Description of Appleby Jazz Festival

Many different types of music seem to lurk behind the word “Jazz ”. Unlike the evolution of man, animals and plants, in which new developments replace the old, all the stages that jazz has progressed through are still here and easily accessible to anybody wanting to hear them. Traditional and Dixieland bands rub shoulders in the listings with be-bop quintets, hot club bands, big bands, post-bop and even free ensembles. All the styles seem to have survived and are a lot less static than the critics would have us believe.

However, playing in the shadow of a huge dinosaur skeleton in the Natural History Museum recently I felt a certain kinship with it. As our world grows less sympathetic to things unlikely to make anybody lots of money, less tolerant to eccentrics and as I get older and grumpier its easy to fall into the trap of thinking that,one day, this music will no longer be required and that all the “Characters” will have disappeared. (Talking of dinosaurs, pianist Martin Litton painted a wonderful birthday card for Harry Gold a couple of years back. Two pith-helmeted explorers were depicted peering through the dense African bush onto an ancient plane complete with belching volcanoes. Silhouetted against these was the easily recognisable figure of Harry blowing his enormous Bass saxophone . The caption was of course “the last of the dinosaurs”.)Mick Hutton, a Bass player who has played with the best in all styles of jazz maintains that the earlier the style, the more likely you are to have a hilarious time off the stand. I have to say that from traditional to modern, all the real jazz players I have met have been great characters with strong opinions and often an original slant on humour. Surely the greatest contribution jazz has made to the world is its celebration of the individual and the strength of an improvised performance depends on the emotion and depth of the person behind it. It's a hard place to hide - what you are tends to come out. I often think back to the music and some of the great individuals that first made me decide to become a full time jazz musician.Having become infatuated with the sound track of “The Jungle Book” and Acker Bilk's “Stranger on the Shore” I acquired a clarinet and eventually found myself a part of Geof Hayes' Hot Heights, a band which boasted an ice-cream chemist, a hypnotist from the days of variety and an atomic design engineer; all eccentrics to a man. I can remember inspecting Geof’s soprano – the instrument not only had two octave keys but a family of healthy looking white lice which seemed to have set up home on the reed. When this was pointed out to him he immediately placed the instrument in his mouth and, blowing a couple of wild scales proclaimed “This drives them crazy”.Rehearsals were held in a cellar in Frodsham and were made remarkable by a particularly potent home brew.

Outside gigs were always viewed as a disappointment due to the absence of this fiery restorative whose powers once enabled my father to fill in for a couple of numbers on drums - a memorable performance judged by our leader to be “marginally better than no drums at all”.David Cooper became a huge influence upon my arrival at Leeds College of music. He was an unconventional teacher and a law unto himself. On my third lesson with him I was becoming slightly concerned that he still hadn’t heard me play. “Shall I get my saxophone out”, I enquired. An alarmed look crossed his features .“Oh God, will that be entirely necessary?” He had a love of classic saxophones and the undisputed greats “Ben, the Hawk and Pres”, as he would emphasise when we drank together. However his main message seemed to be that you could get through life doing more or less what you wanted and still avoid any conflict by exuding a great charm. One afternoon, Dave, a lifelong smoker, was interrupted in his room by two of the technical staff armed with a huge no smoking sign. As he puffed away with theatrical relish on his cigarette, he offered every assistance - removing a picture of Coleman Hawkins, making space and giving helpful comments. Finally the sign was in place and Dave declared it “A splendid job” as he returned the Hawk (another tobacco fan) over the top of it.Home movies were another passion, not only those of his extensive travels, but also ones of families completely unknown to him which were purchased at jumble sales. He would shake with mirth at the antics of these strangers, inventing elaborate names, motives and subplots. Sometimes new films would include characters already known to him from previous viewing. “It's Uncle Hubert !” he would pronounce triumphantly. We would wake up some mornings with a huge mountain of unravelled film in front of us. Escaping his hospitality could prove difficult when, after two days of large meals, substantial quantities of drink and much playing and listening, one would feel the longing to get back to reality. We would set off for the station early in the morning but a series of detours including Stewart the butcher, various pubs, junk shops and second hand record emporiums would intrude and the whole episode would end back at his house with his wife raising her eyebrows in mock alarm and bellowing “I thought you’d gone”.When he was struck down with cancer, his spirit and humour remained intact although he did suggest to me that his personal motto “Nothing in moderation” was, perhaps, not the best policy. He continued to play when he could and kept up a highly entertaining correspondence complete with full credits: “Pens by 1) Summit c. 1950 2) Waterman’s c. 1930 3) Biro (original) ink by Parker, whisky by Grants, cigs by Gold Flake”.

