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Are we rolling? The given theme is Playing In The Band. Okay, I've done that, still have the t-shirts with the DeadBeats emblazoned across the front, and I'll get to why I enjoyed it so much in a paragraph or three. But first a bit of social commentary.

It feels like we've taken a few retrograde steps recently. During lockdown I've re-watched some of my favourite music films/documentaries. Earlier this week it was the turn of 'Jazz On A Summer's Day', shot at the Newport Jazz Festival (as in Rhode Island, USA) in 1958. It's a stunning piece of film-making that captures the whole spirit of the town and the festival as well as key performances, some of which are sheer brilliance, from the likes of Anita O'Day (pictured below), Gerry Mulligan, Chico Hamilton, George Shearing, Dinah Washington, Louis Armstrong, Mahalia Jackson, Thelonius Monk and Chuck Berry. That's right, Chuck Berry and his band ripping through the likes of 'Sweet Little Sixteen' at a jazz festival.


Anita O'Day, Newport Jazz Festival 1958

What a great vibe - so multi-discipline (trad and cool West Coast jazz, swing, gospel, soul, r&b, rock & roll) and so multi-racial (white, black, brown and red) as to make colour an irrelevance in face of the force of the music, for performers and audience alike. It could only have happened in the liberal North at that time, never in the Southern States.

All credit to The Beatles that they refused to play to racially segregated audiences when they toured America from 1964. For places like Jacksonville Florida, this was a first time gigs had whites and blacks in the same audience.

The multi-discipline/multi-racial ethos of Newport Jazz took off in the following decade in the liberal music scenes of the counter-culture, where organisers would deliberately put rock, jazz, classical, blues, Indian music on the same bill, open ears and open minds being the mantra of the day and music being the international language with which to break down barriers.

When I said I think we've been a bit retrograde recently, it's because that overt eclecticism doesn't routinely hold sway anymore (except at a few notable festivals) and I think that's a great loss. As I look back, without exception all the gigs the Deadbeats played, be they clubs, pubs or local arts festivals, were the preserve of white rock music with primarily white audiences - not by choice but that's how it worked.

As for playing in a band, it has to be my favourite team sport, for unlike a game of football, there are no losers, only winners. For some years I swapped writing poetry for writing songs, and it is a different discipline, as is playing music with other people as opposed to solo. I enjoyed all of it, the rehearsing, the playing live, time spent in the recording studio. The biggest buzz of all was when everything locked into place and we found ourselves doing things we didn't know we could do, letting the music take us places we didn't know we could go.

Back in my bass-playing days

However, that's a closed chapter. The band disbanded. I still have my Trace Elliot bass rig and bass guitars, plus a semi-acoustic six-string in what I laughingly call my music room, for I haven't played any of them seriously in over a decade and certainly not since moving up to Blackpool. One day, maybe. In the meantime, my friends in White Denim (that's a band, not a fashion fixation) have managed to record and release the first album of the pandemic, 'World As A Waiting Room'. They pulled it off during lockdown in just 30 days. When the muse comes calling...

I've not written a poem this week, but here is a link to one I wrote back in 2014 about my favourite band of all time and how Beatlemania originated in Blackpool. If you've not read it before, do have a look. It's racked up over 30,000 views as well as being anthologised  and I hope you might just like it too. Click on the title and you'll be whisked there: >>> Beatlemania

Thanks for reading. Have a good week everyone, S ;-)

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Playing in the Band - Let's Rock

I wish I had a talent for music. A proper talent, not just the piano grades that my father’s expense and my reluctance to learn got me. That piano teacher was a horrid man. I spent years trying to wriggle out of going to his gloomy, unwelcoming house. I feigned illness on Saturday mornings, or stayed quiet and hoped my twelve o’clock lesson would be forgotten about but my ploys never worked and I would have to endure a miserable hour with the creep. And for all that, I still can’t play Fur Elise at the correct speed or Chopin’s lovely waltzes without constantly checking my finger positions. No confidence and certainly no natural talent, unlike some others in the family.

My son plays by ear. I was trying to get to grips with a Mozart piece on the piano in my usual slow, clumpy way. He just comes along and plays it, as easily as you like, because he knows the tune. I used to love hearing his electric guitar or bass coming down from his attic room. One day, he was belting out the intro to the Moody Blues ‘Story in Your Eyes’ and I nearly burst into tears at how perfect it was. His college was doing an entertainments evening and we, his parents, were invited to attend. We knew he was taking part, but didn’t know what he would be doing. I was unwell, full of a cold and full of appropriate medication to get me through the evening. I was not going to miss this event. He took to the stage. He was on bass, playing with a band. I recognised something he’d been practising at home.  They were excellent, well-rehearsed and ‘gelled’ together. I was relaxed into ‘Proud Mum’ mode when the scene changed and the spotlight was now on my son. The voice, I realised, was his, rocking 'Johnny B Goode' like a professional and making the stage his own. He was amazing. I don’t think I’d heard him sing since he was about seven. Here was a twenty-ish year old rock star making me tear-up like his first nativity. The things you miss when they grow up leave home and have kids. I think he’s still musical.

Our daughter is or was blessed with a wonderful, powerful singing voice. She reduced me to tears with a soulful rendition of Katie Melua’s ‘Closest Thing to Crazy’ in the car one day, just out of the blue. She had the same effect on her music teacher. She sang at home, so I heard her all the time and helped her to choose songs suited to the strength of her voice. Seeing and hearing her on stage held no surprises for me. I was ‘Proud Mum’ always, with lots of support. I’m sure I glowed with pride when others told me how her performance had blown them away. My response was always to say thank you and that everyone taking part was brilliant. She went on to do performing arts at college. These days, that fabulous voice is used for calling her children in from the garden or shouting for them to wait when they run ahead of her. I must ask her if she does much singing these days. What I’d give for her voice and a band to accompany me!

My wish came true, except it was my voice and I wouldn’t describe myself as a singer. I had a posh party for my sixtieth birthday a few years ago. As it was the ‘party to end all parties’ it was held at one of Blackpool’s finest hotels, I had live music from a local band and a nephew who is a professional musician. I wasn’t expecting to join the band on stage, but with some gentle persuasion (dragged up, no choice) and a compulsory funny hat, I found myself making a guest appearance. I think I was trying to sing ‘Rock the Casbah’ with the help of The Rattlers. I hope they were playing the same song. Someone somewhere has a video that I’ve never seen. Destroy it, please.

My own poem,

The Ballad of a Lady Jazz Singer

Jazz tempo piano and a bluesy guitar

It’s two a.m. in the Ritzy Bar.

Lorna sips gin through a long, curly straw

As she sits and waits, one eye on the door.

He said he’d be along to see her set

But he’d promised before – never made it yet.

Perched on a bar stool, cigarette in hand,

Minutes away from her spot with the band,

She leans a bit further back in her seat

And her red stiletto taps out the beat.

She’s laughing and swaying, about to begin,

Adrenaline rush, or too much pink gin.

She’s out of her mind, but not really crazy.

Her vision is soft-focus, smoky and hazy.

Tight black dress, short, strapless and low,

Only put on for this kind of show.

She clutches the mic stand, there’s a hint of a smile

Then she bangs out a song in her Joplin-esque style.

Heat and smoke hit hard on her throat

But she stays on key and keeps the right note.

Much clapping and cheering, the Ritzy’s alive

Lorna kept singing ‘til quarter to five

Then staggered out happy in the dawning new day

With her new bass playing lover leading the way.

 Pamela Winning  2014

Thanks for reading, keep safe and well, Pam x

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