Hilly Fields Jazz Police?

Summer evenings this year have seen some remarkable gatherings on Hilly Fields. In the area by the park's stone circle - an ancient monument dating back to 2000 - a group of young jazz musicians have been playing improvised sessions watched by people relaxing on the grass. I believe the sessions have mostly been on Monday nights, though there was also one on July 12th linked to the Black Lives Matter event in the park that day.

Last week though (Monday 3rd August) the session was ordered to stop by the police. It is unclear whether this was due to concerns about Covid 19 regulations, licensing issues or a complaint about noise. The  musicians have a lot of support locally,  as expressed in one facebook comment: 'This event is something very special, the atmosphere is out of this world. Was taken out of London and floating on air. Smiles all round, warm energies, dancing to the amazing music on the air. Seeing the musicians all buzz off one another is incredible. Such a shame if it's shut down now'. The photo below, by Cath Dupuy, shows the scene last Monday before the event came to a premature end.

(photo by Cath Dupuy)

Hopefully a way forward can be found to enable something to continue, for now the musicians are considering taking their talents elsewhere (I have come across similar gatherings on Peckham Rye). 

The bigger picture for me is how amazing it is that in 2020 there should be a vibrant, multiracial community of young musicians playing jazz for an appreciative public! South East London is recognised internationally as a centre for this new movement that has spawned Ezra Collective and Catford's Moses Boyd among many others. A while ago Kate Hutchinson wrote up  'A sweaty night out in London's new jazz scene' in the New York Times (19 October 2018):  'In a tiny converted railway arch south of the River Thames, a mosh pit had formed in front of a three-way brass-off. The house band played from the floor, as if it were a punk show. Other musicians crowded around, waiting for their turn... In London, a new generation is challenging jazz’s stuffy reputation as the conservatory-honed noodlings of middle-aged musicians for affluent — and seated — audiences'. The night featured was a Steam Down session at Buster Mantis bar in Deptford.

As John Lewis highlighted recently in The Guardian, this new 'cosmopolitan vision of jazz' is very much shaped by 'The multicultural nature of London'. Key scene figure Shabaka Hutchings notes that it incorporates influences from  'Dub, dancehall, calypso, soca, Afrobeat, highlife, township jive, nyabinghi – all put through the filter of rave and house and hip-hop' (Add some township jive! How London's jazz scene set itself apart, Guardian, 27 May 2020). Many of the musicians are from South London,  either by origin and/or having studied on the influential jazz course at Trinity Laban college in Greenwich/Deptford.

You really have to go back to  the acid jazz clubs of 1980s/90s  or maybe even the jazz raves of the 1950s to find anything like a similar energy. And when was a jazz event last stopped by the police?  Punk gigs, grime nights, reggae blues parties and acid house raves have all felt the force of the law in the last thirty years, but let's face it jazz couldn't get arrested.  Surely there can be no surer sign of the rebirth of cool! 

(photo by @SwanAroundPhotos)

Laura Misch - Playground - soulful South London sounds for summer days

I'm loving 'Playground', the new album by Laura Misch. Self-produced at home by the multi-talented singer, saxophonist and ableton whizzkid from East Dulwich, it has a much fuller sound than you might be expecting from that description. Laura is the sister of Tom Misch, and while there is a similarly mellow vibe she has her own distinctive sound -  lush layers of jazz-tinged neo-soulfulness and understated beats.  You might have heard her on Gilles Peterson's Radio 6 show last weekend. This could be the soundtrack to a languid summer, when the sun comes out.

She has some gigs coming up locally at Bermondsey Social Club next month, which I think is already sold out, and at Peckham Rye Music Festival this weekend where I think she is playing on the Saturday.

Yes she painted the cover too

  .

Revue ZouZou: 1930s Paris comes to Nunhead

Back in 2010, there was a great 1920s night at the Ivy House (Stuart Road SE15) themed around the film Piccadilly. The people behind it have also been doing the Brockley Jack Film Club, and now they are back at the Ivy House putting on 'Revue ZouZou' on 8 February 2014. They say:

'we move through the decades to 1930s Paris.  A time of Gypsy jazz, surrealist adventure and cabaret. Come to experience music, magic and moving images.  Dressing up, drinking cocktails and dancing are recommended – but nothing except having a good time is compulsory'.

