{"id":1927,"date":"2020-06-23T07:54:35","date_gmt":"2020-06-23T06:54:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/aata.dev\/?p=1927"},"modified":"2020-06-23T07:54:36","modified_gmt":"2020-06-23T06:54:36","slug":"stomping-and-skip-jiving-soon-to-return","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/aata.dev\/index.php\/2020\/06\/23\/stomping-and-skip-jiving-soon-to-return\/","title":{"rendered":"STOMPING AND SKIP JIVING SOON TO RETURN?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

STOMPING AND SKIP JIVING SOON TO RETURN?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Norman Warwick reads Alan Lawless to remind him of live jazz<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Alan Lawless once reminded readers of all across the arts<\/em> in the UK that Rochdale Jazz Club on Dixon Street, (check http:\/\/jazznorthwest.co.uk\/rochdale.htm?i=1<\/a>) had something of a tradition of ringing in the New Year of their Jazz On A Sunday sessions by inviting The Tame Valley Stompers to brush out the old and sweep in the new.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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As Jazz On A Sunday invite \u00b4only good bands and better bands\u00b4 to play at the club, a gig so early in a new year is quite a feather in any stomper\u00b4s cap, but the band invariably shows itself to be deserving of the accolade. This year was no exception as they delivered a \u00b4trad jazz set\u00b4 that somehow included novelty songs and sing-along items.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There were, though, songs long established in the band\u00b4s repertoire, and these included Bourbon Street Parade and Basin Street Stomp, (where you could hear the Stevedore Stomp, too) and their blues were drawn from Chimes and St. James Infirmary, where Doctor Jazz was on call.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Tame Valley Stompers infuse some surprising ingredients into the deliveries, however, and tonight there were forays into the Carribean cookbook with The Martinique and Dardanella, even as Christopher Columbus was sailing around, seeking to lay claim.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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There were sounds of Skiffle, too, with nods to Tight Like That and Puttin\u00b4 On The Style with its Donegon echoes, and Mama Don\u00b4t Allow, a song also celebrated on rock and roll records and in the wheat fields of country music. My particular favourite version was a wonderful chug a chug guitar led version by J J Cale, (check https:\/\/www.jjcale.com<\/a> )<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Of course Doc Watson performed an incredible version and there is even a You Tube of a performance by Johnny Cash and friends. Pokey La Farge plays the song at his back stage parties.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mama Don\u00b4t Allow was also employed as a title of a short documentary made about Chris Barber and his Band in 1956. The band were filmed with Ottilie Patterson<\/a> in a north London trad jazz<\/a> club, playing front of a skip jiving<\/a> audience.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ottilie was a Northern Irish blues singer best known for her performances and recordings with the Chris Barber Jazz Band in the late 1950s and early 1960s.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Skip-jiving was (according to http:\/\/howtojive.com\/intro-skip-jive.htm<\/a>) a uniquely British part of the international revival of interest in traditional (New Orleans) jazz music at the end of the nineteen forties and early fifties. Skip-jiving put a literally skipping version of New Orleans rhythm into basic Jitterbug patterns. It was obscured for a while during the mid-fifties by the rise of Rock’n’Roll Jitterbug-Jive but then came back in a big way as Rock’n’Roll faltered at the end of the decade. This return was tied closely to the rise of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament whose activities created many opportunities for traditional jazz bands to play and thus opportunities to dance. Some films were made which featured this dance, such as Ring-a-Ding Rhythm, but the dancing was by studio hacks rather than experts. There are still regular weekenders, where skip-jive enthusiasts get together to stomp to the original music.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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A documentary of The Chris Barber band performance was all co-directed by Karel Reisz<\/a> and Tony Richardson<\/a> and filmed by Walter Lassally<\/a>. It was produced by the British Film Institute<\/a> Experimental Film Fund. It was first shown as part of the first Free cinema<\/a> programme at the National Film Theatre<\/a> in February 1956.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mama Don\u00b4t Allow has also even served as the title of a vibrant picture book, designed for children and described as “ebullient, fast-paced, and funny.” The book was A Reading Rainbow Featured Selection Children’s Books of 1984, and won the 1985 Boston Globe\u2013Horn Book Award for Illustration.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The book tells the story of \u00b4saxophone-playing Miles and his Swamp Band, who find a bevy of sharp-toothed, long-tailed alligators who love to listen to their music. But little do Miles and his band know what the alligators plan for them at the close of their jubilant all-night ball! Inspired by a traditional song, Mama Don\u00b4t Allow was written by Thatcher Hurd.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The song on which the book is based however is generally said to have been composed by \u00b4traditional\u00b4, who has written a lot of other good stuff, too,<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Back at Jazz On A Sunday there were songs the audiences could sing-along to, including When Somebody Thinks You\u00b4re Wonderful, Nobody\u00b4s Sweetheart Now and the infectious Porter\u00b4s Love Song To a Chamber-Maid.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On the other hand, We May Be Old was surely written for The Tame Valley Stompers or even by<\/em><\/strong> The Tame Valley Stompers or both !<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There\u00b4s life in them yet, though, as was proved by Paul\u00b4s wonderful clarinet solo in St. Phillip Street Breakdown and the band\u00b4s great performance of the closing number, Royal Telephone Line, which had a Have I Got News For You Feel given the chats going on at the time down at Buckingham Palace.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Tame Valley Stompers are led by from \u00b4the best seat in the house\u00b4 by drummer Norman Pennington, with Trevor Brunbt on trombone and Roger Wimpenny on trumpet. Paul Broomhead plays reeds and John Gordon handles banjo and guitar duties, with Pete Smith on bass. You can find tons of further information about them at http:\/\/www.tamevalleystompers.co.uk\/<\/a> where you will find a comprehensive biography, full tour dates and itineraries and plenty of other sign-posts and signals to new discoveries. You will even find how to order their CD Everybody Loves A Saturday Night.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Jazz On A Sunday has a healthy on line presence of mentions by xxx Rochdale On-Line, The Rochdale Observer, all across the arts, and here on our Sidetracks and Detours we will be featuring an interview with the club\u00b4s organiser Tony Sheridan and a selection from the back catalogue of reviews by Alan Lawless.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Those of you who wish to submit reviews of their own of their favourite kind of music, be it jazz, rap, pop, classical or calypso should send your offerings to my e mail address of normanwarwick22@yahoo.com<\/a> All work published will be fully attributed.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

STOMPING AND SKIP JIVING SOON TO RETURN? Norman Warwick reads Alan Lawless to remind him of live jazz Alan Lawless once reminded readers of all across the arts in the UK that Rochdale Jazz Club on Dixon Street, (check http:\/\/jazznorthwest.co.uk\/rochdale.htm?i=1) had something of a tradition of ringing in the New Year of their Jazz On […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1765,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[45],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1927","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-music"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/aata.dev\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1927","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/aata.dev\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/aata.dev\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/aata.dev\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/aata.dev\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1927"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/aata.dev\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1927\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1931,"href":"https:\/\/aata.dev\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1927\/revisions\/1931"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/aata.dev\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1765"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/aata.dev\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1927"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/aata.dev\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1927"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/aata.dev\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1927"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}