friday. This conjured once more afresh the memories of my years between the ages of 16 and 22 when I regularly attended the 100 club in Oxford Street and the Cy Laurie Club in Great Windmill Street as well as other clubs featuring traditional jazz. The choice of clubs was determined by a work colleague who I would meet up with after work on a Friday or meet up with on a Sunday, as he would going to the local Palais on a Saturday. I was under 18 at first but then I would go on my own a Saturday and sometimes a Monday to the 100.

I had set off mid morning as it rained catching the first available bus which headed in the right direction from a stop approaching Kings Cross Station. More about the changing and ongoing face of Kings Cross and the Houseman’s Book shop and publisher of Peace News in the second piece. The bus struggled against the volume of traffic and road works as it laboured to Warwick Street Station, Regents Park Station and Baker Street Station and the street made famous in the Sherlock Holmes Conan Doyle Stories. The bus then turned into Harley Street, the traditional home of private medical practice in the UK and along the way I had also noted a shop exclusively selling chess and bridge sets and also a private social work agency. Passing Madam Tussauds and the Planetarium where I have only made two visits to Tussauds and one to the Planetarium, several decades ago there were long queues.

The bus then took the route of the coach into London I got off outside of the Selfridges Food Hall. Selfridges is celebrating its 100 years of history and this was the one store where my birth and care mothers and their elder sister would visit on their rare visits to London because the food hall supplied Mediterranean salami. I doubt if there was a food hall as such in those post war days or that it resembled the present collection of specialist eating areas and specialist grocery suppliers. At the cheap level there is a hamburger, pies, sausage and mash bar with prices similar to those on the motorway service areas while at the other extreme half a dozen Oysters with champagne is available at £25 or with caviar around £250. There was one young woman who appeared to know the young man serving and then a second young woman arrived on her own. She appeared to be no more twenty, with only the best grooming and contemporary outfit money could by. I return to see her again after making the rest of the tour around hall has she was sipping from a champagne glass while waiting for the eats to be served. I longed to find out her story why was there?

There was also a Thai food, and a Sushi Bar and hot beef sandwiches. And then there was the seller of salami and olives with 100 grams ranging from £2,50 to £5.99 but it all looked delicious. This delay and going to find the gents in John Lewis meant that I arrived at Humph’s around 12.30 only find that there was the monthly lunch time Trad jazz session underway from 11.30 to 2.30 organised by the Ken Coyer foundation. Had I arrived earlier or did not have the concert in the evening I would have been tempted. Another year I will better organised.

Before reaching Soho I was struck by the number of young women wearing the briefest of shorts and having the whitest of long legs and the number with shaped uplift bras who were exhibiting their assets with confidence. I wondered how many realised that a few hundred years away their dress would have been interpreted differently, even today because the sleazy side of Soho remains although it predominantly remains a place to eat out or drink with a little food. I entered the Soho Square end tried for the second time to remember where the basement coffee car was located and I had cleared tables and checked the sugar containers when doing shifts for a girl to whom I had been introduced by George Clark then unpaid organiser for the London region CND who had warned about drugs. The coffee bar was the home of the New Left and was totalled the 2.is which was located at the other end in Old Crompton Street and where there is a plaque.

There is major works going in and around Soho Square with Dean Street cut off. I went along Dean Street to take a peak at the menu at what used to be Leoni’s Quo Vadis but is now run by the brothers Hart brothers but have developed the complex with includes the traditional street side dining room, with a club and function rooms above and what appeared to be a new bar and terrace through a court yard behind. I was taken to eat there after being invited to talk about my prison experience to a large gathering of gays around 1961/3 and had never eaten in such a fine restaurant before. I went again two decades later to celebrate an event and was prepared for the amount of the final tally. There would be little difficulty in marking up £50 before drink to day. Best though is to have company to share a sea food platter started for £40 followed by a whole roast chicken for £30. There would be no sharing of the chocolate profiteroles at £6.50 and were delicious when enjoyed three decades ago. There is a twelve page wine list and with company I would go for an inexpensive Sancerre with the fish and a Beaujolais with the chicken, champagne with the pudding. Immediately next to Quo Vadis is the oldest Strip show town called the Sunset Strip which used to look seedy from the outside entrance but was very popular because of a comparative small fixed charge gentlemen could be entertained from midday to midnight. Now there is a colourful glitzy bar at the entrance but there is no touting for custom. Before reaching the sordid end I should mention Ken Colyer’s Club in Great Newport Street which I visited only a couple of times as in those days there were Ken Colyer fans and there were Cy Laurie fans. According to one source the Skiffle club was opened on the first floor of the Roundhouse Pub in Wardour Street but the all nighter I attended was at the Skiffle cellar and my recollection is that it was at the basement level one went up for a walkabout Soho at 3 am rather than down. Ronnie Scott open at Gerrard Street in 1959 and is now in Frith Street with the Marquis also in Wardour Street. This led the way to the Piccadilly end and Cy Laurie.