Two stories from that period: Dave was visiting in London and we went for lunch. He had quite a heavy cough by then and our slightly obsequious waiter made a great show of seeing that he was alright. “Please don’t concern yourself – it’s just a touch of lung cancer” he reassured him. One another occasion, a National Health standard issue wig arrived on the doormat. Dave delighted in such items and a much mirth followed as he perched it on his now bald dome and made hilarious adjustments to it with a pair of his wife’s pinking shears. Just as the huge arches around his ears and the zigzag fringe were completed a car full of visitors drew up to see him. “Don’t mention the wig”, he hissed before falling back into a feigned sleep. The visitors hid their alarm at his appearance and as he seemed to be waking up enquired how his treatments were progressing. “Well I must be grateful at least my hair hasn’t fallen out” he commented stoically.Through Dave and other tolerant folk, I began to do Dixieland gigs in the Leeds area where I soon decided that one band needed the benefit of my latest functional harmony lecture. My helpful suggestions for the middle eight of “Exactly Like You” were met with incredulity. “These chords have done us for twenty years. If you don’t like it … sod off” the bass player explained. Mind you, I was also the recipient of much unsolicited advice myself. One ageing clarinettist suggested not playing with my eyes closed as this severely restricted time for making contact with the opposite sex. “Mind you, the only offers I’m open to are for good hot dinners” he said, by way of putting his remarks in context.During one interval at Sheffield Embassy Ballroom, wishing to escape for a while, I settled down with a pint and my novel in the bar. A figure approached from the crowd. “You’re doing it all wrong, son” he sympathised, “they don’t go for intellectuals round here”.I think the most bizarre engagement I took on at this time was with a five-piece band on the summit of an open-topped double-decker bus for one week. Add the facts that it was February in Yorkshire, the hours were nine to five and that the only tune we were allowed to play was “Deep in the Heart of Texas” and you may begin to realise some of the resilience and fortitude required to get through the long week. Huddled on the lower deck were a clown, a Uni-cyclist, two midgets, a juggler, fire-eaters and a Moroccan human pyramid (not yet assembled). The brief was simple. Drive to various town centres, the band striking up at the sight of any people, and disembark en masse at the nearest shopping centre. Here, as the band played its selection for the thousandth time, the circus people went into action. The pyramid formed, fire poured forth, juggling balls were a blur and the clown capered around chasing the Uni-cycle. Unfortunately, the leaflets that the midgets were to hand out advertising a famous chain of DIY shops never turned up. As a result, the puzzled public had no idea why we were there or what we were publicising. The head of the circus had also neglected to inform the shopping centres that we might be popping in and so our reception in Bradford was not all it should have been. Perhaps thinking they were taking the easy option, two security guards tried to grab the midgets and, for their pains, both received smart right handers to the chin. The whole entourage fled up the snowy street chased by the guards and their reinforcements. The bass player fell dangerously behind and had to be pulled James Bond-like into the already moving bus. On our visits to Leeds, the job was made harder as we had to duck out of sight when passing the music college where we were all supposed to be in attendance. On the Friday, it was suggested that we try a key change. With fingers numbed by cold and minds scrambled with repetition, the attempt proved abortive and we slid gratefully back to the warm familiarity of 'F'. At the end of the week as we were being paid our £18 per day, reasonable money in those days, it transpired that the drummer had assumed that it was £18 for the whole week. The clown was amazed:“You mean you went through all that thinking that you were only making a few quid?” he asked.The success of this season led to two weeks in a big top in Weatherby where the long-suffering acts were subjected to selections from the jazz repertoire despite their requests, uttered in heavy German accents, that we play “Yabba-Dabba music”. I can accept, after an interval of some years, that perhaps Charlie Parker’s “Anthropology” is not the best accompaniment to knife throwing but at that stage we were on a crusade and arguments about being inappropriate