Acts include:

- gypsy jazz ensemble Belleville RendezVous ('Bringing to life the spirit of Django Reinhardt and the Quintette du Hot Club de France')

- alternative magician Dee Riley ('Mysterious and hauntingly dark entertainment, stretching the limits of human belief and delving into the depths of the power of the mind. His ”Illusion Of Laughter” and “DistasterPiece”  shows sold out')

- 'offbeat, surreal comedy' from the Dead Secrets ('Following their success at the Edinburgh fringe.. surreal comedy with a special thirties Parisian twist for the night')

More information at Piccadilly Productions; tickets (£9) from wegottickets

Free gig at the Herb Garden

If you've never experienced free jazz in the Herb Garden in Deptford, you really should. I went to the Lol Coxhill memorial there last year and it was great. This Bank Holiday Monday August 26th, Tom Scott, Rob Mills, Sue Lynch, Arnold Lane, Eddie Real and David Aylward will be performing, plus special guest. 5 pm start, free admission.

Free jazz and a tree for Lol Coxhill

Nice event in the delightful oasis of the Herb Garden (McMillan Street SE8) last Monday. To commemorate the life of saxophonist Lol Coxhill (as discussed here before), there was a gathering with live free jazz and a tree planting.

The magnolia tree for Lol

David Aylward bangs the gong

There's some music at the Herb Garden this afternoon (Saturday 1st September) with Charles Hayward and others 'Blowin' for Lol' from 5 pm to 7 pm (see Deptford Misc for more details)

Lol Coxhill Tree Planting

Saxophonist Lol Coxhill (1932-2012) died last month, having lived a rich musical life that saw him play with everybody from Kevin Ayers to The Damned.In recent years he played regularly in summer gigs at the Herb Garden in Deptford, and he will be remembered there tomorrow (Monday 27 July) with music and the planting of a mulberry tree. David Aylward writes:

'Hi all, I'm sure most of you are aware of the sad death of Lol Coxhill on the 10th of July.  This Monday there will be a tree planted at the Herb Garden at McMillan Street, Deptford at 5PM in memory of him and the numerous fantastic gigs he gave there over the seasons, there will be music from Tom Scott, Nick DD, Adrian Northover, Simon Coxhill,  and an account of one of Lol's last gigs at the garden, all hosted by Joe Bazouki'.

Lol Coxhill (seated) playing in the Herb Garden in September 2007
with John Edwards on double bass and John's daughter dancing.

More details of Herb Garden happenings at Deptford Misc.

Music Monday: Les Zoings

Have you stumbled across a colourfully dressed marching band in New Cross and Brockley recently? I saw them in Telegraph Hill Park on the weekend of the skate park opening, then again the following weekend in Gellatly Road (SE14) playing in the streets outside the Nunhead and District Municipal Museum and Art Gallery.

They call themselves Les Zoings and describe themselves as 'A BRASS FANFARE. WE ARE A MARCHING BAND WHO PLAY MUSIC AND DRESS UP TO FULL EFFECT'. In fact they are currently advertising for new members: 'We are a Marching Fanfare Brass Band with five horns and a drummer. We dress up and march at public outdoor events such as markets and festivals. We play a mixture of French, Italian, Balkan, Latin and Television theme tunes. Now we are looking to expand the band and we need in particular a drummer, a Suzaphone or Tuba, Euphonium or trombone player. We are based in Lewisham and we rehearse every wednesday evening and play every weekend'. Email thomass35@hotmail.com if you are interested.


This film clip and photographs shows them in full flow in Gellatly Road, playing the great Brecht/Weill song Moon of Alabama (or to give it the correct name, Alabama Song).

Arun Ghosh at the Albany

As part of the London Jazz Festival, Arun Ghosh will be playing at the Albany theatre in Deptford this Saturday 20 November at 8pm:

'Iconoclastic clarinettist Arun Ghosh presents Afrocoustics & Indo-vations – a visceral, fiery, pan-cultural mix of multiple horns, koras and percussive drive. "West Bengal meets West Africa" in powerful contemporary musical narratives that traverse the world jazz terrain whilst remaining firmly rooted within the best of eclectic and eccentric British tradition'.

