Reminiscing
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One to bring tears to your eyes - sent to me by John Westwood 24/02/07

Hello,
I am a post graduate student currently researching Clubs/social events in Manchester around about 1940's, You don't have any information on this do you? To be more specific I'm investigating what it was like to be of ethnic minority residing in Manchester at this time also which socialising events were popular, what are they now .... I know its a long shot and a big task, its just I'm not having any luck researching this area, every lead comes to a dead end.  Any help or info much appreciated.

C. Magowan
JMag903503 at aol.com   

Hello there Fred:

I'm a small time book publisher based on the Mediterranean border between France and Italy where 90 degrees of sunshine is currently cracking the tiles on my terrace, the wine is perfectly chilled, and the glare from the sea is blinding.

But finding your website has made me feel like upping sticks and immediately moving back to Wigan!

We're soon to publish a book by a Lancashire author who, by sheer coincidence, turned out to live over the road from one of my oldest pals, jazzer Willy Entwistle (Temperance Seven and Café Society). Willy and I lost touch twenty years or so ago, but we contacted each other immediately we discovered this new mutual friend, and he told me about your splendid website

Wow – I'd no idea the scene had become so lively again. In the sixties (when, as callow youths, Willy and I played whenever, whatever, wherever and with whoever we could), things were pretty hot. Our own favourite spot was old Jenks' Manchester Sports Guild cellar jazz club where we had to sign up as sky divers to get around some daft local by-law and hear some of the best music around.

Some of the bands we heard regularly are mentioned as still up and running in the list on your site. The names of individual musicians also had me tapping my feet.

Reading your list of bands, players and upcoming gigs, I felt like I'd stumbled through a time warp. So many of the guys still around and still active. Sadly, so many others have blown their last note and sunk their last pint of Number Five. Some very special names were conspicuous by their absence in your pages and silently sounded the only blue note during my cyber visit.

I was amazed when Willy sent me a picture of the current Temperance Seven line-up to spot – as well as Willy on alto - two other guys I met and became long-time pals with at the MSG – Derek Galloway and Johnny Tucker (both Manchester lads). Willy's also digging out contact numbers and addresses for other Northern music makers I've lost touch with over the years as a wordsmith gypsy … many of whom I'm sure you'll also know well, Fred.

They say nostalgia's not what it used to be, but this on-screen jive down memory lane has made my day. I look forward to checking in often and, some day, planning a crazy, hazy holiday in the North West with an itinerary based around the gigs you let us know about.

Thanks for a great experience this morning, Fred.

All power to your elbow –

Neil Marr (Menton, France)
13/06/03
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Cuerdly Arms Jazzers

Does anybody recognise the musicians in this photograph?

So far, Left to Right = 
Ken Sims?, Bob Stockley (sax), Warren Bromilow (pno), Harold Troughton (clt),
Harry Standon (tpt), Ron Pierce (tbn), John Pierce (dms)

Harold Troughton
15/06/03 

Keith Allcock replies 25/06/03

Harold Troughton asks if anyone recognises the musicians in the photo he supplies.

It was taken around 1954 (I would guess) at the Cuerdley Arms, St Helens. On piano is Warren Bromilow, a stylish, modern-type player who to the best of my knowledge didn't go on to play in any regular bands after that period, at least not Dixieland ones. The trumpeter at the back is Harry Standon, who later played with the

side Dixielanders who had a long residency at the Cherry Tree in Culcheth.

The clarinet player is, of course, Harold himself, who for many years has kept the flag flying at various venues in the St Helens area and now also plays with the Blue Mags.

But whilst I remember the faces of a couple of the others, I can't put a name to them. Was the alto player one of the Collins family?

The photo brings back happy memories of a time when loads of young lads were putting together Dixieland and traditional jazz bands, often learning their instruments as they went along, and doing gigs in pubs and at local hops for 'ten bob' a man. It was a noisy, often raucous, music with a wild beat and a colourful history which just got into your blood and stayed there. What's more, the older generation thought it was cacophonous and decadent - a dangerous music associated with low dives, drugs and alcohol.

The Cuerdley was the first place in St Helens to run a jazz club. It took place in the upstairs room and I and some of my mates would go there under age and wallow in the sounds produced by Harold and the rest of the band. I remember on one occasion a trombone player turning up from distant Lymm who got more and more drunk as the evening progressed until his legs gave way and he ended on the floor still playing his trombone. On another occasion, John Higham appeared and, sitting in an old armchair, pointed his trumpet to the ceiling and, eyes tight shut and shoulder cocked à la Lyttelton, nearly blew the roof off on Muskrat Ramble.

It was a music that just set your blood tingling, so, inspired by great bands like the Humphrey Lyttelton outfit with Wally Fawkes, but also in no small part by Harold and his mates at the Cuerdley, I wanted to be part of it. The clarinet was the instrument that appealed the most, so one day I took myself off to Hessy's in Liverpool, where they well and truly ripped me off, raw youngster that I was, by selling me a simple system A clarinet. Some time later, I was the proud owner of a Bb Boosey & Hawkes Regent and doing my first gigs round St Helens. And, with a change en route to double bass, I'm still at it, like so many others who can tell a similar story.

So I say "Thanks" to Harold and his mates for helping to kindle that first enthusiasm.

Keith Allcock.

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Bernard Bibby also recalls The Riverside Dixielanders at The Cherry Tree in Culcheth

Dear Fred,

Looking through your reminiscing pages brought back memories of playing with the Riverside Dixielanders there in the 1960s. The personnel was as follows:- Clarrie Henley guitar and piano (leader), Jack Toft, who was blind (drums), Norman????? (bass), Harry Mills (trombone), Harry Standon (trumpet) and myself on clarinet. We had some wonderful Wednesday evenings there, always a full house and a great atmosphere. I know that Clarry Henley is living in the Horwich area, I do see Norman (I think his surname is Simpson) occasionally, I have kept in contact with Harry Standon, he lives in Grappenhall, Jack Toft died many years ago and Harry Mills lives I believe in the Atherton area. I remember a wonderful evening when Roy Williams guested with us, we also had Nat Gonella (I missed the breaks in tiger rag), and Ken Doran from the Lymm Dam Jazzband also Tony Dunleavy. Pete Daniels (Merseysippi) plus many others. I wonder if anyone else who looks at your Website has any other memories of the Cherry Tree in the 1960s 

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The Saints Jazz Band

I remember listening to the Saints Jazzband in 1952/3 when they used to play in Manchester on a Saturday evening at the Grosvenor Hotel at the bottom of Deansgate, Near Exchange Station . Happy days. Does any one know if there are any of the original Saints still living? I have the CD's that Lake Records issued. They are great and take me back to when I was a teenager. 


Kind regards 
Mildred Finney
17/06/03

Mildred, On the subject of the Saints, Reg Kenworthy of Smoky City Jazz played with them, and this entry is from my Guestbook 2000  - Fred

From: Merton Kaufman, London, Ontario Canada Email: thekaufmans * webtv.net>
Posted on: Saturday, March 25, 2000, 10:14 PM

Many years ago ( early 1960's ) I used to play drums with the Saints Jazz Band, our main gigs used to be at the Bogeda, in Manchester, we made a couple of 45's for Parlophone, "Roses of Picardy" etc also I played with bop group at the Club 43, at the Clarendon Hotel on Oxford St., it used to be run by a guy called Eric Scriven, the reason I am writing this is that I have lost touch with "that old gang of mine" so if anybody from the old days would like to get in touch, or can tell me how to get in touch with Eric Scriven I really would appreciate it. 

With respect to the Saints article in Just Jazz Magazine written by Rod Hopton, Merton says, "One little note, I was on the Thank your Lucky Stars gig with Billy Fury and Karl Denver, and also at the Leofric in Coventry with the little Fiat 500. In Rod's article the dates seem to jump there and back a bit. 

Rod Hopton was playing trombone with the Saints the night I proposed to my wife, almost 48 years ago, we were doing a gig at The St Andrews Hall in Glasgow, I proposed in the bandroom, but didn't get an answer right away, the thing that bothered me most was that on the journey home she slept with her head on Rod's shoulder most of the way back. How's that for a story?

My one problem is that I am not sure who I was playing with on that gig. I married my wife, who's name is Barbara by the way, in August 1956, we were engaged about 6 or 8 months before that, which means that I proposed sometime in 1955. I didn't join The Saints 'till John Mills died which I believe was in 1960, I played with them about 2 years, my last gig with them was in 1962, (We came to Canada in 1964 not 1962 as Rod Hopton say in his article) in fact I recorded Roses of Picardy with them in April 1962, but then I see that Dennis Grundy was on a B.B.C. broadcast with them later in 1962, with Dizzy Burton on trumpet instead of Barry Dixon.  

 I have found that my memory plays tricks on me now, it happens when you are getting near 74, you don't feel old 'till you walk past a mirror. I can remember my childhood, but not what I had for breakfast yesterday.

I think the reason that I did that gig in Glasgow was that maybe John Mills was ill and I filled in for him that one gig. The Clyde Valley Stompers were on the same bill. It was some sort of Jazz Jamboree."

Merton Kaufman
Aug 2003

(Merton passed away in 2012 - FB)

Also From: Geof Turner, Altrincham, Cheshire, England 
Posted on: Wednesday, September 25, 2002, 10:04 AM

When I started work in 1951 in Manchester City Centre I first heard The Saints Jazz Band and it may be of interest that I still have the three original 78 rpm records made by the band on the Decibel Label which states "Lancashire Society of Jazz Music Series recorded at the Dixon Roadhouse Recording Studios, Oxford Road Manchester" The recording would have been made in 1950 or 1951 and of course many people in the Manchester area would have known Johnny Roadhouse. I also have the Parlophone 78 of a concert at the Festival Hall during the Festival of Britain in 1951 with The Saints on one side and The Crane River Band on the other. Thanks for an interesting site.

Dave Whistler says, I read the page about this band with great interest. One point not mentioned - Parlophone released a 78rpm record of the band playing 'I want a girl...' in 1951 from the concert mentioned. I have 2 great copies. So their recording actually started in 1951, not 1952. 

