Show Times

Sat 3am-4am
Sun 4am 5am
Tue 3am-4am
7am-8pm
Weds 11am-12am
Thurs 7am-8am
9pm-11pm
Fri 2pm-3pm

Playlist from 01 September 2010
and is repeated each day....

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The Jazz Rep

Way back in times that could be pages in a history book (1958-9) I played bass guitar in a rock come r & b group in south west London. One day I heard this record called "Georgia On My Mind" by Ray Charles, it just stopped me dead. I had never heard anything so good. Needless to say I went out and bought it and after playing it for about a fortnight I returned to the record shop, which was called Memory Discs, and inquired what else had Ray Charles recorded? The only record they had in the shop was an EP, an EP was an extended play 45 rpm. In other words it was a 45 rpm with two tracks on each side. Now all four tracks were instrumentals, Ray playing piano and organ and a little sax with people like Milt Jackson helping things along. That was it, I was a jazz fan. My next for foray to a record shop was to Richmond, about four miles away, by the side of the river Thames. I was told this was a place to go for jazz records and I bought my first three LP records there. Les McCann "In San Francisco" which had the most incredible version of Red Sails In The Sunset on it. He laid down these really heavy, rumbling chords then cut his way through the surface with his right hand playing the melody high and tinkling, like the sunlight reflecting on the crest of the waves. I also bought "Gerry Mulligan/Paul Desmond Quartet," very revolutionary, a pianoless quartet and an album by John Lewis, piano player from the MJQ.
While all this was going on, the rhythm guitarist, from our group Alan and my life long friend, was attending guitar lessons to try to improve his technique. His teacher (Burt Kirby) turned out to be the guy who played rhythm guitar for Django Reinhardt when he was in england in the late 1940s early 1950s. So he was also being switch on to jazz from another direction.

We started going to jazz clubs, some quite local Ealing, Richmond but then we found Ronnie Scotts, The Marquee and The Bulls Head at Barnes. A regular saturday night was to go to The Marquee club about 8pm and hear Joe Harriott Quintet, Wow! This was the most incredible band. Joe on Alto and way ahead of his time. A very large jamaican on flugalhorn and trumpet called Shake Keane, superb. A brilliant pianist called Pat Smythe, a remarkable bass player named Coleridge Goode and on drums was Bobby Orr. They always managed to work in some free form jazz into the programme, when this happened they tended to work from sketches rather than music. Sometimes it was not so good but when it came off it was nothing short of miraculous.
Around 11.30 to 12.30 we would find some food to soak up the alcohol and then off to Ronnie Scotts for the all night jazz session. This was the old club at Gerrard St, in the middle of Londons chinatown, (very naughty). Not only did you get to see and hear british musicians like Ronnie Scott, Tubby Hayes, Stan Tracey, Alan Ganley, Jimmy Deuchar, Don Rendell, Ronnie Ross, Phil Seamen and many many more but also the american musicians that Ronnie brought to the club. I saw Dizzy Gillespie, Stan Getz, Al Cohn, Wes Montgomery, Victor Feldman, Ben Webster, Zoot Sims and the remarkable Roland Kirk. When Kirk came unto the stage I did not know his music, I thought it was a joke. He look like a street busker, there was instruments hanging off him everywhere. Then when he played three reeds at once at first I thought it was a gimmick, nothing could be further from the truth, he was just magnificent. I have been a fan of his music from that day. There was also the musicians who were in London visiting or working else where and not supposed to be at Scotts because of union rules but they just turned up and jammed. Ronnie would indicate no photo's. One night a guy in a mack and a peaked cap walked in all the way to the front, opened a black case he was carrying, assemble his horn and join in with The Stan Tracey Trio, it was Art Farmer unofficially.
The night would end about 5.30 am and then would start our walk across London to the train station but the trains did not start running till 7.30 am then. We would have our heads full of dreams and wild music and would bump into the odd lamppost as our eyes had difficulty in staying open. At the station it was straight for a vending machine and a cup of coffee. That's where I saw some graffiti written on the side, Drink varnish it will kill you but give you a lovely finish.
Its a long time ago but Jazz still excites me. 
The Rep