fell on deaf ears. The whole episode ended with the ring master getting food-poisoning and the band having to take over his job including some notably sad attempts at scary noises from the drummer when ghosts and spiders swooped down from the rafters. “How much do you think you’re getting this week?”, we would taunt him.It was around this time that I thought it might be an idea to get involved in slightly more serious endeavours and so moved to London. The fist night there led to the discovery of the “The Pindar of Wakefield” pub where Keith Nichols hosted riotous evenings of early jazz and novelty performers lined up to do their turns. These included “The Legendary Bert Cables” a gentleman of many years who, each week sang a song on the delights of Hawaii whilst moving amongst the audience, festooning girls with garlands of plastic flowers which he produced from beneath his opera cape. The dramatic effect was rather ruined when he swiftly retrieved them at the end of the number for use in the next week’s appearance. Following the advice “Don’t change a winning formula”, Bert stuck to this routine for many years. The pursuit of higher ground also led to my depping in the “Rio-Grande Hot Tango Orchestra” which often accompanied strongman, the “Amazing Captain Waller” and featured a skeleton in the saxophone section. My favourite moment came during a ridiculously fast version of “Tiger Rag”. The trumpeter would point a microphone at the front of his trousers and scratch vigorously during the two bar breaks. The sound effects came from the sandpaper sides of two matchboxes being rubbed together on another microphone out of view. The results were magnificent.It must be said that I have sometimes managed to play in serious contexts but that is another and, of course, much less interesting story.

		ALAN BARNES REFLECTS ON HIS BEGINNINGS IN JAZZ .................

Many different types of music seem to lurk behind the word “Jazz ”. Unlike the evolution of man, animals and plants, in which new developments replace the old, all the stages that jazz has progressed through are still here and easily accessible to anybody wanting to hear them. Traditional and Dixieland bands rub shoulders in the listings with be-bop quintets, hot club bands, big bands, post-bop and even free ensembles. All the styles seem to have survived and are a lot less static than the critics would have us believe. However, playing in the shadow of a huge dinosaur skeleton in the Natural History Museum recently I felt a certain kinship with it. As our world grows less sympathetic to things unlikely to make anybody lots of money, less tolerant to eccentrics and as I get older and grumpier its easy to fall into the trap of thinking that,one day, this music will no longer be required and that all the “Characters” will have disappeared. (Talking of dinosaurs, pianist Martin Litton painted a wonderful birthday card for Harry Gold a couple of years back. Two pith-helmeted explorers were depicted peering through the dense African bush onto an ancient plane complete with belching volcanoes. Silhouetted against these was the easily recognisable figure of Harry blowing his enormous Bass saxophone . The caption was of course “the last of the dinosaurs”.)Mick Hutton, a Bass player who has played with the best in all styles of jazz maintains that the earlier the style, the more likely you are to have a hilarious time off the stand. I have to say that from traditional to modern, all the real jazz players I have met have been great characters with strong opinions and often an original slant on humour. Surely the greatest contribution jazz has made to the world is its celebration of the individual and the strength of an improvised performance depends on the emotion and depth of the person behind it. It's a hard place to hide - what you are tends to come out. I often think back to the music and some of the great individuals that first made me decide to become a full time jazz musician.Having become infatuated with the sound track of “The Jungle Book” and Acker Bilk's “Stranger on the Shore” I acquired a clarinet and eventually found myself a part of Geof Hayes' Hot Heights, a band which boasted an ice-cream chemist, a hypnotist from the days of variety and an atomic design engineer; all eccentrics to a man. I can remember inspecting Geof’s soprano – the instrument not only had two octave keys but a family of healthy looking white lice which seemed to have set up home on the reed. When this was pointed out to him he immediately placed the instrument in his mouth and, blowing a couple of wild scales proclaimed “This drives them crazy”.Rehearsals were held in a cellar in Frodsham and were made remarkable by a particularly potent home brew. Outside gigs were always viewed as a disappointment due to the absence of this fiery restorative whose powers once enabled my father to fill in for a couple of numbers on drums - a memorable performance judged by our leader to be “marginally better than no drums at all”.David Cooper became a huge influence upon my arrival at Leeds College of music. He was an unconventional teacher and a law unto himself. On my third lesson with him I was becoming slightly concerned that he still hadn’t heard me play. “Shall I get my saxophone out”, I enquired. An alarmed look crossed his features .