An article from Just Jazz Magazine has now been reproduced on this site. Click here to view

08/04/08 - Hi Fred

Just read several of your articles on Ed Fish and The Saints Jazzband. I used to go to The Saint's rehearsals at a pub in Ashton-u-Lyne in the late 50s. John Mills, Fred Fydler, Mick McMama, Ed Fish and my favourite Alan Radcliffe were in the band at that time. I was also at the Louis concert at Belle Vue in '56 and have still got the original programme and Louis' autograph which Alan got for me. Unfortunately I got too interested in what was modern jazz in the sixties and lost touch with the band. However I did contact Alan again and he came to my 50th birthday do (Dave Donohoe band played) in 1987. I still feel that he was one of the best clarinetists in the country and was without a doubt the main driving force behind the band and  I would dearly like to know the whereabouts of Alan if anyone can help. Thanking you in anticipation. 

Philip Buckley

Hi Fred - Mick McNama gave me this photo after a gig at Cook's Ferry Inn, London in the early fifties or maybe late 1949. Mick wrote his address on the back of this photo for me - 128 Burlington Street, Ashton-under-Lyne, Lancs. 

This was a good little swinging band. 

Best wishes - Bunny Austin. 

See also "The Saints" by Rod Hopton, reproduced from Just Jazz magazine

See also the tribute to John "Ed" Fish by Joe Silmon

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Liverpool University Jazz Band
Brian Hudson

It was the inspiration of the Liverpool University Jazz Band that had persuaded me to blow a huge hole in my very limited funds on a set of drums. I particularly remember relaxing in the Students’ Union library and listening to the Armstrong influenced trumpet of medical student John Higham, downstairs in the Gilmour Hall. He was playing ‘Keeping Out of Mischief Now’. The band he led had earned a proud reputation on the local music scene and in university jazz circles around the country. Among its most outstanding members was bass player, Hugh Potter, named best individual musician at the annual Inter-University Jazz Federation band competition in 1957 and 1958. Years later, in 1970, John, by then well established in medical practice, joined the Merseysippi band. How I wanted to play with musicians like that. How I wished I had the ability! My musical education was minimal. An uncle in Yorkshire had introduced me to the rudiments of drumming but I never really mastered the arts of paradiddle and mummy daddy. My short stint as a trainee drummer with a silver band in Orpington, Kent had done little to improve my skill. But I had an ear for music of all kinds, from British folk music and Negro spirituals to popular classics. Now jazz had become a passion. I had joined the University’s jazz society, Rhythm Club, and I was desperate to play in a band. 

Opportunity came when graduation began to take its toll of Liverpool University musicians, leaving vacancies that younger students were keen to fill. I heard that a new University band was being formed and I learned that it needed a drummer. My informant was a woman who was a year ahead of me in the geography course in which I was enrolled. She worked sometimes at a coffee bar, The Pack of Cards, near the Students’ Union, and was aware of what was happening there. She was also familiar with the local jazz scene. One day in the Students’ Union she introduced me to a group of young musicians who were forming a new band and they invited me to fill the drumming spot. They were a mixed lot, including students from various backgrounds. Over time there were personnel changes and I recall that among the academic and professional disciplines represented in the band at some time or other were medicine, engineering, veterinary science, dentistry, English, psychology and biochemistry. I was the only geographer in the group and later, as a post-graduate, the only Civic Design student. Liverpool University’s School of Architecture had its own jazz band and some other students played in local bands.

Except for me and a Shropshire lad, all the original players were from Merseyside or neighbouring parts of Lancashire and Cheshire. Standards of musical skill varied but most had training and some could play more than one instrument. We practised together in the Union, playing what was generally described as traditional jazz, although there were among us those who had learned to appreciate modern jazz, including bebop. The late Charlie Parker was my jazz idol and the Modern Jazz Quartet was my favourite combo at that time. We recognized that we were unable to play complex music of that standard and wisely stuck to trad, only later progressing into mainstream and even beyond. 

The original group included trumpet, trombone, clarinet and piano, banjo or guitar and me on drums. We didn’t have a bass player to begin with but over the next few years several different students filled that role. During my time at Liverpool, the core group of musicians expanded and contracted. It assumed various forms, ranging from a trio and a Shearing style quintet, complete with vibraphone, to an eleven-piece band that included a full reed section and two French horns. 

It was during one of our early practice sessions in the Union that a young woman came up and invited us to play at a function which was to be our band’s first gig. I felt elated. It was to be my public debut as a jazz drummer. We were even going to be paid. I was a professional musician at last! The occasion was a dance for student teachers and their guests at Barkhill, a women’s college in the suburb of Aigburth. How we got there I don’t recall. Very few students had cars in those days. Musicians and their instruments were usually stuffed into a small borrowed van. Sometimes we had to travel considerable distances with musicians and instruments leaving scarcely enough room for the driver. On a few occasions we travelled in this way to and from Manchester and I recall some journeys through fog so dense that visibility was down to a couple of yards. 

The Liverpool college dance was quite a formal affair with at least some of the dancers in evening dress. Despite our inexperience as a group, we felt confident as we set up on the small stage. We had not prepared a programme but, like true jazzmen, we had in our heads many standard tunes, a legacy we shared as jazz aficionados. We began with a lively number and to our delight the audience started to dance. Some of the elegantly dressed young couples jived enthusiastically to our music and it felt great to be the drummer, driving the band along and exerting such powerful influence on the audience. 

My newfound musician friends seemed pleasantly surprised at my drumming, one venturing to say that I was ‘a natural’. That boosted my confidence and I offered to sing a song I had learned from a Louis Armstrong record but which I had never before sung in public: Mack the Knife. After some hesitation, the band began to play the well-known tune and at the appropriate time the leader, no doubt feeling somewhat apprehensive, turned to me for my unrehearsed vocal contribution. Overcoming my nervousness and continuing to beat out the rhythm, I began to sing into the microphone beside me. What I did was an imitation of Louis Armstrong’s famous vocal performance and my attempt to reproduce that much-loved gravelly voice and exquisite timing was well received by band and audience alike. I basked in the enthusiastic applause I received and the story of my impromptu performance was spread about by a student friend who had been in the audience. This gave me quite a reputation for hidden talent and Mack the Knife has remained a party piece of mine ever since. 

After that first public performance in Liverpool, band practices and gigs became a regular part of my University life. Most weeks there was a dance at the Students’ Union, sometimes two, and our group usually played as support band. On these occasions there was often a nationally famous British jazz band, such as that of Alex Welsh or Mick Mulligan. Invariably, there were one or two other supporting groups, usually including a top local band together with the University band. The principal band played in the Union’s large Stanley Hall, while the University band spent most of its time in the smaller Gilmour Hall. The latter was preferred by some couples who wished to smooch around the dance floor away from the wildly jiving dancers in the larger hall. The University band often took to the Stanley Hall stage while the main band enjoyed a break. There were even times when a third dance hall was used, the students’ cafeteria upstairs being temporarily converted for the purpose. It was there that I remember meeting the Architects’ Jazz Band, with its exuberant Irish drummer, Seamus McGonagle. 

The most formal occasion at which the Rhythm Club Band played was the Science Faculty Ball on Friday, 13 March 1959 (see Figure 1). The Humphrey Lyttelton Band was the main musical attraction that evening. There were also two supporting groups, the Roger Fleetwood Quintet from the BBC Northern Variety Orchestra and the Rhythm Club Band. Our line-up was trumpet, trombone, alto sax, tenor sax(both reedsmen doubling on clarinet), piano, guitar, bass and drums. I do not know whether it was an instruction from the organizers of the ball or an idea of the band members but we were supposed to perform in formal attire for that special occasion. 

I possessed no evening dress suit and was not prepared to pay for the hire of one. As the drummer tended to be hidden at the back of the band, it was agreed that my light grey lounge suit would be acceptable and I borrowed a clip-on bow tie from my landlord to match the appearance of the rest of the band as far as possible. While I greatly enjoyed this special occasion, it was frustrating to have one of Britain’s foremost jazz bands playing in an adjacent hall yet have little opportunity to see and hear Humph and his men in action. 

Among the famous bands and musicians I did hear in the Liverpool University Students’ Union were some of those who came to play at dances and others who performed concerts organized by Rhythm Club. I have a vivid memory of Liverpool born George Melly, singer with Mick Mulligan’s Band, performing on the Stanley Hall stage. Melly appeared dressed in tight black sweater and black jeans and his rendition of ‘Frankie and Johnny’ brought roars of appreciation from the dance floor. As he sang this song of love, betrayal and revenge, he dramatized the performance with facial expressions and gestures. At one stage in the song, he turned his back on the audience and clasped himself in an embrace, his white hands seen clearly moving up and down over his black-clad back and buttocks as he writhed there, suggesting a passionate encounter between Frankie and Johnny. The bands hired for Union dances usually played traditional or New Orleans/Dixieland jazz. Indeed, at that time the so-called Trad Fad reached its peak. The British popular music world was dominated by bands such as those of Chris Barber, Alex Welsh and Acker Bilk. A jazz offshoot known as ‘skiffle’ was popularized by Lonnie Donegan, who became an influence on many youthful groups—including The Beatles. 

Rhythm Club musicians, too, played trad, but their interests went far beyond that, something which was clearly reflected in their playing. Increasingly, the influences of swing, even modern jazz, could be seen in the instrumentation and heard in the music. The band that played at the Science Faculty Ball could be classed as mainstream, strongly influenced by the swing bands of the 1930s and 40s. The later Rhythm Club Quintet comprised vibraphone, piano, electric guitar, bass and drums (the influence of George Shearing being obvious). Named after a talented and influential engineering student who became Rhythm Club’s musical director, The John Rotherham XI (my choice of name) comprised two trumpets, two French horns, alto, tenor and baritone saxes, piano, guitar, bass and drums. 

