Jazz journey - the text

Jazz Journey - A Nostalgia Trip With Musical Accompaniment pt1

Jazz was a major influence on me and my friends. The little group of us - Donald Lucas and his big brother Leslie, Frankie Childs and Bob Winkworth. Going through puberty, hanging out, going to the Saturday hops at East Ham Town Hall and summer evening dances in Central Park. Here you grabbed a girl and stumbled, slow slow quick quick slow, anti-clockwise around the bandstand as it tannoyed out 78s from Parlophone and Capitol. Badgering the park keeper in charge of the loud tone needles to play Stan Kenton's Peanut Vendor just one more time.
Every house had a piano. These took a bashing as we did the circuit of each others' front rooms (long suffering mums stoking us up with tea and sandwiches) and stretched our left hands, showing off the latest boogie-woogie pattern learned after hours of listening to records on the wind-up. A favourite technique was to slow the turntable by wedging the brake half on. This helped us pick out the notes but pitched our performances down several keys.

We stayed together in this routine for the final couple of school years, leaving at fifteen and taking our first jobs. Earning a living, 'courting' etc. took its predictable toll. We slowly split, the encounters becoming perfunctory. But my interest in and love of jazz continued. Jack Jackson's Record Roundup (announced by Harry James playing Carnival), Family Favourites and other record programmes were listened to for any hint of American bands. On a good night I could just tune in AFN from Munich. This radio station served the American forces in Europe and was a sure source of the latest stateside sounds.

A coterie of British band leaders, disciples of the revolutionary sounds crossing the Atlantic from standard bearers like Stan Kenton and Woody Herman, were playing concerts in London. Venues such as the old, now extinct Empress Hall and the pristine, acoustically perfect Royal Festival Hall resounded to twenty piece aggregations reproducing (with varying degrees of success) those arrangements which till then had only been heard via the fading medium wave ether, or the few "jazz and dance" 78s sneaking into the monthly new release catalogues of such record companies as Capitol and Brunswick. Vic Lewis, in particular, reproduced the Kenton Sound. However, I seem to recall enthusiasm and volume being more apparent than subtlety and technique in this band's performances.

Then it was time for the landmark faced by all male teenagers in the fifties - National Service. I'll gloss over the shock to a sensitive, sheltered eighteen year old's being. The musical bonus was being posted to Germany. Here, 2545454 Leading Aircraftman Smith A E, in company with two or three fellow jazz fans; people like Senior Aircraftmen Bob Rudd and Andy Capy (a French surname, the Daily Mirror character was yet unborn), who had gravitated to each other like iron filings round a magnet, were able to listen to AFN loud and clear.
The main man on this station was The Baron of Bounce. His regular slot, The Hot House, was the fount of all jazz wisdom. The opening bars of the theme tune, Undercurrent Blues by Benny Goodman's big band, were the signal for devotions. We worshiped at The Baron's turntable. If only I still had my Hot House membership card.