As friends at school in the 1950s, one of our musical interests was traditional jazz: New Orleans bands of Louis Armstrong, Kid Ory and others.
On leaving school, we joined the Coney Hill Jazz Club, which had the venue in Montpelier Road. As I remember, a clarinettist named Stu played a mean Hiawatha Rag.
The Buttery Basement Bar, a venue in New Road under the Paris Cinema, housed the Vanguard Jazz Club, where jazz was played by the Les Jowett Band. This music was at the time extremely popular with traditional jazz fans, trad “purists” as some liked to be called.
Rock ’n’ roll intervened and, lo and behold, the early 1960s spawned a trad jazz revival, albeit more of a commercial enterprise under the banner “Trad Fad” or, as Acker Bilk observed: “It’s Trad Dad”.
In more recent years, our thirst for trad jazz was certainly quenched on a Wednesday night in Brighton at the King and Queen pub, where the Great Jumpin’ Jack Gilbert and his Panama Jazz Band always played to an enthused crowd of fans.
Roy Jameson, Keymer Avenue, Peacehaven
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