Tickets: £10, £8 concs. The Albany, Douglas Way, Deptford, London SE8 4AG

If you're like me, you'll want to know whether it's the kind of jazz you like or the kind you don't like. So check out Arun Ghosh performing Dharmatma - sounds good to me:

1960s Jazz and R'n'B in Blackheath

Interesting interview at Coventry Music History with Colin Richardson about the Jazzhouse Club in Blackheath, which he co-ran at the Green Man pub in 1962/63. As Colin recalls:

“The jazz club was held at the Green Man pub in Blackheath every Sunday evening, upstairs in what was euphemistically referred to as the "Banqueting Suite". It was a decent sized room, which originally had a tiny triangular stage across one corner of the room (though this was later enlarged to an oblong area which extended right across one end of the room). The 'house band' was the Ian Bird Quintet... Every week a different 'star' soloist would be booked... Tubby Hayes, Joe Harriott, Ronnie Scott, Don Rendell, Tommy Whittle... all the current premier league instrumentalists of the day. They all got paid the same fee...£5 (which was about 3 times what the resident musicians took home!) The resident band would play the first half, then, after the break, the 'star' would play, backed by the house rhythm section. Sometimes (depending on the whim of said 'star', the other guys would return for a jam session end to the evening. The atmosphere was always friendly, the audience usually around the 100 mark, depending on how strong a draw that week's soloist was. There was a bar at the rear of the room, but the audience, though enthusiastic, was always well-behaved and knew their jazz.”

Manfred Mann also played early gigs there with his band of the same name. In 1963, shortly after arriving in the UK from South Africa, he played a jazz gig at another club run by Richardson and friends at the Hackwood Hotel in Bromley. Soon he switched to R&B:

 'Next time we saw him, he pitched up at the Jazzhouse one Sunday and told us he had switched to Hammond organ and was playing R&B as Manfred Mann (he probably deemed his real name, Lubowitz, too unwieldy). He suggested that we open a 'rhythm and blues' night, saying that they would play every other Friday for a straight 50% of the door take (such was his confidence that they would draw a good crowd, which turned out to be well-founded)... On the first Friday, I turned up at my usual time of around 7 pm...30 minutes prior to opening the doors. Normally, on a Sunday, I would arrive to find maybe 15 or 20 people waiting in an orderly queue. On this occasion as I was approaching the venue, I noticed that there seemed to be a crowd milling around and wondered if there was a problem of some kind. As I got closer, I realised that it was 'our' queue...which stretched from the club entrance on the first floor, down the stairway, out the main entrance and around the block! Around 300+ fans were waiting (with incredible patience, it should be mentioned) to get in. We were, as they say, 'gobsmacked'! The gig was a resounding success and we cleaned up! Not every group did quite as well, but nevertheless, we always made money, whoever was on. 

As fate would have it, the success of the R&B night, with its much larger crowds, was indirectly the cause of its demise. It happened thus: On Saturday nights at the Green Man, a slightly dubious promoter used to stage what he described as "A Battle of the Bands", when he would assemble a bill of 5 or 6 local 'beat groups' (as they were known then) who would 'compete' for the title of the night's best group. They would 'win' the prize money of about a tenner..the rest got zilch! The promoter, of course, always made a bomb! There were often minor scuffles on these evenings...nothing serious...but one Saturday a fight broke out and a knife was used...enter the 'fuzz', who promptly closed ALL the clubs down... even though we were unconnected and had never had any trouble on our nights... [the jazz club was eventually allowed to continue] So, our venture into the world of 'commercial promotions' came to an end..but , at least we had made a bit of money, which we used to fund the formation of a 'big-band workshop', the brainchild of Clive Burrows, co-leader of the resident quintet. The rehearsal band eventually evolved into the New Jazz Orchestra'. 

The Green Man at the top of Blackheath Hill, replaced with Alison Close housing in the early 1970s, was obviously an important local music venue. As mentioned here recently, it also hosted a folk club where Paul Simon played. As for Manfred Mann (the man), he went on to have many hits with Manfred Mann (the band), and eventually bought a music studio at 488 Old Kent Road, called the Workhouse. Many great records were made on that spot, now covered by the Asda supermarket. Incidentally, Mr Mann/Lubowitz once lived in Southbrook Road, Lee. 

Advert for The Gaff, jazz club at the Green Man with compere George Melly. The Green Man is described as 'South London's greatest jazz centre' (from Jazz News, 28 February 1962, found at great National Jazz Archive)

[post updated September 2022 with advert from Jazz News]

Tudósok at the Montague

'Stephen stepped into the Magyar Morbius Magners sipping Montague. Saxophone jazz punk funk on that stage where the Gang of Four once sang: 'See the world through their polaroid glasses, things'll look a whole lot better for the working classes'. Antelope stares blankly to the zebra across the bar'.