Inspiration came not only from records and local musicians. While at Liverpool, I went to concerts given by some of the jazz greats, including Kid Ory, George Lewis, Count Basie, Duke Ellington, Woody Herman, Miles Davis, Thelonius Monk, Art Blakey, Gerry Mulligan, Dave Brubeck and the Modern Jazz Quartet, while visits by the Jazz at the Philharmonic outfits enabled me to see and hear stars such as Roy Eldridge, Dizzy Gillespie, Coleman Hawkins, Stan Getz, Shelley Manne, Jimmy Giuffre, Sonny Stitt, Oscar Peterson and Ella Fitzgerald. On visits to London I attended concert performances by Basie, Ellington, Brubeck, Gillespie, Buck Clayton, George Shearing and others. And I went to the famous Ronnie Scott’s Club to hear Dexter Gordon and Art Farmer. The omission of Liverpool on Louis Armstrong’s 1959 British tour meant a Rhythm Club coach trip to Manchester’s Belle Vue in order to see the ageing jazz genius. 

Many of the leaders of British modern jazz performed in Liverpool, not only at The Cavern, but also at the University. In this I played a role of which I am proud. The University’s Rhythm Club had a close relationship with The Cavern. It advertised Cavern events on its notice board in the Union and its members were allowed into the city’s leading jazz club at a reduced price. This arrangement was in place when I joined Rhythm Club but, when I became a member of the committee, I also negotiated with the Cavern manager to have visiting jazz bands play lunchtime concerts in the Students’ Union at relatively little cost. I suppose for the visiting bands their performance at the University was a practice session, but for those of us in Rhythm Club it was a wonderful opportunity to meet and hear some of Britain’s top modern jazz musicians. These included Dill Jones, Tony Kinsey, Bill Le Sage, Tubby Hayes and Ronnie Scott. 

I remember particularly the arrival of the Jazz Couriers at the Students’ Union. Led by tenormen Tubby Hayes and Ronnie Scott, this was one of Britain’s foremost modern jazz groups. They seemed disgruntled because there had been no one outside to meet them and as they came through the Mount Pleasant entrance where a few of the committee members were waiting, I heard drummer, Phil Seamen, muttering something about being treated ‘like a f…ing bunch of f... ing Liverpool semi-pros’. Our genuine welcome soon smoothed things over and we all went to the Stanley Hall Green Room to prepare for the performance. There Phil Seamen
asked where he could go for a piss, but when we told him, he decided that it was too far to go, and made do with a wash basin that was handy. 

I had been having some trouble with my snare drum and I brought it along to seek the distinguished drummer’s advice on the matter. His helpful response was, in essence, that I should get a new one. 

By this time, The Cavern had become mainly a venue for Merseyside beat groups such as The Beatles, Gerry and the Pacemakers, the Swinging Blue Jeans and numerous others, as well as visiting groups. This meant that I rarely went to the Cavern, although I do have memories of a few jazz evenings there. Particularly exciting was the visit of American tenorman Zoot Sims playing with Ronnie Scott and his band. In a totally different vein, the blues duo of Sonny Terry and Brownie McGhee delighted the audience in a venue where amplified electric guitars, not acoustic guitar and harmonica, were now the norm. On another Cavern jazz night, I saw the Johnny Dankworth orchestra attempting to squeeze onto the tiny stage. Some of the musicians used an electric shaver to give themselves a quick trim before the performance, plugging in, presumably, where The Beatles and others usually plugged in their guitars and amplifying equipment. While I was there, Liverpool University remained relatively resistant to the rise of rock music and the Mersey Sound. Jazz continued to reign supreme and the Rhythm Club had the largest membership of any of the societies affiliated to the Guild of Undergraduates. 

The big jazz event of the year was the annual band competition run by the Inter- University Jazz Federation, the IUJF. The competition was held in two stages. The first part, the semi-finals, took place in four regional centres, two for the North and two for the South. The finals were held either in London or a central location such as Birmingham. One of the 1962 semi-finals was held at Liverpool University, attracting to it student bands and their supporters from northern England, North Wales and Northern Ireland. Liverpool entered two bands, the Rhythm Club Quintet and the John Rotherham XI. 

Among my duties as Rhythm Club President at that time was to take the two competition judges, men eminent in the British jazz world, to dinner before the start of the evening’s contest. We went to a modest Chinese restaurant. After the meal we hurried back to the Union, now crammed with jazz enthusiasts from all over the British Isles, impatient for the music to start. Without delay, and still wearing the raincoat I had on for my walk to and from the restaurant, I ran onto the Stanley Hall stage to welcome the musicians, judges and audience. I then introduced the young woman who was to announce the bands as they came onstage to perform. Chosen for her glamorous good looks, she wore a little black dress and clearly met with the approval of the male majority in the crowd. 

The event was reported in a Manchester University students’ newspaper in which comment was made on the charming announcer’s pronunciation of bass, as in double bass, which she pronounced like Bass, the well-known brand of beer. I, too, received notice in the report which referred to my opening welcome, describing me as ‘a pleasantly nervous man who wore a rain coat and resembled a kind of jazzman’s Michael Foot’. I had no objection to being compared to the socialist politician and was happy to see myself later described by the student journalist as ‘a tasteful drummer’. 

Indeed, the Rhythm Club Quintet played well that night, swinging through its three numbers, the boppish ‘How’s Trix’, the jazz waltz ‘Little Niles’ and a slow ballad, Cole Porter’s ‘All Of You’. As we played, we glanced at each other, happy with the feeling that musicians get when things are going well, and satisfied that, after all those practice sessions, we were performing close to our top form. It was Liverpool’s 11-piece orchestra that won the day, however, second and third places being given to groups from other universities. 

To avoid excessive duplication of musicians in the two Liverpool groups, I had given up my original place in the larger band and let a newcomer take over on drums. Thus, despite Liverpool’s success, when it came to the finals at Queen Mary College, London, I was in the audience, not on stage. In the competition final the Liverpool band was unplaced but this in no way reflected badly on the musicians. The standard of musicianship in many universities at that time was remarkably high and some of those who took part in the IUJF competitions made names for themselves in the professional jazz world. Among them were Cambridge University’s Dave Gelly and Art Themen, who led the winning band in the 1962 competition finals. 

Liverpool Rhythm Club’s activities were by no means confined to involvement with the annual IUJF band competition. There were frequent talks and record recitals as well as the occasional coach trip to hear jazz performances outside Liverpool. Nor did the student jazz musicians and jazz enthusiasts confine their musical activities to the University. University bands played in a wide variety of venues in and out of the city, including colleges and clubs, while some student musicians were members of local bands that were not directly connected with Rhythm Club. Notable among these were the Dave Lind and Dave Stone bands in which fellow geographer Phil Morris played trumpet. These dedicated jazz musicians of the old tradition were good friends of mine and I often went to listen to them in clubs such as The Iron Door and The Downbeat. Occasionally, they allowed me to sit in with the group for a couple of numbers, a generous gesture on their part as they regarded me as too much of a modernist for Black Chicago style bands such as theirs. I was, perhaps, too much of a jazzman for another Liverpool group with which I was associated for a while. Indeed, I was slightly embarrassed for my jazz associates to know that I was actually playing with a local pop or rock group. Today, however, I am happy to confess that I was an original member of Liverpool’s pioneer beat group, Cass and the Cassanovas, thus becoming a minor player in the story of the Mersey Sound. 

Extract from Brian Hudson, 'University Jazz and the Mersey Sound: Student days in Liverpool, a memoir', Popular Music History vol. 1, no. 2 (2006), 215-226 (c) Equinox Publishing Ltd 2006.  Reproduced by kind permission.

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Over 30 members of the Liverpool University Rhythm Club from the early 1960s got together last October (2008) for a musical Re-Union at Leverstock Green, Herts, at the home of one of its members. Several groups of musicians were represented, and the quintet shown here on this YouTube clip, played 'Silk Stockings' as an impromptu encore - captured on a Sony digital camera by A. Ganf Esq. Author Brian Hudson came over from Australia to launch his book 'How I didn't become a Beatle' and played drums on this number. 

Anybody remember the Crosby Rhythm Kings from Liverpool?  You can hear "Copenhagen" playing by clicking the play button below, it might just stir up memories. I'm grateful to Ralph Watmough for sending me this recording taped in 1950/51. It features Alan Spedding on Trumpet  (Alan now leads a Condon style band in the Bristol Area), Pete Burkhill on Clarinet (Pete is at present playing tenor sax with Terry Perry's Big Easy Band), Denis Roscoe on Alto Sax (also plays occasionally with Terry Perry), Bix Roscoe on Trombone (Bix is no longer with us), Ralph Watmough on Piano ( currently living in France, see later items), Pete Green on Banjo (anybody know where he is?), and Paddy Glover on Banjo (Paddy lives in Skipton and no longer plays). - Fred Burnett

29th Jul 2003

For the best results, download free, Windows Media Player latest version

Ralph Watmough remembers much more...

including The Crosby Rhythm Kings

Recently, someone said to me "Why did Merchant Taylors School, Crosby produce so many of Liverpool's jazz musicians in the 1950s?" I was slightly surprised, because I had never thought about it before, but the question set me wondering.

I myself had come to jazz (in the widest sense of the word) in the 1930s. As a child I would listen to Radio Luxembourg, which broadcast the bands of Roy Fox, Ambrose. Lew Stone et al. By the end of the War, I had progressed to Benny Goodman and Fats Waller. I was a jazz lover, but not yet manic.

Then one Wednesday afternoon, when interest at Merchant Taylors was devoted to sport, my old friend Harry Garlick and I decided to play hookie and listen to some records. We went to his house, where he proudly produced a new acquisition; it was a Parlophone reissue of At the Jazz Band Ball and Sorry! by Bix Beiderbecke and his Gang. The bell-like notes came at me like (as Eddie Condon was later to say) a girl saying yes.

From that moment I was enslaved. I went out at once with my 3s 6d. and bought the only other Bix record available at that time - Royal Garden Blues and Jazz Me Blues. Even the blue and gold Parlophone label seemed a thing of beauty!

