THE DEATH OF AN
EARLY PIONEER AND JAZZ PROMOTER
FROM MANCHESTER’S ONCE THRIVING JAZZ SCENE
By: Joe A A Silmon-Monerri 14th October 2014
At a time when, unfortunately, far too many of our old friends and
colleagues are dying, I was informed by Bill Birch, author of
"Keeper Of The Flame", that Eric Scriven, not a local musician as
such, but one of the Scene's most ardent and dedicated Jazz
promoters, sadly died on 13th October 2014, of bone-cancer, after
suffering from this disease for several months. He was eighty-eight.
Bill Birch’s book is about the Manchester Modern Jazz Scene,
1946-72. Bill, who will be eighty himself next birthday, has given
me his kind permission, personally, to quote where necessary, from
his above great book. I shall do that sparingly, as I have sources
of my own that I will use shortly to tell you about Eric Scriven in
as much detail as I can muster about his indispensable
involvement. For a far better personal account of Eric’s life and
times, however, and as a microcosm of his book’s overall intention,
I would urge everyone to consult Bill Birch's massive, highly
informative and beautifully illustrated book. Bill had greater and
more frequent contact than I had with Eric Scriven, and as an
ex-Jazz bassist and seasoned journalist, his erudition sets a far
higher and more skilled benchmark than my humble renderings will.
Everyone knows - I think - that Harry Giltrap and Eric Lister were
the earliest pioneers of the Manchester 1940s Jazz Revival, and they
were possibly the men who started the Revival off all over
Britain. Harry himself certainly set up the Delta Rhythm Kings as
early as 1942, Eric Lister resuming his involvement locally after
the end of the War. Another well known Jazz appreciator, Jack
Gregory, would soon become heavily involved in the next band to be
set up, the Smoky City Stompers. But he was more so, at first, with
Derek Atkins Dixielanders. This was the first local band to be set
up for live performances at the Clarendon, following every Jazz
record recital. Jack, along with Ted Roberts (pianist/organist) and
Alan Hare, both DAD bandsmen later and Derek “Mo” Mosedale
(clarinet), soon to be part of the Bluenote Jazz Band, formed the
committee governing the Manchester Dixieland Jazz Club based at the
Edinburgh Hall, Moss Side, founded in c. 1947-1948, following record
sessions and recitals at Frascatti’s, Oxford Road. Jack Gregory, the
kingpin and mouthpiece of the later Clarendon Hotel activities
(recitals/live sessions) at the South Lancashire Rhythm Club,
subsequently renamed ‘The Manchester Jazz Club’, forerunner of
today’s Manchester Jazz Society, stuck to the Traditional medium,
until the Pop craze hit Manchester in the 1960s and most promoters
found more lucrative pickings in that medium, though not necessarily
Jack, I hasten to add. Meanwhile, Eric Scriven had acquired other
tastes besides Traditional Jazz, later rigidly sticking to promoting
Modern Jazz only, never wavering from that course right up to the
end of his beloved Club 43, in the mid-1970s, the demise of which he
lamented in serialised articles in Alice Garnett’s “Jazz Times” in a
later decade. However, although crestfallen, he continued his
activities indirectly as a promoter.
Nevertheless, Eric Scriven's contribution, from day-1 of his
involvement, was gargantuan. He came into the local Jazz fraternity,
after being exposed to the music that permeated the airwaves during
wartime, wafted over embattled seas and the occasional safe
anchorage abroad. He was hooked! It was, at that time (1946), mostly
what we came to know as Traditional Jazz, but then in a purely
American style, or a mixture of several styles, that sometimes
arrived via US Forces personnel, as the records were purchasable
through the PX at most bases. This was not British “Trad”; that
label and genre interpretation was yet to come. Many of the big
wartime 'musicals' in the cinemas blatantly promoted War Bonds
during the mid-40s. They attracted some of the finest artists and
stars of the period, from several parts of the Allied territories.
There were wonderful big-bands such as those of Benny Goodman, Count
Basie, Duke Ellington, Cab Calloway, Harry James, Glenn Miller,
Tommy and Jimmy Dorsey, Woody Hermann, Arty Shaw, as well as small
Jazz combos run be Louis “Satchmo” Armstrong, Bob Crosby’s Bobcats,
Jack Teagarden and great singing stars and wonderful close-harmony
groups of the day. Eric needed to be involved in making others join
in the fun. Therefore, that is what he set out to do locally, with a
vengeance!
Early sessions were at Frascatti's Restaurant, in All Saints, then
nearest to the Refuge Insurance Building and Roadhouse's Bakery.