Apologies for the bad-Joyce parody, which is just my way of saying what a good time was had last Monday, Bloomsday, at the Montague Arms. Actually I met up there with the book group I'm in, so we started off sitting on a table at the back of the bar (near the famed stuffed zebra), taking in the strains of tombone poetry and images of James Joyce while we discussed 54 by Wu Ming. But we got up to watch Tudósok, the aforementioned dada jazz punk funkers, and they were really good. It was one of those New Cross moments when you find yourself giving thanks that you live in an area where one of your local pubs can feature an East European avant-garde outfit on a Monday night (the band were formed in what was then Yugoslavia, and then reconvened in Hungary when war broke out there). I also enjoyed the band's singer Dr. Máriás inviting a young woman up on stage to sing a Hungarian bandit song.

Humphrey Lyttelton & Camberwell Jazz

When I was putting together my recent Camberwell mix, I did think about including Humphrey Lyttelton, who died this week. For he did go to Camberwell Art College on being discharged from the army in 1946. The obituary in The Independent covers the crucial South East London phase of his career:

'“When I got out of the army I was 25 and didn’t feel like going back to anything very academic, so I went to Camberwell School of Art for a couple of years and round about the same time started playing jazz in various low dives,” he recalled. “I’m sure there was a buzz in the family going round about me, but I was oblivious, sloping off to places like the Nuthouse on Regent Street with my trumpet and a dirty mac over my uniform.” He soon found the required subjects at the School of Art tiresome and concentrated on the comic drawings that came so naturally to him. But his devotion to the trumpet grew ever stronger. Wearing his army battledress, now dyed navy-blue, and sporting a beard and sandals, he played at jam sessions with professional dance-band musicians and began to travel to the Red Barn, a pub in Bexley in Kent, where the pianist George Webb’s band played every Monday night'.

In March 1947 he joined the George Webb Dixielanders and his professional career as a jazz musician was underway. Also in the Dixielanders was another ex-Camberwell student, Wally Fawkes, with whom Lyttelton formed the first Humphrey Lyttelton Band in 1948. Incidentally another important figure in the post-war trad jazz scene, clarinetist Monty Sunshine, went to Camberwell School of Art too.

(picture shows Lyttelton, right, at the Hammersmith Palais in 1951)

Denny Wright - Brockley guitar hero

Denny (Denys Justin) Wright (1924-1992) was an influential jazz and skiffle guitarist, born in Deptford and growing up in Brockley - at some point he apparently lived at 36 Brockhill Crescent.

Denny Wright played at various times with Stephane Grappelli and Lonnie Donegan (including on the latter's record, Cumberland Gap), and in 1945 opened London's first bebop jazz club, the Fullado in Old Compton Street. Check out Denny's fantastic guitar solo on Cumberland Gap (you can hear Lonnie Donegan shout 'Denny' just before it):

Last dance at the Hatcham?

Last Friday saw the last Jazz at the Cross at the legendary Hatcham Liberal Club in New Cross. It was packed out as people came to savour not only band Big Chief but the unique ambience of this formica wonderland - note the lights and the curtain. The final song played was 'I wish I knew how it felt to be free'. Not quite the final curtain for the Hatcham - I know that Southwark Unison secretary John Mulrenan is having his leaving do there - but possibly the last public event before the place closes.

Jazz at the Cross - last call for Hatcham

Jazz at the Cross has been running on an on and off basis for a few years at the Hatcham Liberal Club in New Cross. On 23rd February 2007 the club will be happening there for the very last time, featuring Big Chief.

Even if jazz isn't really your thing, you might want to go along and take this final opportunity (for now?) to savour this music venue with its classic 70s decor. The building is in the process of being sold - rumour has it to a church.

Fats Waller in New Cross, 1938

From the Kentish Mercury, 1938, an advert for an appearance by legendary American jazz pianist Fats Waller at the New Cross Empire (on corner of New X Road & Watson St - now demolished), described here as 'The World's Greatest Rhythm Pianist and Master of Swing'. Waller learnt his trade in the rent parties of Harlem, and is famous for songs such as 'Ain't Misbehavin''.

Above the pub

I’ve been reading a couple of books recently which have led me to ponder the importance of that great institution – the room above the pub (or sometimes the room behind the pub).

Firstly in a Peckham charity shop I came across 'At the Dog in Dulwich: recollections of a Poet', an autobiography of Patricia Doubell edited by Clive Murphy (London, Secker & Warburg, 1986). This describes the activities of the Dulwich Group of poets who met at the Crown & Greyhound (the ‘Dog’) in the 1960s and 1970s – where indeed poetry meetings had been held since the 1940s. Among those who gave readings there were poets Adrian Henri, Brian Patten, Ted Hughes, Seamus Heaney, Stevie Smith and Ivor Cutler.