Before long, we wanted to play jazz ourselves. Harry preferred to listen rather to play, but there were other teenagers in the school willing to have a go. 
We formed a band. Some of the members of that band are still active on the northern jazz scene, for example Pete Burkhill (clt, ts), Roger Myerscough (clt), and Derek Vaux (bs). Others, such as Steve Voce, are music journalists .

We played jazz during the lunchtime break, in a little-visited room at the top of the servants' quarters in what had formerly been the headmaster's house. However, one unfortunate day, when we were in the middle of a vocal version of "Spider Crawl", the headmaster entered and observed rather sarcastically that he was quite unable to observe any spiders anywhere. That was the end of rehearsals at the school.

In those days, jazz was a dirty word, and was frowned on by the authorities. Happily things are now quite different there, and the school possesses a sixteen piece big band. However, I often wonder whether the old days were better. It is a proven fact that jazz thrives in adversity.

Alongside these activities there was the Crosby Rhythm Club, which met every Sunday evening to play and discuss the latest jazz reissues. The rhythm clubs had a national umbrella organisation, and with a view to joining, we went over to the Wallasey Rhythm Club to obtain more information. It was there that I first met the late Richard Goodwin, known universally as "Uncle Dick", the leader of the embryo Merseysippi.

The Crosby Rhythm Kings struggled on for a while after we left school, playing local Tennis and Rugby Club dances, and occasionally as interval band at the West Coast Jazz Club. We co-opted a few personnel. such as Bix Roscoe from Southport, who were not "old boys" of the School, but musicians drifted away to join other bands, and we played for the last time in the spring of 1954.

Another band to fold a little later was the Tishomingo Jazz Band. They had, amongst others, Bob Wright on trumpet, Martin Downer on clarinet, Fred Robinson on trombone and Ron Cooper drums. I joined them on banjo, and for some reason unknown to me, I found myself landed with the thankless job of leader and organiser. The Tishomingo tag was abandoned, and we became the Ralph Watmough Band. One night, Fred and Bob were walking home to Bob's place, where Fred was spending the night. A passing policeman looked at Fred's case and said "What have you got in there?" Fred answered truthfully "A trombone, a toothbrush, a safety razor and a pair of pyjamas." "A likely story", said the cop. "Open up". My great regret is that I was not there to see his face!

Eventually, Fred resigned and was not replaced; instead, Martin took the head on alto sax, with Bob playing George Lewis-style clarinet - an unusual but effective combination. Our favourite venue with this line-up was the Thatched House in Manchester - home of the Eric Batty Jazz Aces (with Roy Williams) and the best home-made ham and egg pies in the North. The members were somewhat bemused by the sight of an alto sax leading a New Orleans style outfit! One day, Martin was in the toilet, when a member of the audience said to him "You've got a good band there, but really the saxophone is not a jazz instrument!" Poor Martin was foolish enough to repeat this to the other members, and did not live it down for many years! 

Liverpool in the 50s was a musical cauldron. Apart from John Pritchard with the Philharmonic Orchestra, there was music at the Philharmonic Hotel, famous for its ornate Victorian loos. Then there was Ralph "Hank" Walters and his Dusty Road Ramblers playing country and western, and folk music at a club at the top end of London Road, where the Spinners held sway. Ray Ennis played Rock'n Roll in Garston; he was later to join the Blue Jeans - a far superior rock group to the Beatles in my opinion.

On the jazz scene, the leaders were without doubt the Merseys, who were at the Temple on Dale Street.  "Worshipping at the Temple" became the favoured substitute for Sunday Evensong. The University Band were the winners of a competition in 1955 which provided the enviable prize of a gig at the Festival
Hall. Then there was the Muskrat Jazz Band, which played the Washington, underneath the famous Guinness Clock, the Kinkajou Club run by Neil English in Slater Street, two doors away from the Marlborough Hotel and the 21 Club in Croxteth Road, where my band was in residence. With the opening of the Cavern Club in 1957, the MJB, the Muskrats and my band merged their club interests, playing the one venue on three nights at the weekend. Later, the Muskrats broke away, and began a very successful residency at the Temple, while in 1959, my band moved to the newly opened Mardi Gras Club, playing opposite a new band - Kenny Ball.

The Mardi Gras was considerably "posher" than the other Liverpool Clubs. It had both a band room and a recreation room - the latter containing a full-size snooker table. In the spring of 1960, Mike Farren out trumpeter passed away under sad circumstances , and we were forced to look for someone else. While we were looking, we were fortunate enough to obtain the services of one Syd Lawrence, who was then lead trumpet with the BBC Northern Dance Orchestra (the NDO never played at the weekend). My wife Doreen was playing snooker with Kenny's bassist Vic Pitt when our band struck up. Kenny, who was sitting nearby , looked up surprised. "Who's that on trumpet?", he asked. "Our new trumpeter", Doreen lied. Kenny opened the recreation room door and looked out aghast. Then he said "You little ******, it's Syd Lawrence. You really had me worried!"

Thanks to the Mardi Gras residency, our band began to travel throughout the northwest, North Wales and the north Midlands. One regular visit was to the Manchester Sports Guild, and the formidable Jenks. We played opposite John Dankworth at Leeds University. Kenny Baker sat in with us at Paddy McKiernan's Bodega Club. However, all good things have to end, and our end came in the form of the Beatles and other Merseybeat groups, which had an effect of the club scene rather akin to the 1929 Wall Street Crash. With no residency to keep us in form, the band eventually split up.

For some reason, Gordon Vickers's Wall City Jazz Club in Chester remained largely unaffected by these events, and in 1964. One day, our ex-banjoist Joe Shannon phoned me. "I'm playing with the Wall City Band" he said. The pianist has just left and Gordon [Vickers] says the job is yours if you want it". I grabbed the opportunity.

The Walls played all sorts of venues, including the ballroom on the top floor of the CIS tower in Manchester. There was an express lift. After one gig, at which the MJB's banjo player Ken "Nob" Baldwin depped, he, Ian Ashworth and I took the lift. We were joined by two well dressed ladies. The lift took off at a great rate. Nob, who is renowned for his outrageous remarks, exclaimed "Cor! It doesn't half make your bollocks feel heavy, Nob!" The ladies' faces were a picture!

That same night, returning to Chester in the band bus, we espied a fish and chip shop, and went in. Stan Thomas, who played clarinet and was a champion gurner. His secret was to take out his false teeth by sleight of hand, gurn and act drunk, then return his false teeth. This he did for the people in the queue. They laughed uproariously, but to Stan's puzzlement, continued to laugh after he had finished. He had slipped his teeth into his mac pocket where they had caught up with a used bus ticket without his knowledge. It was several moments before he realised. 

One summer evening we were due to play for an NCO's mess dance at Saighton Camp, near Chester. Alan the drummer called to say he was unwell. By some wonderful turn of fate, a customer arrived in Nearby Kelsall, where Ian had a caravan park. It was Eric Delaney. On asking if there was any room, he received Ian's reply, "Nothing if you'll dep with us tonight. In fact, we'll pay you". The deal was struck, and Ian phoned round for a spare drum kit. It was a wonderful evening. - Ralph Watmough

Dear Fred

Regarding the comments on jazz at Merchant Taylors School, and Ralph's notes, I would like to add a bit more. The version of 'Copenhagen' was recorded in September 1951, above Aldridges shop in Southport, along with some other titles. In 2000 I thought it might be a good idea if we tried to re-create some of the original titles on modern equipment, using as many of the original jazz-men as possible. There seemed to be little enthusiasm for that, but (at that time) a lack of equipment to play 78s meant that some of the original band would like to have a 'millennium' copy on CD. I asked them to send their 78s to me, and, with Jonathan Lane, a professional recording engineer in Bristol, I selected the least worn acetates for transcription onto CD format. Some of the tracks feature later members of the band, and I still have the original 78s if any of the band wish to have them back.

I attach a photo of the 'Crosby Rhythm Kings' playing at a local tennis club dance, in the hope that it is not too dark. L to R are Robin Glover (bjo), Ralph Watmough (p),  Alan Spedding (tpt),  Maurice Deeprose (drs), Pete Burkhill (clt), ANO (gtr), Pete Green (tb at that time), Bill Roscoe (I think, on tuba). 

By April 1952 I had joined up with two other ex-MTS to form the basis of a quintet, aimed at playing 'Chicago style' jazz, mainly to satisfy a demand for music for dancing. The two others were Maurice noted above, who was a talented drummer, later to join the Bill Gregson swing band at the 'Tower ballroom' in New Brighton, and Derek Hughson, an accomplished pianist who has carried on playing in the Liverpool area. The other members were Mick Murphy (t/clt), Jim James (alto/clt), both of whom could play almost anything, and (when it could be afforded), a bass player who arrived at gigs in his taxi, and picked up fares on his way home. Mention of Liverpool University elsewhere on your site reminds me that, during 1954 and 1955, we played a large number of gigs in the Students' Union on Wednesday and Saturday nights during term time.

National Service for Derek and I broke up the band, and I didn't play in public again until 1985 when my wife, Susan, 'volunteered' me to organise a jazz band to play at a fund-raising church concert here in Gloucestershire. The history of this band can be found in 'My kind of town', a glossy book of recollections of jazz in Bristol compiled by Bristol drummer Dave Hibberd, whose wife, Jean, is a stalwart of the Bristol Jazz Society. I have recently re-formed my band, see alansjazzmen. com, which also carries some sound samples, and a useful link to the Bristol Jazz Society. 

Regards to all, Alan Spedding 

The Ralph Watmough Band

14/09/03

I remember the Bags Watmough Band very well . I was a member for a few years ...... 1961/62. The line up was Mike Nash trmbn Pete Birkhill clrt we had an ever changing trumpet, and I can't remember one single name. On Banjo and guitar ...... sometimes simultaneously, Joe Shannon , Kevin Cunningham on bass, Ralph on Piano of course and me on Traps.

I came into the band to replace Tony Carter who was due for some National Service and although I was a bit of a novice I was given my big chance. Thanks Ralph .

