JAZZING ABOUT 

PART FIVE: 

COMMITTED TO ARMLEY!

LEEDS JAZZ CLUB

Every Tuesday, at Leeds Jazz Club, at 8.pm.
Armley Conservative Club, Armley Ridge Road, Leeds. LS12 3LE
(If using a sat nav, please use the above post code)

Telephone: 0113 2638393

Admission £5
 
On his most recent jaunt Dr. Andrew Liddle went to Leeds Jazz Club and found it flourishing.

DIRECTIONS AND PARKING

Leeds Jazz Club, which is a mere ten minutes from the motorway, is not only attended by locals but attracts regulars from as far south as Sheffield, Driffield to the east and Oldham to the west. Indeed, if you are coming from the Greater Manchester area, you might actually find your journey shorter in both distance and time (about 40 minutes) than to some clubs in Lancashire, and the club does feature most of the red rose county’s top bands, as well as a host of others.

If using a sat nav, please use the above postcode which actually belongs to the premises next door to the club. The club’s own published postcode will take you to a locked gate at the back!

There are, obviously, several ways of getting there, but probably the best directions that can be given are those that go past the previous Leeds Jazz clubs, for the benefit of those (particularly jazz-players) who know their way there.

Take the eastbound M62 and leave it at junction 27, joining the M621. Come off at junction 1 and at the traffic lights take the first exit on to the A6110. Stay on this road crossing two roundabouts(following signs for the airport) and then at the traffic lights take the right on to Branch Road. This quickly becomes Lower Wortley Road and goes past The Hanover Arms, on the right. Turn left at the mini roundabout just before the Oldfield Hotel and, on Upper Wortley Road, go past the Liberal club on the left. Go straight through the traffic lights and after about 50 yards turn right at the Commercial pub At the end of this short road go straight across to Armley Ridge Road and the club is almost immediately on the right.

There is parking for eighty cars in the large car park and you can leave yours with peace of mind, knowing there are CCTVs cameras monitoring everything.

The Bar

Prices are very competitive and the Tetley’s Cask is highly recommended, as is the same brewer’s dark mild, with its lovely nutty flavour, which is quite difficult to come by these days. There is also Tetley’s Smooth and recent guest beers with particular appeal have been Adnam’s and Broadside. Also on draught are Guinness and two lagers, Carlsberg and Export.

The large room is tastefully decorated and has a licence to seat 180. On a hot summer night, it is nice at the break to take your drink out to the expansive grounds at the back (actually the front of the original house).

The Club’s History

The current LJC can be traced back to September 2002, when it convened at the Hanover Arms, in Lower Wortley. Three years later, it move up the road apiece to the Upper and Lower Wortley Liberal Club , before the search for higher ground, in a manner of speaking, took it another mile northward to its current palatial surroundings in Armley, an area of Leeds once synonymous with prison, now with jazz!

The Boss

Organiser and Promoter John Wall has been in the game a long time. It is, in fact, true to say that this driven, plain-speaking, plain-dealing man has spent his life in entertainment, as a guitarist and vocalist with his own groups, as the proprietor of the highly successful John Wall Entertainment Agency and as a jazz promoter. He co-founded the first Leeds’ Jazz Club at The Guildford, on the Headrow in Leeds, in 1972, where he booked some of the great names, including The World’s Greatest Jazz Band (with Yank Lawson, Billy Butterfield, Bud Freeman et al), Stephane Grappelli and the Dutch Swing College Band, to name but a few.

One of the highlights of his band The K.C. Moaners (Colyer fans will pick up the allusion in the title) was when they played at New Orleans’ festivals, The Jazz Reunion (1994, 1995) and The French Quarter (1997).

Try to speak to him on the phone and you might well find his line engaged because booking so many different bands consumes much of his time. He also spends a good chunk of his life going out to give the once-over to potential bookings, in order to maintain high standards. John was turned on to Jazz the moment he first heard the ODJB’s Tiger Rag, on a 78 brought back from Burma by brother Bill just after the war. Whilst doing his National Service, he was a frequent visitor to the Fishmonger’s Arms, in Wood Green, to see Ken Colyer and to the 100 Club and Cy Laurie’s.

The Characters

Lancashire readers might well know Colin Priestley only for his eponymous photographic feature, Colin’s Corner, in Just Jazz, but he is a familiar face at most clubs in the West Riding. He began taking black and white pictures, with a Pentax, about thirty years ago and so far at least three hundred have been in the magazine – and others have appeared in publications all over the world. These days, he lets others flash their digital gadgets. He attended his first jazz concert in 1951, at the Kings and Queens Club in Bradford – when Graeme Bell was on tour. He is still one of Leeds’ most sprightly jivers!

Retired bank official, Dave Butler is the club’s Jazz archivist, recording and preserving for posterity all the bands that give permission. Most do so in return for a copy of his beautifully got-up, highly professional cds. So far, he has made about 325 . He saw the light in 1956 when first chancing upon Chris Barber’s Chimes Blues.

Conclusion.

The Con Club is large, spacious, acoustically good and has such welcome extras as a proper stage, stage lights and a dressing room for the band. Dancers have a good-sized central area on which to strut their stuff. The audience have a choice of seats, down on the floor or up on a sort of raised balcony. The house lights are turned out during the performance, the band appear in a red glow and the knowledgeable audience save their talking for the break, expressing themselves, meanwhile, only in terms of acclaim and applause. This is commendable.

The jazz club is open 50 weeks a year and in any given twelve–month period there are usually about 40 different bands performing, from all over the country and sometimes from abroad. Attendances are on the up, and, exceptionally, for bands of the calibre of Kenny Ball and Gentleman Jim Macintosh’s Jazzaholics, the club has been approaching capacity.

Clearly this club, under such dynamic and innovative stewardship, is going from strength to strength and can well make the strongest of claims to being Yorkshire’s premier Trad club.

Drop me off in Armley!

Andrew Liddle , March 2011