Like Jack Gregory, Eric Scriven had also started out as an
appreciator of Traditional and Dixieland styles by 1946. Therefore,
he was one of the early pioneers, but, as we have seen, not the
earliest! Nevertheless, he played a significant role over the
following three decades in attracting to Manchester not only the
cream of British Jazz, but also many foreign counterparts from the
land of Jazz – the USA - on which I shall expand later. Back in
1948, however, Eric set up Club 24 at the Grove Inn, in Fairfield,
arranging for Thursday sessions starting at 7:30 p.m. Between 1948
and 1949, the policy was ‘Bop’ Dixieland’, ‘Swing’. This club had
had its origins at 24 Port Street, off Piccadilly and Newton Street
(the building exists to this day). As Bill Birch rightly suggests,
and proves both pictorially and textually in his book, during the
mid-1940s, someone else was also highly instrumental in setting up
an active interest in Rebop and its later counterparts, Bebop and
Bop. Dancer Tony Stuart, please see Bill’s book for the finer
detail, was attracting large numbers of US servicemen from
Burtonwood, Warrington, in specially laid on coaches – who also
frequented the “Band On The Wall” on Swan Street, with equal
regularity. They poured into his newly acquired Astoria Club on
Plymouth Grove, where Derek Atkins also played in a dance-band and
in Dixieland outfits. The emphasis in the mid-40s was Bop.
Tony Stuart’s influence on the local Jazz appreciation element must,
therefore, also be borne in mind, despite the fact that this would
always be a much more commercially viable sphere than the world in
which purists and other Jazzers were to have their being, in some
seedy little spit-and-sawdust venues. That was the big difference at
the time between the authentic promoters of Jazz for Jazz’s sake,
and entrepreneurial ventures. Stuart had put Modern Jazz on the
scene on a commercial scale. The other promoters were doing it all
out of their love for whatever style they followed. Running
concurrently, there was the Creole Jazz Club, established c.
1949-50. The address is not to hand. However, the personnel in the
Club’s subsequent band was as follows, from a club card formerly in
the possession of Derek Atkins: [only initials and surnames given]:
B. Connell (tpt); G. Braithwaite (tbn). V. McClung (clt), D. Fisher
(pno); G. Hardman (gtr); D. Statham (drs); “Mr” Statham (bjo); V.
Gill (vocal). Clearly, from the personnel listed here, and their
instrumentation, this was no Bebop club. Unfortunately, as each
player is only listed by initials, the only musician I can identify
from this list, is Bob Connell (tpt), later in 1949 a member of the
Saints Jazz Band.
By 1950, the Reno Club was set up. Thanks to another elaborate club
card provided by the late Derek Atkins, we are able to see its
infrastructure, and it involved Eric Scriven. This club had had a
former name [not known], but it was now renamed in honour of its new
President, Mr Jim Reno, proprietor of Reno’s Music Shop on Oxford
Street, and then facing the Palace Theatre, the lower level of this
prime location is now a Sainsbury’s corner store. Eric Scriven
played a role in running this club, that in time would attract
musicians from London for Sunday sessions. Jim Reno donated several
musical instruments, to start the ball rolling. The club had a
resident Jazz outfit that now consisted of all Bop Jazz-based
performers. The membership card shows the following:
RENO CLUB
MANAGEMENT
RESIDENT GROUP
Hon. President: James Reno
Eric Scriven William Carroll
The Johnny Brown Bop Group
Group
Personnel:
J Brown (tpt); J Evans (a/sx); E Burnett (pno); L
Dawson (dms); V Sowers (d/bs)
(Johnny Brown,
Johnny Evans, Eric Burnett, Les Dawson, Vic. Sowers)
All of the above musicians are not only referred to in the text, but
also photographically – and very clearly – in Bill Birch’s book. It
was Derek Atkins’s club card that identified the surnames, while
Bill’s book assisted me in identifying their forenames. So, my
thanks for both forms of clarification.
I remember Jim Reno – who sold me my first Simple System clarinet
knowing that with a # (sharp) sign stamped on the upper joint, it
would never be in tune with dance-band low pitch instruments – he
told me about Johnny Dankworth making regular visits to the Reno
Club, and bringing great sidemen with him. I’ll bet none of them had
been duped into buying permanently out-of-tune instruments!!! I
believe that those sessions were wonderful. As I bought that
clarinet in approximately 1954 (then a mere lad of seventeen), those
great sessions must have been running for at least five years,
whereby we can pinpoint the year when the sessions started - 1949.
Eric had played a leading role in securing bookings for national and
international entertainers, during this time. He would go on doing
so at his own venues.