I received quite an education during my time with the band . Things like ... never get to the bar first and give up the drums and take up something a little more portable.

Unfortunately I had to make a choice between playing in the band or a career in the print , so I left, just in time for Tony Carter to take over again. I left Liverpool soon after and settled down south. I now live in Nottingham and have a full kit in the spare bedroom.

                                 Best wishes Ralph
                                         Sidney Francis Smith (Big Sid Catlett)

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Michael Meadowcroft emailed to say, - Do add to the list of jazz musicians from Merchant Taylors' School, Jim Wright on banjo. Jim arrived at jazz in Leeds a bit later than the others - after he'd left/been expelled from Merchant Taylors. Jim plays with the Yorkshire Post Jazz Band and had a spell with Max Collie. Second: the Southport jazz scene began earlier than most with Dave Wilson's Dixielanders who broadcast on BBC north-west in the 1940s, even before George Webb appeared in London. When I was playing in Southport in 1959 with the Bienville Jazz Band (photo left), Dave was doing elder statesman gigs around the area, including a club at the Formby Lighthouse, and Sunday afternoons at the Lakeside Cafe on the beach at Ainsdale. 

The Bienville Jazz Band, of Southport, vintage 1959, was started by pupils from King George V School, plus others. From left to right: Michael Meadowcroft (clarinet and soprano sax), Dave "Tich"  Partington (on that curiosity of the era, the tea chest bass), Barry Dixson (trumpet) who is now in Australia and no longer plays, John Sheville (drums), Dave Hood (guitar), Roy Watkins (piano), and Neil Freeman (trombone), who is now Professor of Theatre at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, and no longer plays. Alas, I have no idea where either Dave, John or Roy now are. 

Later in Southport I played with the Riverside Jazzmen whose leader was an electrician whose appropriate name was Bill Bent! Bill would insist on being paid in cash before the gig started and would then proceed to drink it all as the evening progressed! It would be beyond the call of duty to remember these Southport based bands. 

In those days the Queen's Hotel on the Promenade was the main jazz club. There is, I believe, still a Southport band, with Dave Dixson on reeds, that plays at the Hesketh Arms. - Michael Meadowcroft
August 2003

(Dave Dixson now plays with the Peninsula Jazzmen - FB)

How I remember the Cavern
Brian Hudson

The narrow entrance and the grimy steps down into that hot, smelly, crowded, noisy cellar might have been compared to the gates of Hell. To me, a 19-year-old student newly arrived in Liverpool, it was more like discovering Heaven. The Cavern had opened only a few months earlier and that night in 1957 its resident group, the Merseysippi Jazz Band, was playing. This was how I had always imagined a real jazz club to be, a dingy cellar filled with devotees listening to inspired musicians. Until then, my experience of jazz had been confined to radio broadcasts, a few records—78s, EPs and LPs, some films like The Glenn Miller Story and The Benny Goodman Story, and one jazz concert—Louis Armstrong and the All Stars at London’s Empress Hall in 1956. The vast, impersonal venue was better known for boxing matches and the revolving stage on which the band played which caused the sound to come and go. Here at The Cavern, with local musicians inspired by Louis, the atmosphere was just right, the band and the audience tightly enclosed in the basement of a converted warehouse. In company with fellow enthusiasts from Liverpool University, I descended into that secular crypt which was soon to become sacred as one of the most famous music venues in the world.

Extract from Brian Hudson, 'University Jazz and the Mersey Sound: Student days in Liverpool, a memoir', Popular Music History vol. 1, no. 2 (2006), 215-226 (c) Equinox Publishing Ltd 2006.  Reproduced by kind permission.

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One feature of the trad jazz scene on Merseyside in the late 50's were the riverboat shuffles on the infamous Mersey Ferry/Cruise Boat, Royal Iris, locally known as the 'fish and chip boat'. 

We usually had a front band such as Chris Barber or Acker Bilk and supporting local bands such as the Merseysippi, Panama, Druids, Wall City etc. I recall one 'cruise' when the short choppy seas in Liverpool Bay made things difficult for the musicians and almost impossible for the dancers!

The old Royal Iris is still afloat, but looking very forlorn, against the river wall on the Thames near the Woolwich Barrage.

Brian Corbett, 21st April 2009

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27/09/07
Hi Fred, 

What a wonderful website. I used to go to the Picton Hall in Liverpool on a Sunday evening to see the great trad bands, the first one I saw was Freddy Randall just before I went into the RAF. When I came out in 1957 the Cavern (the best of cellars) was the place to go for trad jazz before the Beatles came on the scene. I have attached a photo of the original stage at Picton Hall which I took about 12 months ago. It had become the International Lending Library (you can still see several books on the photo). The Picton Hall was always a great venue for jazz being in the round, the library itself is now closed so I don't know what plans they have for it . 

Best Wishes,
John Finnigan Liverpool

29/09/07

Dear Fred, It was great to see the picture of Picton Hall. I remember all the Sunday concerts with Ken Colyer, Chris Barber, George Melly ,  The Merseysippi etc. When the Picton closed concerts were transferred to The Empire, & Pavilion Theatres and I saw Louis Armstrong at the old Liverpool stadium. I still have copies of all the programmes from the concerts I attended. They make all the memories return from those great days. 

Regards Derek Harrison.

30/09/07
From Steve Voce

In regard to Derek Harrison's comments on the Picton Hall. I was given the very first Grundig tape recorder (it weighed three stone!) and I used to lug it to the Picton where most of the bands let me record them. Freddy Randall was the exception saying, as was his habit with every such request, that I could record as long as I gave him the tapes to take away afterwards and check that they were OK. Since the tapes cost two quid each (a lot in the '50s!) I thanked him and declined. The tapes ran in the opposite direction to tapes later and today. I found the only one from that period that has survived the other day - Big Bill Broonzy recorded at the Temple in Dale Street, muffled through being converted from running one way to the other! I had but no longer have, some wonderful recordings made at the Picton by the Mulligan-Alex Welsh cartel. 

I was in the happy position of being a steward at Louis's Stadium concert. So I was able to walk round the circular corridor in the arena so that the band on the revolving stage was always facing me. 

My daughter Louise (called after Louis) was a few months old, and I have a photograph still signed 'To Louise from Godfather Louis Armstrong'. 

I interviewed Trummy Young and Barrett Deems later at the Adelphi. The Deems piece was in the Melody Maker. Trummy told me that initially he had left the US for Hawaii to escape tax problems following his time with Lunceford. When Hawaii became the 49th State he was in trouble because the IRS came after him. Joe Glaser paid his debts on condition that he worked indefinitely in the All Stars. By the time he came to Liverpool he was very sick with a stomach ulcer that couldn't be cured. The travelling was desperately bad for him, but Glaser wouldn't let him leave. 

Glaser's charity was further demonstrated when the band went to Africa. Velma Middleton had worked for Louis for about 20 years. Her massive overweight made her a universal joke. When the All Stars were in Africa she had, at one venue, to climb up and down a huge open air backstage in the midday sun. After doing this a few times she had a stroke and was taken to the pretty inadequate local hospital. Glaser and Louis thought it was too expensive to hire a plane to fly her out, so when the band moved on, they left her there. She died in the hospital.

Dear Fred, 

I found Steve Voce's memories of the Armstrong concert at the old Liverpool Stadium, most interesting, as I too, played a very small part in that concert. I was recruited by a lady who was a solicitor's managing clerk, to help with the "cash" side of things (I was a trainee accountant) but found the venue more suitable for wrestling than for jazz concerts!  However I did watch the band being paid (in cash) and Louis signed a programme for me which I straight away lost only for it to be returned to me just a few years ago when the very same lady was scoring for Prestatyn cricket club and I was umpiring for St Asaph cricket club. Small world.

Denys Owen

Who, Where and When Harold Troughton took this photograph,  He knows who and where but not quite when, do you? It was taken in the North West of England Back to Top

Name those musicians

Another teaser from Harold Troughton

The personnel on the photo supplied by Harold Troughton on your website is of the late-lamented Freddy Randall Band, which included Bruce Turner and Lennie Hastings (ooyaooyaooya!).,

Ralph Watmough

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GETTING STARTED IN JAZZ

by Tony Pringle

I was born on 12th December 1936 in a bungalow named "The Anchorage" in the village of Greasby on the Wirral Peninsula which is just across the river from Liverpool, England. The big news at the time was the abdication of King Edward VIII, but I was unaware of such goings on. If the Pringle family would have had their way I would have been named, as the eldest son of the eldest son, John Crester Pringle. My mother Isabel Edith Florence Laverick-Platt either had a warm spot for Anthony Eden or felt that as she had so many names someone should atone, hence Anthony is my one and only Christian name. Over the years I have found that I am only called Anthony by teachers and managers when I am in trouble, and more lately, by telemarketers trying to sell me something. Tony is much preferred as a mode of address. 

In 1939, right at the start of World War II, my parents broke up and my father took me to live with my grandparents – his parents. Looking and thinking back I am amazed that they took me on. They had brought up nine children of their own and along came me just as they were in sight of their youngest heading off for pastures new. My dad and grandfather were away somewhere in Wales working at a secret armaments factory under a mountain. My grandmother and my 6 aunts did a wonderful job of looking after me, for which I was not always as grateful as I should have been, but certainly am now. 

Sometime soon after that a German bomb landed in our garden and we took off to our cottage in Wales, away from the bombing. While we were away another bomb destroyed the block of houses at the end of our road and blew all the windows out of our house, the soot came down the chimneys and all my childhood toys were lost. 

Apart from that excitement life was, as I remember it, very good. My grandmother played piano and my youngest aunt had a record collection. I sort of remember Glenn Miller, but have vivid recollections of "Woodman Spare That Tree" and Pistol Packin' Mama". I started piano lessons, but gave them up because my friends called me a sissy. I played a little piano by ear - I would pick out Handel's Largo and other tunes that my grandmother played. At times my Dad visited and I remember him at times trying guitar and piano accordion - it mustn't have taken because it didn't last. Lastly, there was my grandfather, who would from time to time break out with politically incorrect tunes recalled from his earlier days or from some popular music hall artist. At some point someone gave me a Ukulele – my favorite tune was Drink To Me Only and I could play some George Formby numbers – no jazz there! 

