The History of UK Jazz: The National Jazz Centre Scandal, Melody Maker, Benny Goodman, Kamasi Washington and more…
Written by Daisy Sells.
I can chart my experience with jazz back to just a handful of experiences. Hearing Louie Armstrong at my Grandfather’s house, a Herb Ritts portrait of Dizzy Gillespie on my Mum’s dining room wall or a lazy Saturday gig of my Godfather’s band, The Red Hot Chillies Jazz Band (with an uneasily familiar name, I would later discover.) and all the way to live folk-jazz in a Cornish pub last week followed by a Podcast about Jacob Collier on the long drive back to London.
When I received this assignment, writing about the history of jazz on the UK music scene, I knew the institutions and individuals that I wanted to include. I have watched gigs in, written about, admired and worked for many of them and I have always been incredibly passionate about supporting and championing them come what may. But jazz also has a darker side that I had not predicted. Having visited The Jazz Centre UK, I discovered that back in the 80s the opening of the UK’s ‘National Jazz Centre’ had been shrouded in scandal as, after just three years, the Floral Street venue and almost three million pounds worth of public funding from the Arts Council, the GLC and Pilgrim Trust went “missing” with little or no explanation being offered. Flash forward to 2020 and the global pandemic transforming the world into an unknown environment. Across the UK, venues large, small, and downright peculiar had to find ways to support themselves and their artists through a crisis that was never fair or predictable and all too many found themselves unable to continue delivering magnificent, rowdy and rebellious noise as the pandemic released us from its grip. For many venues and cultural projects, salvation came in the form of donations and grants from organisations such as The Music Venues Trust, the COVID Recovery Fund, and The Arts Council.
The first rumblings of jass (later to be renamed, jazz) in the UK came from a collision of popular cultures found on both sides of the Atlantic. From the ‘King of Ragtime,’ Scott Joplin, and the 'Maple Leaf Rag' came a new and distinctive musical genre developed primarily by black musicians. It drew from ragtime, blues and popular songs and was based principally on improvisation. A thriving community of musicians, including cornetist Charles 'Buddy' Bolden (born in 1877 and romantically credited as 'the first jazzman') and later players such as cornetists Joe 'King' Oliver and the young Louis Armstrong had established New Orleans as the home of jazz by 1920. The first jazz record is often considered to be 'Dixie Jass Band One Step/Livery Stable Blues,' recorded by the Original Dixieland Jazz Band in February 1917.
By the mid-1920s jazz was a thriving preoccupation in British culture with the publication of the magazine Melody Maker in 1926 and the BBC's first broadcasts (principally of dance music) helping to build its popularity. Records were available too, though the earliest to reach Britain from America were mainly by white artists such as cornetist 'Red' Nichols and trombonist 'Miff' Mole. But recordings by Afro-American players, including Louis Armstrong and Duke Ellington, quickly followed, and it was Armstrong whose solo recordings from 1925 with his Hot Five and Hot Seven definitively established jazz as a soloist's art rather than an ensemble-based music as most of the early New Orleans jazz had been.
The arrival in London of seminal American musicians, especially Louis Armstrong (1932) and Duke Ellington (1933), inspired the British jazz community, generating excited publicity, popular and professional interest – and occasional controversy. The No 1 Rhythm Club opened in London in June 1933 and over the next few years, many more such rhythm clubs were formed throughout the country. They fostered interest in (and serious intellectual consideration of) jazz by holding record recitals, discussions and sometimes musical performances for their members.
During the Second World War entertainment was needed to help bolster morale. The danceable, virtuoso music of the Swing Era (1935–45) was provided – for both American and British ears – by famous bandleaders such as Benny Goodman, Artie Shaw, Harry James, Tommy and Jimmy Dorsey, and Glenn Miller. Thanks to radio, records, film and vibrant publicity in the popular press, they were the equivalent of today's rock stars.
The 1950s was the final decade in which jazz flourished as a broad youth culture. It produced many British solo stars – traditionalists on one side, modernists on the other – and bandleaders. During the 1950s immigration into Britain brought an influx of players from the Caribbean. Amongst others, Joe Harriott, flautist/saxophonist Harold McNairn and trumpeter Dizzy Reece (all from Kingston, Jamaica) joined a West-Indian population of British jazz performers that already included trumpeter Leslie 'Jiver' Hutchinson (father of singer Elaine Delmar), pianist-singer Cab Kaye, bassist Coleridge Goode, and saxophonist Bertie King.
From its inception in New Orleans bordellos at the dawn of the 20th century, jazz has never stood still. Jazz has always been fuelled by modern, contemporary artists, and young jazz musicians seeking new modes of expression. Indeed, the future of jazz has always reflected the changing times that have shaped its creators’ sensibilities.
One of the defining aspects of the new UK jazz scene is the sense of collaboration and community among the musicians. Artists often work together on different projects, share stages, and support one another’s creative endeavours. This collaborative spirit has fostered a tight-knit and diverse community of musicians, with each artist bringing their unique influences and experiences to the table.
In the second decade of the 21st Century, the music whose essence is improvisation is prospering again: a younger generation of listeners have turned to pathfinding figures like Robert Glaser and Kamasi Washington, who have helped jazz reclaim its relevance. With broader exposure, young jazz musicians are passing on the music’s DNA and keeping it alive – and ever-changing – by marrying it with other types of music.
Venues and festivals such as London’s Total Refreshment Centre, Jazz re:freshed, and the Love Supreme Jazz Festival have played crucial roles in nurturing this community and providing a platform for emerging talent. Furthermore, record labels like Brownswood Recordings and International Anthem have championed the new wave of UK jazz artists, enabling their music to reach global audiences.
Photography by Eliza Mazzuca
Notes and Credits:
**At the time of publication, Ronnie Scott’s continues to decline requests for comment or clarification. **
Digby Fairweather, The Jazz Centre UK
The Evening Standard
1989 their general secretary (the late) Maurice Jenningsexpressed the view in a letter to the now-defunct ‘Jazz Services’ company that “jazz musicians are a wandering tribe who will forcibly resist any form of corporate organisation”.This prompted a swift response from me to Maurice that: “if such a viewpoint was held about mental illness we would still have the Bedlam hospital in London”. - Digby Fairweather, The Jazz Centre UK