Eric Scriven’s Club 43, was established on 2nd December 1951. It had
been named after its location at 43 Port Street, just up the road
from its former counterpart venue at number 24. But it was destined
never to be the club’s permanent address. Yet, it’s name and fame
would reach almost immortality, for the institution that it became,
meant that it would operate successfully at any subsequent location.
Maybe not on the scale of Tony Stuart’s thriving business at the
Astoria, on Plymouth Grove, but certainly as far as local and
international talent was concerned, the calibre of visiting or local
musicians would always be high. Many great local Modernists cut
their teeth at the Club 43 sessions, particularly at the Clarendon,
when it became yet another temporary venue. It was there, that the
great Joe Palin achieved fame almost overnight, especially when
backing London-based and American Jazz stars. Joe was one example of
a leading local traditional musician who realised the limitations of
traditional styles. He took up French horn in the Army and the
nature of the club allowed him to expand his horizons when, after
demobilisation, he returned to the Club. Harry Klein (baritone
sax.), Ken Wray (tbn/v/tbn), Merton Cahm (reeds) and others, had all
been traditionalists to begin with.
All of these musicians saw a restriction-free way ahead in the more
liberal make-up of Modern Jazz. Ken Wray had been a founder member
of Harry Giltrap’s Delta Rhythm Kings. And, what a “bopper” he
turned out to be!!! For my money, Joe Palin’s adaptability to any
style or approach – gained largely at the Club 43 – at whichever
venue Eric and later Ernie Garside chose for its operation, was the
highest degree that any musician ever achieved on the local scene.
Yet, Joe chose to stay ‘local’. Any visiting pro’ from London or
America knew they could rely on Joe Palin’s precision and mastery of
his craft, to get them through the most demanding Modern or
Progressive Jazz pieces. Equally proficient, however, were every
bassist and drummer hired along with Joe. There was a standard below
which a Club 43 musician would never be allowed to fall. Be it Joe
Palin, Eric Ferguson, Johnny Rotherham, Rollie Westwood or Leo
McManus, on piano, and bassists such as Tony Crofts, Paul Bridge,
Ian Taylor, and drummers such as Bob Turner, Dave Edwards, Ken
Leyland, Nigel Cretney, etc., nobody ever played an inferior
session.
Ernie Garside was Eric’s right-hand man in running Club 43, for ever
since I can recall. Together, they were instrumental in booking very
big names from London and the USA. In Eric’s own words from the
May/June 1995 edition of “Jazz Times” (Editor/Distributor: Alice
Garnett), in his article “CLUB 43 – THE END OF AN ERA” he states,
regarding the 1950s:
‘Stroll through the City at night, and you could enjoy a drink in
places like the Bodega, Thatched House, Wheatsheaf Hotel and the
Sports Guild and catch the Saints Jazz Band, Apex Jazz Band, Smoky
City Stompers, Derek Atkins Dixielanders, plus many of the top
British groups of the day … And through all this, the Club 43 at the
Clarendon Hotel in the 50s, was the home of the modernists,
featuring resident groups like the Trond Svennevig Quintet, Ken
Wray/Bobby Wellins Quintet with Doris Steele and the Buddy
Featherstonehough Quartet. The resident rhythm section was led by
Joe Palin and Eric Ferguson, who backed all the top British
modernists of the time – Ronnie Scott, Tubby Hayes, Kathy Stobart,
Don Rendell, Ronnie Ross, Bert Courtley et al, and when funds
allowed London-based groups, such as the Joe Harriot Quintet,
featuring Phil Seaman, were the attractions…’
The 60s and parts of the 70s were even more interesting for Eric’s
Club 43, and for the Modernist-inclined local Jazz fans in general.
However, a compulsory purchase order because of the eventual
demolition and reconstruction of the area surrounding the Clarendon
to make way for the Mancunian Way between 1963 and ’64 meant the
death knell for the Clarendon, and the Club 43 venue was now in
limbo. However, British and American musicians’ unions suppressed
the earlier ban on American performers taking up work in Britain.
This meant that, despite a lay-off of about a year while Eric and
Ernie (not Morecambe and Wise) looked for a suitable replacement
venue, Club 43 might yet have a reprieve and book in some great Jazz
giants. They re-located temporarily to the Manchester Sports Guild.