My introduction to the music that I love came about totally out of the blue! 

I have always thought that being a fan of New Orleans style or traditional jazz was like catching a very obstinate bug - once you've got, it stays with you forever. I swear it feels like that is the way it has been with me. I can still remember my friend Dave Burnley calling me to come over to his house to hear these great records given to him by his uncle. This was back in 1955 or so, and he had been given a bunch of 78s. I can remember like it was yesterday my first experience with real New Orleans jazz - the first sides that I listened to were Jelly Roll Blues and Doctor Jazz by Jelly Roll Morton his Red Hot peppers followed by Just A Closer Walk With Thee and High Society by Bunk Johnson on the HMV label. 

Wow! I could not believe that music like this ever existed. This was nothing like Sid Phillips on BBC radio or what I had heard on Voice of America over short wave radio. On the way home I went into Strothers, our local record and music store, there I found a copy of 29th and Dearborn and Sweet Mumtaz by the Luis Russell Hot 6. I immediately recognised names like George Mitchell on cornet (still one of my favourites), "Kid" Ory, and Johnny St. Cyr. I bought it and headed home - you have to understand that at this time I had no way to play my find. The next week I bought a Garrard turntable and then went to the Army Navy store where I purchased a pair of earphones that looked like they dated back to the second world war. I hooked it all together and for weeks would just play the two sides - I was really hooked. 

Soon after I traded in my old Ukulele, that I had played for some time, for a banjo and started to learn to play jazz tunes. I also had a Guitar and because of this I used Guitar tuning on my banjo – not the best approach. Eventually I dropped both these instruments and only ever played one band job on banjo as a substitute with another band – after one set I had cramp in my left hand. At the end of the evening I retired from rhythm section work. 

Shortly after my indoctrination into jazz someone talked me into going to hear a local band. The Panama Jazz Band was playing at the Roycroft Hall in Wallasey not too far from where I lived with my grandparents. I can remember my first impression when they started playing. I was aghast. The trumpet player, a very nice guy, had to be the worst trumpet player that I have ever heard. I am sitting there thinking that I could do much better myself. This was based on nothing at all, my never having tried to play any wind instrument. The evening was saved when another trumpet player arrived to much excitement. It was Ken Sims who would later be with Cy Laurie's and then Acker Bilk's bands. When he played it sounded great and I decided there and then to get a cornet. The same week I bought a copy of the Melody Maker newspaper and sent away for a cornet. It cost £12, did not have a spit valve and came in a beautiful curved wooden case with exquisite brass fittings. 

I started to teach myself to play. I spoke with Ken Sims who recommended a teacher, but after a few lesson I stopped going to him. He told me that playing jazz would spoil my tone. A clarinet player at work taught me something about chords and I started to learn some tunes. At some time in 1956 or so I got an offer to join the Dolphin Jazz Band. After my first gig I walked home with Brian Williams who had played clarinet with the band and he introduced me to Roy Penny and Vic Sanderson. The next night these guys came over to my house and we had a session. Vic had a lousy banjo so I loaned him mine and taught him some chords and off we went. Brian played like George Lewis on the Bunk Victors and Roy played like Jim Robinson. We called ourselves the Druids Jazz Band. We must have driven my grandparents crazy practicing every night of the week and then going to the local pub to talk about the music. They were great times. 

We had our first gig soon after. We were booked to play at a workingman’s club on the dock road Birkenhead, the neighbouring town. We only knew about 12 tunes and half of them were spirituals and we used a Tea Chest bass with one string! The gig lasted 5 hours and I lost track of how many time we repeated ourselves. The audience was not entranced. 

Pretty soon we added drums and string bass (this last replacing the Tea Chest bass) to the Druids Jazz Band and in 1958 we became the resident Saturday night band at the Cavern and on Fridays at the other big jazz club in Liverpool – The Mardis Gras. We played intervals for Ken Colyer, Acker Bilk, Sandy Brown and other leading bands up from London. That’s how I got started! In 1967 I immigrated to USA, in 1969 I met Tommy Sancton and we started The Black Eagle Jazz Band and in 1971, After Tommy and Jim Klippert departed us, we formed the New Black Eagle Jazz Band, but that’s a story to be told in another hand dodger.

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Hi Fred,

I'm attaching a scan of a 40+-year-old photo that my Dad (a local photographer) took and which was published in the Leek Post and Times. I was wondering if you have ever came across Keith Pendlebury, who played at Leek Jazz Club quite a few times in the early 1960s. He was from the Manchester area and was a terrific pianist. I got to know him and Marcia McConnell quite well, partly because of going to the jazz club (that's a very youthful me on the right of the picture peering over the top of the piano) but also because my sister worked at the same mill as Marcia -- who was fired when the boss found out she was singing jazz at night (it couldn't happen today). - Ed Jackson www.chrisbarber.net 

The Jackson-Bradshaw Band

50 years ago

On the 24th July 2003, Pete Vickers came across an old copy of the Preston Herald newspaper for sale  in Preston, exactly 50 years old to the day. He also found this article inside it.

PRESTON HERALD, FRIDAY JULY 24 1953

JAZZ FROM GERMANY

Ivor Bradshaw, Jack Harris, Colin Hilton (of Blackburn) and Harold Salisbury, George W. Jackson, Eric Hammond (of Preston), who, with Jim Smith of London, form the Gremmendorf Jazz Band attached to the 17th/21st Lancers, stationed at Munster are currently enjoying a busman’s holiday on leave in Lancashire. As well as specialising in hot jazz the young soldiers are members of the regiment’s military and dance bands. During their leave - augmented by R.A.F. musician John Parkinson - they have deputised for the Saints Jazz Band at the Bodega Restaurant, Manchester, and last week they played at Ashton-under-Lyne Palais de Danse. "Music’s a great life, even in the army, confided clarinet expert Harold Salisbury. And when we’re demobbed there’ll be a few emigrants from the Cotton County stalking up and down London’s Archer Street searching for professional outlets.

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I'm Jon White, played string bass in RAF bands during N/S 1950/2, came out, got married, couldn't afford an instrument, so just listened for a few years ! Came to work in Manchester in 1960, checked out the local scene (Tommys, Black Lion, 43, MSG etc) for a bit then saw an ad in the M. E. News-"Bass for sale or swap Judo suit"

I wizzed along to Chorlton and pretended to be fairly uninterested in the REAL wood bass with ungigged varnish(!),but very keen to help the impecunious student to be a star in the belted world of martial artists. I showed him a few fivers and he said goodbye to the bass, which drove off with me at high speed, in a 2 door Ford Anglia! I often wonder if he and his mates (yes it was digs!) had a good night out instead!

After getting up to speed playing along with records for a bit, one night at the Black Lion the Panama turned up with no bass player; when I told Maurice (Pike) I'd got one he said well go and get it! The banjo player lent me his 'chord book' and I enjoyed it so much I forgot to order any beer, so I drank one of those on the piano top. Never did again, but I was truly hooked, and got asked for my phone number. I've still got my 'gigbook' full of names, but try ringing Didsbury 443 and see how far you get ! I hung up my 'plank' in 83 when we moved back to retire in Yorkshire, and took up the keyboard, which I play and communicate with others on the net.

I could trot out loads of stories, but thought it might be more interesting to catalogue the members of various bands I played / depped with on the jazz scene at that time. My memory is as fallible as yours but its an honest try at the dates and should provide a bit of fun for all 'mouldy figs' and er, what was the other one ?

Dear Fred , I see spaces in the red river camp and the zenith 6, can I place my fathers name in one of each space. His name was Eric Pizey and was the drummer for at first the Red River Jazz Men of which I have a number of recordings and then went on to join the Zenith 6. He died in 1966 when I was 4 and my sister was just 8 weeks, in a car accident. Please check Google for my honesty, and ,or ask the band members. It's important for me and my family that my father should have some ,small recognition.

Thankyou 
Roger Pizey

31/12/2022 - Roger recalls that his dad, Eric Pizey was in the Zenith 6 and the Red River Jazzmen. As Roger recounts he was killed in a road crash in the mid 1960s.

I knew Eric well as he and I worked at Gallaher Tobacco in Middleton near Manchester with him. I was a management trainee and he was a chargehand.

I used to go and see the Zenith Six play at the Black Lion in Salford on most Saturday nights. The jazz was great but even better was the delightful vocalist Marcia McConnell. I thought the world of her but not only was I four years or so younger, but she was in love with the pianist Keith Pendlebury whom she later married. She died recently and even Radio 3’s Jazz Record requests couldn't find a recording of her and only one album for the Zenith Six. She was every bit as hood as Ottillie Patterson.

Three of the band, Eric P on drums, Keith P, piano and the bassist, if I recall correctly, would go from the black Lion to earn some more money at a club in nearby Rusholme where they played slow numbers for the late drinkers and dancers smooching on the small dance floor into the early hours.

I think that, on the way to this late gig, poor Eric was thrown out of the open, sliding door of the band's van when the van crashed.

I recall the sadness at work and people feeling for his young family.

Please pass my details on to Roger Pizey if you have his e-mail. I recall his Dad as being a lovely man always with a smile.

From Tony West
16/01/10

The original Smoky City Jazzmen first played on 11th February 1966 at the Bamboo Club, Hazel Grove. I remember that date because my eldest daughter was born at lunchtime.

The line up was: Tony Foulkes clt and leader Geoff Wilde tpt Mike Cook tbn Bob Jones drums Bob Leaver bass Tony West banjo/guitar

That night Sheila Collier sang several tunes, and joined the band there and then.

Mick Cook left after about a year, and was replaced by Malcolm Smith who was a contemporary of mine at MGS, and the band retained that personnel until I left in 1969.

