When I was in Sheffield on 31 January I ignored
BREXIT and went to hear the Fergus McCreadie Trio at the Crookes Social Club. A
friend is a member of the committee of the non-for profit Sheffield Jazz organisation
run by volunteers which organised the evening.
The Club hall was packed with over 160 people
seated at tables. Elsewhere is the building was a quiz night. All in all an
excellent evening for the Social Club which used to be the Crookes’
Workingmen’s Club.
Sheffield
has a lively jazz scene. There is also Lescar Jazz, as well as jazz
played at the Auditorium at the Sheffield University’s Students’ Union and the
Crucible Theatre Studio.
The
McCredie Trio
The McCreadie Trio from Scotland write their own
material influenced by the landscape etc of Scotland. They have released one CD
so far and a second will be on sale later this year. I was impressed with the technical
excellence and interpretative range and showmanship
of the trio.
They will be at the 606 Club in Chelsea on 4 March
as part of a tour around the country. Croydon is not on that tour.
It got me thinking about other jazz connections
and the jazz scene in Croydon.
Jazz
and Coleridge-Taylor
The old Fairfield Halls put on jazz. Two memorable
performances were during the 2012 Samuel Coleridge-Taylor Festival. On 31 January a lunch-time concert included original
compositions by students of the Croydon Music & Arts Piano Centre run by
Fred Scott . Jefferson Tawaba performed stunning jazz piece The Changed Story inspired by Deep
River, a one-off improvisation. There were also lyrical performances of Miles Davis’s Freddie Freeloader and All Blues. The inclusion of jazz came
about from a discussion Fred and I had.
Soundpractice Music run by Fred organised in February
a performance by the John Law Trio.
It included
some jazz versions of the composer’s compositions presented. Fred is a
co-founder of the Samuel Coleridge-Taylor Network, who now runs the Phoenix Piano
Academy at the re-opened Halls.
You may be puzzled at linking jazz and
Coleridge-Taylor, who was a composer in the classical tradition.
Possibly the best performance of Coleridge-Taylor’s Deep River
is by jazz pianist Julian Joseph, which can be seen on You Tube at:
Joseph went to Allfarthing School in Wandsworth,
as did years later Soweto Kinch.
In
Dahomey
and Southern Syncopated Orchestra
Coleridge-Taylor was enthusiastic
about the smash hit West End African American show In Dahomey. William Marion Cook of the show went on to run the
Southern Syncopated Orchestra, which helped introduce jazz into Britain after the
First World War. Its members included Sidney Bechet. The teenage Ted Heath,
whose father ran the Wandsworth Town Band, joined one section of the Orchestra on one of
its tours to Europe, and later backed Nat King Cole in the States.
Sidney
& Daniel Bechet
Bechet was honoured in 2014 by a Nubian Jak
Community Trust plaque unveiled by his son Daniel.
https://seancreighton1947.wordpress.com/2014/11/26/daniel-unveils-plaque-to-his-father-sidney-bechet
Daniel also performed at events organised by the
jazz promoter Ra Hendricks. He arranged an excellent show at Le Quecum Bar
& Brassiere in Battersea High St, an appropriate venue as Ra had been at
school at St Walter’s St John’s just up the road.
The
Rejected Jazz Package
Ra and I put a proposal for a jazz package of
events involving Daniel and other leading jazz musicians for Croydon’s Ambition
Festival to e beheld in 2015. It involved concerts of the songs that had been
performed by sung by Ella Fitzgerald, a Gary
Crosby and Daniel Bechet concert, a play about Olaudah Equiano play (Total Insight Theatre Company), talks about Equiano,
and Carmon Munroe in conversation. A combined
event bringing some of these elements together in Voices
of Slavery and Resistance including Crosby/Bechet
performing jazz pieces on slavery and resistance including Bechet’s Voices of the Slave , and jazz versions
of some of Samuel Coleridge-Taylor’s 24
Negro Melodies, inc. Deep River, spirituals
and new jazz works inspired by Equiano. Musical elements of the programme would
also be aimed at schools. It was rejected. We then offered it to Fairfield
Halls management: rejected.
Other
Nubian Jak Plaques
Other members of the Southern Syncopated Orchestra
have also be honoured with plaques: Frank Bates
and Peter Robinson:
Previously Nubian Jak had put up the plaque to
Coleridge-Taylor in Waddon as one of the final events of the 2012 Croydon Festival
commemorating the centenary of the death
of the composer.
https://seancreighton1947.wordpress.com/2014/11/26/daniel-unveils-plaque-to-his-father-sidney-bechet
I worked with Jak on a schools project about John
Archer Coleridge Taylor’s friend, black rights activist and Mayor of Battersea
(2013-4) which led to a plaque on the building where his shop and flat used to
be on Battersea Park Rd. Later I helped with another school project on Black
Music in Britain 1900 from Coleridge-Taylor to the Southern Syncopated
Orchestra.
Croydon’s
Jazz Scene
It is difficult to find on the internet much happening
on a regular basis, apart from at the Oval Tavern, and the lunch time jazz at
the Clocktower Café on Thursdays between 12.15 and 2.15pm.
The nearest specialist venue near Croydon is The
Hideaway near Streatham Station:
There are occasional jazz performances at Stanley
Halls, like the free one-day event on
20 November 2016 as part of the EFG London Jazz Festival. On 21 June 2018
Croydon's Gill Manly performed at the Halls and on 21 December last year the
Lambeth based Endurance Steel Orchestra.
Gill
Manly
Katie Rose wrote about Manly’s formation of the
South London Jazz and Blues Club in 2016. This initiative, however, did not
last. Paul Dennis wrote about Manly in 2017
https://thecroydoncitizen.com/culture/becoming-bette-davis-gill-manly-forthcoming-role-stanley-halls
Gill Manly was involved in the Croydonites Drama
Festivals in 2018 and May last year, details of which can be seen at
Her current CD - "Everything must change" is a collection
of songs made famous by Nina Simone.
Manly is just one of several Croydon based jazz
musicians whose details can be seen at:
Croydon
Citizen remains a valuable collection of reviews about a
variety of music events including jazz
at:
British
Black History Seminars
I met up with Ra again last month at the first of
the new British Black History seminar
series. Ra’s comment on the event was: ‘A larger auditorium is a must to cope
with the fully engaged response to this initiative at the South Bank University
. Both Professor Hakim Adi and Dr. Marika Sherwood were able to give an
historical perspective from their many decades of struggle. As the late Dr.
Tajudeen Abdul-Raheem constantly advised comrades: 'Don't Agonise! Organise!'’
My assessment of the seminar can be seen at:
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