Then in George Melly’s 'Owning Up' he talks about rehearsing in the 1950s in 'the upper rooms of various pubs. I suppose that most of early British revivalist jazz emerged from the same womb. Rehearsal rooms existed, of course, but we never thought of hiring one at that time. They were part of the professional world of which we knew nothing.. Many of these pub rooms were temples of 'The Ancient Order of Buffaloes', that mysterious proletarian version of the 'Freemasons', and it was under dusty horns and framed nineteenth-century characters that we struggled through 'Sunset Cafe Stomp' or 'Miss Henny's Ball'.

I had a number of 'upstairs' experiences myself only last month, DJing upstairs at the Birdcage in Stoke Newington at my friends’ Jon & Lorna’s party, and singing upstairs at the Royal George in Tanners Hill at the South East London Folklore Society Yule Night. Over the years I have taken part in numerous political meetings, music sessions and other events in similar settings. Most memorably for a while in the 1990s I regularly spent Sunday lunchtimes above the now-demolished George pub next to St George's Cathedral on Lambeth Road, learning Irish tunes with some other beginners before getting the confidence to move downstairs and play sessions in the public bar.

People have experimented with various autonomous education projects over the years, such as the London Free School and the Copenhagen Free University, but it seems to me that free discussion, learning and culture can be found on a regular basis by circulating through the various upstairs rooms of pubs across this town and many other. The question is will they survive? As old pubs close, new places such as bars and cafes emerge but usually without any spare room for anything interesting to happen. Space tends to be planned and utilized to the nth degree with nothing so ‘uneconomic’ as a room upstairs to be used a couple of nights a week by passing radicals, freethinkers and balladeers.

So lets make the most of those upstairs rooms and hold on to them wherever we can.. As an example of the multiple treasures to be found there, I note that next Monday 8 January 2007, starting at 8.00pm, The Horseshoe Pub, 24 Clerkenwell Close, EC1 is the temporary home of a Greek music session hosted by the very fine Institute of Rebetology.

Save The Hood

No, not a reference to Respect's hilarious "stop the Hoodie Ban" demo at Elephant and Castle, but a plea to save one of South East London's finest community pubs. The Lord Hood in Creek Lane has successfully avoided the gentrification of Greenwich, and remained a fine example of a good community local. OK, it only has one real ale, a fairly nondescript Courage Best, but it is reasonably priced, and unusually for the area has a music license. This means that on different nights you can can go to a disco, hear a jazz group, have a sing-along or (like me) join in with a fine English Traditional Music Session. (not made any the finer by me, I hasten to add) The pub also seems to be a focus of activity for local pensioners ( ie they're not driven out by pricey drinks and loud contemporary music) and there's a feisty Womens' darts team too.

All of this is endangered by a proposed property develpment which will result in the demolition of this great bit of 1930's pub architecture, and its replacement with more soulless overpriced wine bars and bong shops (probably).

Do your bit and sign the online petition

We travel the spaceways

A fantastic free event at the Festival Hall on the South Bank today where a couple of hundred young people from local schools took part in Space is the Place, a tribute to the music of intergalactic visionary Sun Ra. There was a brass section in Anubis headgear, blue robed drummers, and Egyptian and Cosmic Angel dancers, all co-ordinated by Kinetika Bloco. I loved the very notion of school kids being exposed to the cosmic utopian visions of Sun Ra; you're never too young to learn that 'If you find Earth boring / just the same old same thing/ come on and sign up with Outer Spaceways Incorporated'. I noticed Robert Wyatt was in the audience, but decided against making a prat of myself by saying 'wow, you're the incredible Robert Wyatt'.

There are more free events happening in the same venue this week as part of the London Jazz Festival, including some improvisation from Clearframe tomorrow - Monday 15 Nov. - at 5.30 pm, featuring Deptford's own Charles Hayward (see the 6 Nov. posting at this site for more about this outfit).

Clear Frame

'Clear Frame' are playing at the Amersham Arms on Tuesday November 9 2004. I haven't come across them before, but if this isn't a jazzy free improvisation supergroup I don't know what is. Line up includes Lol Coxhill (saxophone), who has played with everyone from Kevin Ayers to The Damned; Charles Hayward (drums, keyboard), he of the legendary This Heat and numerous south London sonic experiments; Hugh Hopper (bass), once of Soft Machine and collaborator with Robert Wyatt and others; and jazz vibes merchant Orphy Robinson (Steel pan, percussion). It all kicks off at 9pm at the Amersham Arms, 388, New Cross Road, SE14 (£5/£4).