Miss Manchester Jazz

The band I led and sang with throughout the 1970s was called Sheila Collier's Smoky City Jazz Band. With a line-up of Sheila Collier, Bill Smith (trumpet), John Hallam (clarinet, saxophone), Terry Brunt (trombone), Roger Godfrey (piano), Brian Morrison (bass), and various banjo players - Tony West, Roy Tweedle, Bob Ascough, and Charlie Bentley; we enjoyed great success. I organised and ran various jazz clubs in and around Manchester, of which I remember, the Midland, Didsbury; the Brahms and Liszt, and the Peacock Club, in Chorlton-cum-Hardy. We also played host to many marvellous musicians and bands, among which were the Alex Welsh Band, The Merseysippi, Humphrey Lyttelton, George Melly, Stephane Grappelli, Joe Harriott, Bud Freeman, Wild Bill Davison, and George Chisholm.

Eventually, in the mid-'70s, we took up a residency at the Band on the Wall, in central Manchester. This was on Swan Street, right opposite the huge newspaper works for the Manchester Guardian and the Daily Express. Our club on a Wednesday night became the 'in' place for newspapers, to people, students, socialites, and jazz fans alike.

Now that my children were growing up, I found I could devote more time to my music. I used to say that my weekend started on Wednesday nights! Also I was working in fashion design and in a vintage clothes shop in Manchester - from where I would find marvellous antique clothes to wear for my appearances at the club. I mixed these 'pieces' with tight, black shiny trousers and stiletto-heeled, over the knee, black boots. A trend not uncommon today, but quite extraordinary back then! Once, before a gig, I attended a school parents' evening in this attire, and was soundly told off by my daughter for embarrassing her in front of the other parents.

The 'Smokys' went from strength to strength, with concerts, clubs, radio and TV appearances. In 1997 we made our first trip abroad, to the 'Jazz in Duketown' Festival in S'Hertogenbosch, Holland. It wasn't actually the first festival trip abroad for me; I had sung at the 'Honky Tonk' Jazz Festival in Dendermonde, Belgium, in 1972, with the Barry Martyn band, and we met Albert Nicholas and Memphis Slim. But 'Jazz in Duketown' was a revelation! A three-day festival that encompassed the whole town - concerts, parades, pubs, outdoor bandstands, decorated streets - and, most importantly, lots and lots of happy people of all ages having a really good time. We were a huge hit; people chanted my name - "She-ila - She-ila!" They even changed our last venue to the big concert stage. It was absolutely wonderful. For the first time for a long time I felt that what I was doing was real and worthwhile. This was just the beginning of many happy years of going to 'Jazz in Duketown' and many other festivals and clubs in Holland and Belgium.

Returning home, I resolved an ambition to create a similar event in Manchester. Told by many (including Chris Barber's manager) that this couldn't be done in England because of our rules and regulations, I eventually achieved my ambition, and in 1983 the Hayfield Weekend Jazz Festival was born.

Back in 1978, Sheila Collier's Smoky City Jazz Band recorded their first album. Funded partly by me and partly by Harry Hallam, John's Dad, we recorded it at the Royal Northern College of Music in Manchester. This album received excellent reviews by Ray Coleman in the Melody Maker, in Storyville magazine, and from the press in general. With a great selection of numbers, and sleeve notes by George Melly, my favourites are Black And Tan Fantasy and A Hundred Years From Today. Humph played the latter on his radio programme, and I also sang it with George Chisholm at Bridlington Jazz Festival.

Playing this record again recently, I find that the album has stood the test of time, and well deserves to be re-issued as a CD.

'The slim, blonde singer with the round, dark voice; as I was dubbed by the Dutch press, achieved much success through the 1970s. I ran my own band and clubs, appeared in 'legitimate' theatre, travelled and sang abroad with my band and as a solo singer, made a couple of records, and had lots of fun doing the things I loved - singing and being creative.

But by 1982 it had all changed. After an unhappy divorce, I moved to the village of Hayfield in Derbyshire, and left my band. It was time to 'pick myself up, dust myself off, and start all over again'.

Part lV The 1980s and '90s