Before then I did take a detour en route to Great Newport Street to close to Cambridge Circus where a whole side street is boarded at ground level as the buildings are being worked for development. Near here are still a couple of restaurants where I have had evening meals in the past along with several others in central Soho. There is also the Stockport, one of two locations in London and which offers two course simple fare for under £7 and are ideal if you want solid food and do not want to pay a premium for ambiance. As I went towards Great Windmill Street I did pass one open door way with a handwritten sign which said welcome and an arrow pointing up the stairs to Models. Until the Street Offences Act of 1959 the girls would parade all around Soho but after that they disappeared up 100 stairways offering models or massage.
Cy Laurie was located in a door in what was Ham Yard in Great Windmill Street and which no longer exists. It was close to the Windmill Theatre where the posing was still life and now boasts 100 young women in an international revue setting but there internet research indicates there are also areas for companies to arrange private night outs or few individual executives to spend their latest bonus. While the milk bar at the Piccadilly end has long gone there is still someone offering hot salt beef sandwiches and where I would sometimes eat what was my evening meal before joining others in the agreed pub of meeting, wondering if the young women were from across the way or literally off the street.

As it started to down pour as I left the Cineworld Trocadero I abandoned continuation of the Soho walkabout for the Underground and invested in a £5.60 zones 1 and 2 ticket. From the Circus I changed at green Park for the Jubilee and made my way two hours earlier than anticipated to the 02 Dome. The station with its two taxis zones and bus station has been completed and there is now a glass canopy walkway to the main entrance where bags and any technology is checked electronically together with a and held survey of the body. However there is continued work to one side of the outside of the Dome and there are major developments in the area between the Dome and the Pier head. I had a good walk around before finding a quiet seat close to the new permanent exhibition of the history of British music from 1945 and includes the Soho jazz scene remembered on my walkabout. Inside the Indigo 02 there was the offer of a £5 discount on the entrance price of £15 for adults and I did considered going there on Friday. Sunday remains a possibility.

The reason for finding a quiet location was eat my spicy chicken wings and juicy cherries. This was early around 5 so I then headed for the Slug and Lettuce where I found myself a window table overlooking the VIP entrance to the Indigo 02 and settled down to write these notes, read some Sons and Lovers and drink Peroni beer. Food and drink for the day had so far cost £11.60 from Marks and Spencer’s St Pancras and some fizzy water, I did not fancy the cherry flavoured still from a machine outside the Cineworld. This increased to £20 with the Peroni which I drank slowly in half pints. The door were opened at 7 and I made my way to a little queue at the public entrance around ten past and was surprised to find a good crowd inside.

The Indigo is bigger than anticipated with the ground level audience in a semi circle around the stage and along soft lit bar at the rear. I did attempt to explore the balcony which was roped off as explained by a burley gentleman who guarded the other stairway to the VIP lounge. My seat was in the last row of the first block of seat from the central aisle and I was able to have the aisle seat after no one showed up. I would say that the lower level was three quarters full and those at the far sides moved into thee spare more central seats at the first interval. The atmosphere is that of a nightclub and eminently suitable for jazz with a first class sound and lighting system. It was a bigger setting that three band have experienced since the late 1950’s.

The three bands performed separately and there was no collective of the three B’s or guest players from former times. It was in effect a commercial launch of the double CD
Boaters, Bowlers and Bowties which is a remix of 40 titles including their big hits and which include half a dozen songs by Ottilie Paterson. Copies were being sold for £15 at the concert although Amazon has then post free £12. There was some signing of copies for this price although I was not sure if all sold on night were included. For some the biggest disappointment was that Chris Barber with his Big Band was that he made no attempt to recapture his early sound except for two spirituals. One problem was the departure of his trumpet player Pat Halcox after fifty years and the early retirement of Ottilie Paterson after she developed throat problems in the late 1970’s.