“Oh God, will that be entirely necessary?” He had a love of classic saxophones and the undisputed greats “Ben, the Hawk and Pres”, as he would emphasise when we drank together. However his main message seemed to be that you could get through life doing more or less what you wanted and still avoid any conflict by exuding a great charm. One afternoon, Dave, a lifelong smoker, was interrupted in his room by two of the technical staff armed with a huge no smoking sign. As he puffed away with theatrical relish on his cigarette, he offered every assistance - removing a picture of Coleman Hawkins, making space and giving helpful comments. Finally the sign was in place and Dave declared it “A splendid job” as he returned the Hawk (another tobacco fan) over the top of it.Home movies were another passion, not only those of his extensive travels, but also ones of families completely unknown to him which were purchased at jumble sales. He would shake with mirth at the antics of these strangers, inventing elaborate names, motives and subplots. Sometimes new films would include characters already known to him from previous viewing. “It's Uncle Hubert !” he would pronounce triumphantly. We would wake up some mornings with a huge mountain of unravelled film in front of us. Escaping his hospitality could prove difficult when, after two days of large meals, substantial quantities of drink and much playing and listening, one would feel the longing to get back to reality. We would set off for the station early in the morning but a series of detours including Stewart the butcher, various pubs, junk shops and second hand record emporiums would intrude and the whole episode would end back at his house with his wife raising her eyebrows in mock alarm and bellowing “I thought you’d gone”.When he was struck down with cancer, his spirit and humour remained intact although he did suggest to me that his personal motto “Nothing in moderation” was, perhaps, not the best policy. He continued to play when he could and kept up a highly entertaining correspondence complete with full credits: “Pens by 1) Summit c. 1950 2) Waterman’s c. 1930 3) Biro (original) ink by Parker, whisky by Grants, cigs by Gold Flake”. Two stories from that period: Dave was visiting in London and we went for lunch. He had quite a heavy cough by then and our slightly obsequious waiter made a great show of seeing that he was alright. “Please don’t concern yourself – it’s just a touch of lung cancer” he reassured him. One another occasion, a National Health standard issue wig arrived on the doormat. Dave delighted in such items and a much mirth followed as he perched it on his now bald dome and made hilarious adjustments to it with a pair of his wife’s pinking shears. Just as the huge arches around his ears and the zigzag fringe were completed a car full of visitors drew up to see him. “Don’t mention the wig”, he hissed before falling back into a feigned sleep. The visitors hid their alarm at his appearance and as he seemed to be waking up enquired how his treatments were progressing. “Well I must be grateful at least my hair hasn’t fallen out” he commented stoically.Through Dave and other tolerant folk, I began to do Dixieland gigs in the Leeds area where I soon decided that one band needed the benefit of my latest functional harmony lecture. My helpful suggestions for the middle eight of “Exactly Like You” were met with incredulity. “These chords have done us for twenty years. If you don’t like it … sod off” the bass player explained. Mind you, I was also the recipient of much unsolicited advice myself. One ageing clarinettist suggested not playing with my eyes closed as this severely restricted time for making contact with the opposite sex. “Mind you, the only offers I’m open to are for good hot dinners” he said, by way of putting his remarks in context.During one interval at Sheffield Embassy Ballroom, wishing to escape for a while, I settled down with a pint and my novel in the bar. A figure approached from the crowd. “You’re