"Somebody should write a book about jazz musicians playing at comedy clubs, strip clubs, circuses, auctions, and other unlikely venues. These gigs were more common than fans today realize."
This summer I was lucky enough to attend a week-long residency in the French Pyrenees with the British composer and one-time jazz bassist Gavin Bryars…
"Somebody should write a book about jazz musicians playing at comedy clubs, strip clubs, circuses, auctions, and other unlikely venues. These gigs were more common than fans today realize."
This summer I was lucky enough to attend a week-long residency in the French Pyrenees with the British composer and one-time jazz bassist Gavin Bryars, who had fantastic anecdotes about playing in house bands in working men's clubs in the north of England in the early 1960s, where he paid his dues - and cut his chops - backing comedians, ventriloquists, magicians... you name it. There wasn't a single British comedian of that era (many later household names) that he hadn't backed. And he insisted it was an essential part of his learning.
Imagine the composer of "Sinking of the Titanic" supporting Stanley Unwin or Les Dawson in a house band that included Derek Bailey and Tony Oxley. (A friend tells me that Gavin's anecdotes are corroborated in Pete Brown's history of the northern working men's club scene "Clubland": https://www.petebrown.net/book/clubland-how-the-working-mens-club-shaped-britain)
"Somebody should write a book about jazz musicians playing at comedy clubs, strip clubs, circuses, auctions, and other unlikely venues. These gigs were more common than fans today realize."
This summer I was lucky enough to attend a week-long residency in the French Pyrenees with the British composer and one-time jazz bassist Gavin Bryars, who had fantastic anecdotes about playing in house bands in working men's clubs in the north of England in the early 1960s, where he paid his dues - and cut his chops - backing comedians, ventriloquists, magicians... you name it. There wasn't a single British comedian of that era (many later household names) that he hadn't backed. And he insisted it was an essential part of his learning.
Imagine the composer of "Sinking of the Titanic" supporting Stanley Unwin or Les Dawson in a house band that included Derek Bailey and Tony Oxley. (A friend tells me that Gavin's anecdotes are corroborated in Pete Brown's history of the northern working men's club scene "Clubland": https://www.petebrown.net/book/clubland-how-the-working-mens-club-shaped-britain)