Eric states in his above article: ‘After about a twelve-month
sabbatical, when Ernie Garside took over the Club 43 promotions,
relocated to the Sports Guild, I was offered the Capriccio Club in
Amber Street [near Balloon Street and Victoria Station]; Ernie and I
joined forces, bought the lease and changed the name to Club 43 –
the rest is history. During the 60s, the Club became famous all over
the world, rivalling the Ronnie Scott Club as Britain’s No. 1 Jazz
Club… Some of the American artists who visited the Club included:
Sonny Rollins, Ben Webster, Dexter Gordon, Sonny Stitt, Johnny
Griffin, Zoot Sims, Al Cohn, Hank Mobley, Art Farmer, Carmel Jones,
Yusef Lateef, Max Roach Quintet, Archie Shepp Quintet and the
Maynard Ferguson Orchestra …’
Ernie Garside, who also played trumpet, went on to join Maynard
Ferguson’s trumpet section for a while in the late 60s, while the
great bandleader spent a brief period away from his native Canada
with his family in Heaton Chapel, during which time he set up
student bands and put them on the road. After Club 43 finally ceased
to operate in the 1970s, Ernie also became Maynard’s Manager and
Eric Scriven travelled abroad for a while to drown his sorrows. The
late John Malloch and his widow Eunice, a regular lecturer at the
Manchester Jazz Society, used to manage the ‘door’ during all the
Club 43 operations. They went on to run similar sessions at the
Warren Bulkeley Hotel, in Stockport, run then by “Pirate” Jim
Jacobs, which was, if I recall correctly, a 6-night-a-week job, with
blind pianist Eddie Thompson at weekends during the mid-late 70s.
The late Eddie was accompanied by the late Pete Taylor (d/bs) and
Pete Staples (dms). Eddie had played solo piano on some of the early
sessions of Club 24 and Club 43, in 1950-51. Eunice and John
performed similar duties at the Birch Hall sessions at Lees, Oldham
during the same period and into the 1980s. Eric conveyed his thanks
to them for their assiduous dedication to duty, which was, I think
voluntary, at the end of the article in the “Jazz Times” of May/June
1995.
Eric Scriven ended the above-quoted article with the following
quotation by Hank Mobley, the last guest who performed at this
memorable venue: “Club 43is one of the best Jazz clubs I have
ever played in”
It was, as
Eric stated, ‘the end of an era’, but it was a truly worthwhile era
for all musicians who performed at the Club 43, for the fans, and
something that Manchester can be really proud of, as the best of the
best of worldwide Jazz passed through its portals at one time or
another.
On behalf of the local Jazz Community and myself, with the kind
permission of jazznorthwest.co.uk and its Webmaster, Fred Burnett, I
wish to extend our joint condolences to the Scriven Family at
this very sad time.
Sincerely
Joe A A Silmon-Monerri ("Joe Silmon")
16/10/14 -
Sorry to hear
about the death of Eric Scriven. I first met Scriv in the '60's and
what a character. What he did for jazz in M/cr. was amazing. I still
remember the sense of disbelief that I could hear Max Roach, Sonny
Rollins etc. a 10 min. drive from my house. The night Archie Shepp
appeared Eric was going round the club telling everyone in his usual
shy, retiring manner what a load of ---- the music was. After the
gig we went on a tour of the shebeens in Moss Side and Eric and
Archie were the best of pals. In his forties Eric moved to L.A. and
I remember him telling me about a club he visited. After a few
drinks he spotted a very small man and promptly sat the man on his
knee and went into a ventriloquist act ! Needless to say he landed
on the sidewalk almost immediately. " I never got my leather jacket
back " he said. We need more Erics in the world not less.
Moe Green.
18/10/14 -
Sad news about Eric Scriven. I
spent many happy nights at Club 43.mostly at Amber Street listening
to the fantastic musicians that performed there. Sometimes the place
was packed. but other times the attendance was sparse but it didn't
seem to bother Eric too much as long as the music was great. which
it always was. I well remember the Archie Shepp gig that Moe Green
mentioned and seeing Eric shaking his head and wondering what the
heck was going on in his Jazz Club! I sat at my table and thought "
This is Jazz History in the making". About 25 years ago I spent a
week in Los Angeles visiting a friend. and as I knew Eric had moved
there I phoned him and suggested a night out. I picked him up at his
apartment and we hit the Jazz spots together. starting with
Alphonses where the Sam Most Quartet were playing. then on to a
place round the corner called the Money Tree where a fine piano trio
led by Vicky Van Epps was playing. We ended up at the famous Dontes
in Toluca Lake to catch the Bill Berry/Jack Nimitz Quintet. At
Alphonses. Eric introduced me to the great New Orleans drummer Earl
Palmer and also Monty Budwig the bass player. While we were at
Dontes. Bill Berry pointed out that his old boss Woody Herman
together with his daughter had just walked in and Eric said to me
"Lets go and say Hello" which is what we did. When Eric came back to
the UK we often ran into each other at various Jazz venues and also
at funerals and he always had some great stories to tell me. Anyway,
so long Eric ( a great Mingus tune) and thanks for all the great
music you presented.--