The personnel listed for the Dallas Jazz Band is fairly accurate, the missing person is Tony Pollitt on bass. * Bob Jones was not in the Dallas, When I joined the drummer was "Dereck" (I have forgotten his surname), but soon after that Dave Berry joined. Later on Nev Taylor was the drummer. At certain times of the year Allan Dent was not in Cornwall, and we had a "two trumpet" band. We made a private tape recording not long before I left, and I recall that at the end of "Someday Sweetheart" Allan played an incredibly beautiful and extended coda on cornet. He did it all in the one breath and collapsed just about breathless at the end of it.

I also remember two Dallas gigs at the Cavern with the Beatles as our support act. On the first one whilst we were setting up Roger Browne was reading the "autographs" on the bricks at the back of the stage, and on seeing "The Beatles" said to me "What a stupid name for a rock group!"

On another occasion we played at the Leofric in Coventry with Kenny Baker as guest. Joe Harriot's band was downstairs, and during one interval we went down and found Kenny playing brilliant bop trumpet with them. With us he had just about played pure Armstrong, and insisted that Bill Smith stayed onstage. Bill rose to the occasion that night. I really respect musicians like Kenny, who know the idiom, and always play in context.

One of the funniest gigs I recall with the Smokies was at Codsall, where George Melly was the guest. He had sent us the tune list and chord sequences beforehand, but many of us had not heard the tune "You've got the right key but the wrong keyhole." On hearing the words, combined with George's brilliant delivery, one by one the band members collapsed laughing, and unable to play. The only person still managing to play at the end of the tune was Bob Jones. When we play at festivals here in Australia that tune is just about our most requested one- Gail sings it very well indeed.

Tony West

31/07/07 - Hi Fred

I came across your site accidentally but I was intrigued when I did as my memory was jogged. I like jazz but am not very clued up but I can add this.

In between say 1958-1964 my brother was a director and manager of the Bodega in Cross St, Manchester and on a Sat, he used to rent out the large room to Paddy McKenin. I used to work there every Sat night with 3 of my other brothers, 1 in bar, 1 in cloakroom, and me in the jazz room. During that time, I saw Ken Colyer,, George Melly, Mick Mulligan, Alex Welsh Dutch Swing College Band, Merseysippi, Kenny Ball, Acker Bill, Karl Denver and many I cannot remember. We travelled there on train from Liverpool and used to have a drink first in Sinclairs, Fatted Calf, Listons, Long Bar. In fact I wrote to George Melly last year asking if he remembered the club and my brother which he answered "of course he did" and I still have his letter. I read in my local paper (Ainsdale, Southport) that his last gig 6 weeks before he died was The Talbot Hotel in Southport. There was also a guy called Paul Beatie who played there most nights, he played guitar.

George Roberts

4th Dec 2003

Glen Page
494 Shannon Way
Tsawwassen
B.C. V4M 2W5
Canada 604 948 2330

Regarding John's post on this I would like to add to the reference on the Zenith Six. The band was an offshoot of Ray Leclerq's New Orleans Band which I only heard once. Ray was the bass player and I do not know why he quit. The line up comprised of Ray, Malcolm Gracie (tbn), John Barnes, or Johnny as he was in those days, on clarinet, Tony Charlesworth (tpt), Derek Gracie (bjo), and Ron Arnold on skins and tins. After hearing Ray's band at St. Peter's Hall., I think, I was enamoured with the band and never missed hearing the Zenith as long as I was in Manchester. John Barnes was the main man for me but the overall sound of the band at the Clarendon Hotel on Friday nights gave me an acoustic orgasm! Dick Lister took Ray's spot when the Zenith were formed.  Something else on your site also caught my eye. The reference to Jim Lowe and Allan Brown as presenters at a jazz appreciation site brought back memories also. That must surely be the Jim Lowe from Glossop or somewhere nearby who was also at the Clarendon every Friday and who first turned me onto Leroy Carr. Allan Brown was playing Clarinet. with the Southside Stompers who I would listen to on the Saturday nights that I was not at the Thatched House listening to Eric Batty's Jazz Aces 

Love reading about the old times, thank you.

Cheers, Glen.

Talking of the Zenith 6, Mart Rodger sent me this photograph which he describes as "What might be the worst band publicity picture ever taken". It features Colin Tomkins - trumpet, Alan Pendlebury - trombone, Derek (Ulysees) Newton - double bass, Dave Berry - drums, Derek Gracie - banjo and Mart Rodger Clarinet. Apparently the photographer took some more pictures to improve on this one.

7/2/05 - 

Found your site through Google when trying to remember the name of the pub on Oxford Road where we saw amongst others Tubby Hayes and the Johnny Dankworth Seven way back. Your site solved it - the Clarendon!   A group of 61 year old ex Stand Grammar School lads meet in Manchester every couple of months - most of us used to inhabit the Bodega, the Black Lion, the Thatched House, the MSG, Club 43 etc. Last Friday, 4 Feb we were talking about Pete Haslam and Ulysses [I thought he played trombone] and we were great fans of Keith Pendlebury and Marcia.   Met Gary Cox at the Southport Jazz Festival a couple of years ago - a great player and I was a fan of his drummer Dave from the Club 43 and also the Black Lion?   I enjoyed your site and contributions very much indeed - many happy memories. I am about to send your details round the lads.   

Thanks very much -  Dave Jones

Dear Fred,   nice to read Don Bridgewood's letter ( 7 05 06 ).The pub he mentions was called The Forresters on Rochdale Rd. Manc. Just about all the Jazzers in and around Manchester were present and some great jazz was played. It's a pity nobody recorded it but nobody bothered in those days. I am flattered that Don remembers me. I hope you are well Don ! Pete Haslam and Jean whose wedding reception it was since moved to Cornwall and I believe Pete is not too well. 

Moe Green.

18/06/06 - Dear Fred,

Just had a look over your pages. What a pleasure it is to see Traditional Jazz alive and well in the North West. It is a particular pleasure for me because this is where my own jazz musicianship started. First of all in the fifties scene in Manchester listening to the many bands that were around at that time. I can remember the Manchester Evening News listing gigs for every night of the week!

Musically I have perhaps left these roots - I do not say ' moved on ' because that is really not the way I see it - and I really do enjoy from time to time being asked to sit in with a N. O. band or two here in Brussels. It is for me an interesting fact that two Belgian musicians I know well, a trombone player and a bass player, both who have now world class credentials, started their playing careers with the same Traditional Jazz band.

I can tell you that I do sometimes wonder when I play with younger, jazz college educated musicians, at just how narrow is their repertoire, and in many instances their profound ignorance is of any kind of jazz pre-Charlie Parker.

Did you ever subscribe to the excellent but now defunct 'Jazz Times' I did a crossword compilation for Alice for quite a few issues. I have some of the editions but really would love to own a full run.

I have just started another jazz project

www.jazzpedia.com 

If you ever have a moment or two to spare I am sure you could provide some interesting material.

Best regards and Bon Courage. I know only too well just how demanding the upkeep of a jazz web site can be.

Peter Maguire.

From the Manchester Evening News Aug 25th 1960 (Jack Florin)

MIKE REDDIN. 21-year-old banjoist with the Dizzy Burton Jazz Aces. is being claimed by National Service.

Mike, who lives in Stretford, aims to join a regimental brass band. Not as a banjoist, though. For some time now he has been tootling around on the clarinet.

When the Army "releases" him he hopes to return to the Jazz Aces - as a clarinetist.

In the meantime, his place in the rhythm section has been taken by Johnny Gordon, who recently moved to Bolton. Johnny has been a jazz lover for over eight years, and in his home town of Glasgow he has played with the Vernon Jazz Band and the Clyde Valley Stompers.

"Jazz Session" on BBC TV tomorrow features the Dill Quintet, the Bob Wallis
Storyville Jazzmen and singer Cab Kaye.

Guest attraction at Club Django in Southport next Thursday is the Kenny Ball Jazzmen. This new band made a tremendous impression when it appeared at a Manchester club earlier this month.

From Aug 25th & Dec 3rd 1960 by Jack Florin

Like many other youngsters Tony Foulkes soon became tired of piano lessons. But, musical theory came in useful years later when he decided to become a clarinettist.  Now, 20-year-old Tony of Oaklands Avenue, Offerton, is the leader of Stockport's Dallas Jazz Band. His studies for a career in architecture leave him little time for any hobbies apart from jazz. Prefers New Orleans Jazz.. Rates Johnny Dodds and George Lewis as his favourites.

"I heard same pleasant noises coming from a nearby hall as I was passing, so I went in and saw a jazz band playing," says 19-year-old Terry. Brunt whenever he recalls how he first became a jazz fan. That was three years ago 'The trombonist in that band impressed Terry most, so he bought a trombone and arranged for some lessons. Now he plays with the Dallas Jazz Band. Terry, a textile buyer, of Woodstock Avenue, Cheadle Hulme, rates Wilbur de Paris as his favourite trombonist.

17/09/03 - The death has occurred at the age of 85 of pianist Jim Cumming, formerly of Liverpool but resident in North Wales for many years.  Before the second world war Jim led a small band, playing in the kind of upper class "proper" night clubs which then existed, such as The Bears Paw in Lord St Liverpool.  He was in the army but also played in The Earle Scott band around Merseyside, a semi-pro band which in my view was easily the finest in the area in the 1940s. He told me recently that the then drummer in that band (Surname I think was Prendergast) is still alive and kicking, in Eastbourne. To Jim's knowledge no recording was ever made of the band.  I wonder whether anyone remembers it?         R.Denys Owen.

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From Charlie Bentley 8th April 2006

Ian Rose Jazz Band

Hello Fred,

Been reading about Don Bridgewood and The Black Lion.

I played at the Black Lion Hotel with the Ian Rose Jazz Band on Thursdays (I think). We started off on Thursdays rehearsing downstairs when Ged Hone played upstairs and when Ged moved to the MSG we took over upstairs. I was probably about 16 at the time. This was my first "proper" band. 