doing it all wrong, son” he sympathised, “they don’t go for intellectuals round here”.I think the most bizarre engagement I took on at this time was with a five-piece band on the summit of an open-topped double-decker bus for one week. Add the facts that it was February in Yorkshire, the hours were nine to five and that the only tune we were allowed to play was “Deep in the Heart of Texas” and you may begin to realise some of the resilience and fortitude required to get through the long week. Huddled on the lower deck were a clown, a Uni-cyclist, two midgets, a juggler, fire-eaters and a Moroccan human pyramid (not yet assembled). The brief was simple. Drive to various town centres, the band striking up at the sight of any people, and disembark en masse at the nearest shopping centre. Here, as the band played its selection for the thousandth time, the circus people went into action. The pyramid formed, fire poured forth, juggling balls were a blur and the clown capered around chasing the Uni-cycle. Unfortunately, the leaflets that the midgets were to hand out advertising a famous chain of DIY shops never turned up. As a result, the puzzled public had no idea why we were there or what we were publicising. The head of the circus had also neglected to inform the shopping centres that we might be popping in and so our reception in Bradford was not all it should have been. Perhaps thinking they were taking the easy option, two security guards tried to grab the midgets and, for their pains, both received smart right handers to the chin. The whole entourage fled up the snowy street chased by the guards and their reinforcements. The bass player fell dangerously behind and had to be pulled James Bond-like into the already moving bus. On our visits to Leeds, the job was made harder as we had to duck out of sight when passing the music college where we were all supposed to be in attendance. On the Friday, it was suggested that we try a key change. With fingers numbed by cold and minds scrambled with repetition, the attempt proved abortive and we slid gratefully back to the warm familiarity of 'F'. At the end of the week as we were being paid our £18 per day, reasonable money in those days, it transpired that the drummer had assumed that it was £18 for the whole week. The clown was amazed:“You mean you went through all that thinking that you were only making a few quid?” he asked.The success of this season led to two weeks in a big top in Weatherby where the long-suffering acts were subjected to selections from the jazz repertoire despite their requests, uttered in heavy German accents, that we play “Yabba-Dabba music”. I can accept, after an interval of some years, that perhaps Charlie Parker’s “Anthropology” is not the best accompaniment to knife throwing but at that stage we were on a crusade and arguments about being inappropriate fell on deaf ears. The whole episode ended with the ring master getting food-poisoning and the band having to take over his job including some notably sad attempts at scary noises from the drummer when ghosts and spiders swooped down from the rafters. “How much do you think you’re getting this week?”, we would taunt him.It was around this time that I thought it might be an idea to get involved in slightly more serious endeavours and so moved to London. The fist night there led to the discovery of the “The Pindar of Wakefield” pub where Keith Nichols hosted riotous evenings of early jazz and novelty performers lined up to do their turns. These included “The Legendary Bert Cables” a gentleman of many years who, each week sang a song on the delights of Hawaii whilst moving amongst the audience, festooning girls with garlands of plastic flowers which he produced from beneath his opera cape. The dramatic effect was rather ruined when he swiftly retrieved them at the end of the number for use in the next week’s appearance. Following the advice “Don’t change a winning formula”, Bert stuck to this routine for many years. The pursuit of higher ground also led to my depping in the “Rio-Grande Hot Tango Orchestra” which often accompanied strongman, the “Amazing Captain Waller” and featured a skeleton in the saxophone section. My favourite moment came during a ridiculously fast version of “Tiger Rag”. The trumpeter would point a microphone at the front of his trousers and scratch vigorously during the two bar breaks. The sound effects came from the sandpaper sides of two matchboxes being rubbed together on another microphone out of view. The results were magnificent.It must be said that I have sometimes managed to play in serious contexts but that is another and, of course, much less interesting story.