It is also interesting that in otherwise excellent web site Chris does not mention that he played as part of the Cy Laurie Band in the early 1950’s along with Alan Elsdon and Al Fairweather and that George Melly first performed with the band in 1948 and it has always surprised that he never received recognition or popularity in the way many of the other did despite living and playing until the 1990’s. He died in 2002. There is a query about what happened to him between 1960 and 1968.Geerge became a living legend and I saw him perform with Mick Mulligan at the Great Windmill Street Club Ian Christie and Archie Simple were members of the group. Mick had problems with Alcohol and later managed George. He then retired to run a grocery store and also involved in horse racing where he had some success owning Forever my Lord.

Chris started out as a trombonist with Humphrey Littleton. It has also to be remembered that the original Ken Colyer band was in effect the subsequent Chris Barber with Pat Halcox replacing him. Ken wanted to play as authentic New Orleans style jazz as possible while Chris was interested in developing a more commercial sound. It was Monty Sunshine who had the million record sales with Petite Fleur, He formed his own band around 1960 but attended was what to have been a one off concert in Croydon in 1975 but they went on an international tour in the 1990’s. He retired in 2001 and is now in his 80’s. I was disappointed that he had Ottilie with Pat Halcox did not take a bow on stage. Lonnie Donegan the Banjo guitarist who established Skiffle with a washboard and tea chest base. He became an international artist achieving success in the US market and with a succession of top 30 hits. He died in 2002. My only public performance as a washboard player was the Finance Department annual dinner for Croydon Council in 1958.

Having said that some were disappointed that Chris did not replay his old music I like the sound of the Big Band and his decision to attract some fine younger musicians especially Zoltan Sagi who plays reed instruments, given his own age of 79 those in their forties to sixties are young!

The middle band of the evening was Acker Bilk and his Paramount Jazz men. He became known for his goatee beard, bowler hat and waistcoat in the middle 1950’s and then had the major hit Stranger on the Shore written for a TV series. Acker has a number of outstanding musicians with him notably Enrico Tomasso who was part of Roxy Music for a time and is generally considered one of the best jazz trumpet players of past forty decades. Strangers on shore with in the UK hit parade for almost a year. At the age of 80 he struggled more than most of his colleagues and it was not clear if the constant checking on what he was to do was an act or he is suffering the early stages of memory loss. He phased his performance with jokes which were OK. Man and his dog lost in the dessert with a supply of water and matches but no food so the begin to eye each other and the dog lost so eventually there was just a pile of bones so man says looking at he bones pity about that as his dog friend of many years liked a good bone. Jazz colleague lives in a small town with a great bakery where there is usually a small queue. Lady comes in and goes to the front and man says excuse me madam do not you realise there is a queue. She says if you were a gentleman you would not object, he says this is a bread queue not a life boat. There were another half dozen of the same standard but expanded. The final band was Kenny Ball who had commercial success with Midnight in Moscow which sold over a million copies and gained popularity in he USA. He is the only British Jazzman to have been made an honorary citizen of New Orleans. He learnt showmanship with Sid Phillips and Eric Delaney bands. One of the present band joined 50 years ago and another forty. His session was the most entertaining and he had the audience singing, standing on their feet and waving their hands at the end with All you need is love.

This brings me to the audience who were mainly grey haired who I spotted as they also came for a drink or perhaps a drink and light meal in the Slug and Lettuce beforehand. There were some young people often with parents grand parents. We also enjoyed jokes about being passed our bedtime, welcome again to a live concert after fifty years and where is the cocoa. I spoke with a couple who wanted to know if an aisle seat across the way was vacant as they husband was very tall around 7ft and his wife just a little shorter, He has only found out the concert after hearing Chris Barber on the radio the previous day and had rushed over to get tickets. When working on the Observer he worked with Wally Fawkes who worked also as a Cartoonist Trog who created Flook. He is now in is mid eights, has been married twice with six children, five who survive. He was a founder member of the Humphrey Littleton band and he also played with George Melly and John Chilton and the Feetwarmers. It was that kind of night. Chris mentioned his tour with Howard McGhee and Sonny Terry and this as occasion when Sandy Brown played When the Saints for about half an hour at the end of the Riverboat Shuffle to Margate and back and we had trouble docking on the return journey. I remember one the two visitors from the USA saying to other up on deck as were about to arrive. It blowing my mind man when the saints.

Meanwhile we all rushed to ensure we got on our way to our destinations in all four corners of London. Managed to catch a Jubilee line to London Bridge Station just before eleven thirty and against there was a train waiting for Kings Cross so I was back just after midnight, well more like 12.30 by the time I had settled in.

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