About the same time I also joined the New Iberia Jazz Band on Sundays with (I think) Dave Donohoe, Ron Pratt, Tony Smith, Dwight Gidney and Don Bridgewood. 

Left to Right - Ian Rose, Ken Buchanan, Charlie Bentley, Alf Halliday, Dave Wright, Bob Aspinall

I didn't have transport at the time being the "baby" of the band and I remember Don offering me a lift home on his scrambling motorbike sat on the back, no footrests cradling my banjo and hanging on for dear life hurtling through Manchester. I also seem to remember Don used to eat pies whilst playing and used to put them in gravy and all on his floor tom.

It would be great to have a " Black Lion" reunion with those left. I well remember Jack and Viv Fisher and many other nice people. 

My brother David (Dick) did the door for a while and Glenice also for a while. Glenice was the perfect woman. Her father owned a pub, The Blue Bell on Pin Mill Brow. She owned the hairdressers next door with a large flat above where we had many a party after playing.

Tony Smith later replaced Alf on trumpet and Julie Flynn joined on vocals. As far I know all are still alive and kicking (some even still playing) except possibly Ken Buchanan.

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The Southside Stompers
By Don Bridgewood, Photographs supplied by John Turner

Click the play button (maybe twice) to hear the Southside Stompers

The roots of the Southside Stompers lie in the recreation ground on Yew Tree Lane, Withington.  A group of friends, including Frank Cholerton and Roy Bower used to meet in the rec. with a wind-up portable gramophone playing things like Danny Kaye, the Andrews Sisters and, with me getting into THE MUSIC, Bunk Johnson, Jelly Roll Morton and Fats Waller The result - I bought a washboard and waited for Roy Bower to come out of the army, which would be in 1952-53.

Key point in forming the band proper was a Rag Day thrash when I came across Alan Brown, clarinet, and Jack Palmer, banjo, making wonderful (for those days) sounds in the students union. For a short time John Mayall did some rehearsals at Roadhouse's playing bass. I also sat in with John occasionally when he played piano at the Bodega during intervals.

I think it would be around 1954 that the band became a real entity. It went on from there with John Featherstone fitting in with his piano, Joe Whitehead on banjo, and finding a room to play in public at the Black Lion. 

As things do, they altered: by this time I had a drum kit to assault: we had people like Roy Williams and Eric Brierley on their way to better things doing the biz and eventually John Turner on trombone, and to me, one of the best New Orleans traditional style - as opposed to George Lewis style - British clarinet player, Ron Pratt , who drove us around in an Alvis, albeit an old and cheap one. There also came a tremendous banjo player, Norman Dakers, bass players Nev Matthews, Geoff Shean Ulysses Newton and Roy Turner. We certainly had some good musicians. I remember drummer Stuart Seton's wife Pauline singing.

We played various venues, including the old Music Hall in the Shambles, the Wheatsheaf on High Street, Band on the Wall, Oldham Street, The Bodega, and even Strangeways Prison among others, but eventually settled in the Black Lion with Frank Cholerton as manager. One feature of this period was playing exchange dates with Brian Woolley's band from Leicester, an excellent outfit. Around this time I got a REAL drum-kit after using a second-hand one - Olympic with Zyn cymbals, which was replaced around 1964 with Premier, with a Rogers snare, all still good to-day, with a couple of Zjyldian cymbals .

I also remember a gig in Wigan with the Liverpool University Jazz Band when we had the brass nerve to present 'The Story of Jazz'. That was 1958. Not a bad band, at all, but things change and I became increasingly disenchanted with playing the same tunes and, although I started the band I was fired after expressing a not very diplomatic opinion!

Apart from sitting in occasionally there my involvement with the band ended. It then started to change quite dramatically, heading fast towards mainstream (nothing wrong with that, if the musicians all want to do it).

Don Bridgewood
12/04/07

Dear Fred, After attending, sadly, Alan Hare's funeral yesterday I looked him up on the internet to revive some memories. I played with his band briefly in the early seventies; and played his wonderful arrangements, in his presence, until a short time ago. We will all miss him.

Every cloud.... as they say, because I found your site. In the mood to reminisce, I chose "Jazz in the Fifties and Sixties". Half-forgotten names leapt out at me. I read a letter from a John Turner who asked about a Don Bridgewood. Could this possibly be........ after 50 years??

In 1954 I had a classmate at Wigan Grammar School called John Turner, whose father, Roy, had had his own dance band before the war, and even made records! We listened to his whole collection and knew we had to form a band. There was a lad at school who played trumpet called John Kelly. That took care of the brass section. Gordon Barnes (a whole year older than us) was already a far better pianist than I would ever be, so he was in. I borrowed £16 from my father to buy an alto. I paid for the 5/- tutor book myself, went to my bedroom and didn't come down for two months. John's father lost his bass and gained a pupil. Bob Randall was a superb rugby player with a wealthy father. We explained to him that he was to be our drummer. Pete Millar was having lessons (he said) on his brand-new shiny clarinet, and completed our line-up. We called ourselves The Woodchoppers, after our second-hand Lally arrangement. We rehearsed frantically, with all the urgency of youth. Our first paid gig was the prestigious Boxing Day Dance at Ince Public Hall. We got it because of a double-booking by a real band. Half a century of determined effort has been unable to erase the memory of that night. Our band was a dance band. In 1955 the Trad Revival was in full... er, swing. John and I were totally hooked. Why not combine the two? John could handle the trombone almost before he took it out of the case. The man who sold me the battered clarinet told me it was a "simple" system. Back to the bedroom. The Woodchoppers were now getting regular work, a year after we started, and got even more by being able to turn ourselves into a trad outfit when required; with Pete Millar (now with a shiny tenor too) plucking John's bass. John and I had founded Wigan's first jazz club, playing in an upstairs room of the Park Hotel, Wigan. We called ourselves The Douglas Valley Stompers, in tune with the times, and occasionally with each other. Bands visited. In one of them was a drummer I liked called Don Bridgewood. Even then it seemed a long time (a year) since John's father had taken the under-age pair of us down the murky steps into the Bodega to hear our first live jazz. We vowed, on the way home on the train, to buy every record The Saints had ever made. The Woodchoppers split up in 1959, even after acquiring the services of a fine alto player in Joe Baron, and a residency in the Palais, above the Empress Hall in Wigan. We had reached our "peak" when Johnny Dankworth packed the Empress. We did the first hour, in the Empress, he the second, we the third and he the last. This was heady stuff for kids like us! For ten years I played no music (kindly don't ask) and had neither sight nor sound of John Turner. 

In 1970 I had a telephone call from a trumpet player called Harold Roberts who said he had watched me play at The Park Hotel twelve years earlier. He had a weekly gig at the Crawford Arms with The Rainy City, at Red Rock, Wigan (Pete Haslam tbn, Ian McCann bjo, Dave Parr b,) and desperately needed a clarinet for the following Thursday! I laughed, and told him gently that I had not touched an instrument for ten years; that the clarinet might still be in the loft; but I wasn't sure; and that the whole thing was out of the question. I told him 136 times. Have you ever tried to tell a trumpet player anything? Back to the bedroom again, I had four days! I died an embarrassing death, that first Thursday, and for a few more afterwards. I even overheard Pete Haslam wishing they hadn't asked me. I didn't blame him in the slightest. Over the next year things got better, thank God. One night Pete said "Don't take this personally, Allan, but I'm bringing a clarinet player next week who will frighten the hell out of you. He's called Randy Colville." As soon as I heard Randy play I realised he would frighten the hell out of Benny Goodman too. That seemed to make everything OK, for some reason; with Randy waving me back when I tried to leave the stand. At his invitation I had lessons with him at Salford College (just to have the finer points of my technique smoothed out, you understand). I discovered that I'd been blowing down the wrong end. At the end of one lesson he asked me to compose a 12-bar chorus of my own, and write it down. I brought it. He played it. He played it better the second time. He gave me an odd look and said "That's Be-Bop". He knew before I did where I was going. I had stopped playing for ten years, but I hadn't stopped listening. Still with The Rainy City in about 1971/2 we had bought a refurbished ambulance, with money collected at our weekly gig. We were giving a Sunday lunchtime concert at the Crawford Arms, where the official presentation to a school for handicapped children was to take place, Press invited. We knew that George Melly had a concert in Manchester the night before. It was worth asking, surely? George gave a wonderful performance to a packed house, from lunchtime till about 5pm FOR FREE. (I still have photographs and an audio tape) Thank you George, again; and rest in peace.

The Rainy City split up soon afterwards. Or, to put it another way, everybody left except me. To put the clarinet back in the loft was out of the question, and the venue was still available. Chris Carty, from Bryn, one of the finest trumpet players in the North West (who had also played in The Douglas Valley Stompers in 1956) agreed to join me; together with Jim Rooth pno, Archie Burrows drs, Barry Aldous bs, and various trombonists; often Lex Holcroft or Terry Brunt. (Chris persuaded me to buy a tenor, which I then began to play in the Art Lester Orchestra, graduating to lead alto, where I have stayed for over thirty years) In about 1976 we changed our name to Force Seven. Jim Rooth wrote dozens of hard- swinging arrangements; some were bebop; some were big-band-style; some were gentle ballads. A good half of our usual program was tight Dixieland. Gordon Robinson was with us for quite a while, weaving his usual magic. Getting deps was difficult because Jim's arrangement's were not nicked from Tune a Day; were in various styles; and a dep had to have his roots in New Orleans, because the Dixieland numbers were not scored, of course. We had to look to the likes of Doug Whaley, Ivor Deach and Pete Taylor, to mention but three. I must tread very, very carefully on a site like yours, Fred. So I will. I am very grateful to you for the chance to do so. The farther away we got from George Lewis and Kid Ory the more our audiences dwindled at our weekly venues. Our "away" gigs at jazz clubs like Stockport Jazz Cellar were advertised and packed! We were well aware that that would be the case! I have no axe to grind whatsoever. And no apology to make. Jazz is jazz.

Back to today and the delightful shock of seeing a photograph of John Turner on your site! Could you please forward this to him?

Many thanks