CHAPTER NINE
On the Road and Radio
As 2005 got into its stride, work with George continued to level out, but we still plied our wares regularly, and during winter and early spring played Cambridge, Dublin’s magnificent concert hall (where we outsold every previous visiting jazz act, including the three Bs, Chris Barber, Kenny Ball and Acker Bilk), Uckfield, Loughborough, Chelmsford, the Marlowe Theatre, Canterbury, for a return visit with the Giants of Jazz package, plus four nights at the Pizza on the Park (now renamed ‘Larry’s Room’ in memory of the late Larry Adler, a regular habitué), where drummer Nick Millward joined the band permanently.
We also played for the first time at a new club called The Sands in Gainsborough. North of Lincoln, east of Rotherham, Gainsborough is something of a ghost town, its central position as a producer of armaments in the Second World War commemorated only by the shells of once-bustling munitions factories and a modern town centre which seems unsure of why it is there.
Gainsborough, however, is a base for the flourishing Wilkinson’s multi-purpose cut-price chain stores, now more than 75 years old. We had a Wilkinson’s in Southend and I often shopped there. But Gainsborough, on the face of it, seemed an unlikely location for any sort of British ‘jazz corner of the world’. Surprise, surprise, however. One of Wilkinson’s directors, Peter Swann, had bought the old town hall and converted it to a state-of-the-art jazz club. A lavish oak-lined entrance hall led to stairs (lined with mega-portraits of British stars from John Dankworth and Cleo Laine to George himself ) up to the first floor where a luxurious dining-room faced a dance floor and stage equipped with the most up-to-date amplification, widescreen television and full video recording facilities streamed to the Internet. Peter had already signed bandleader Pete Long to an in-house position as musical director and masterminded a Rat Pack package, whose Sinatra he had recorded with Pete’s orchestra for an album and video at London’s legendary Abbey Road. And currently he was in negotiation to set up a string of performing centres in China; hits on the Internet from China (apparently a high-interest area) for live shows from The Sands would then be toured at a chain of major stadium venues throughout the country. This was big news.
George was delighted with his portrait and even more with The Sands VIP lounge, set aside for visiting musicians and local dignitaries. Luxury leather suites nestling in thick carpeting faced a bar offering free drinks, coffee and gourmet food; in short – as one rueful sideman observed – the ‘kind of conditions we always thought we should be accustomed to’. George attracted a healthier crowd than many of the visiting jazz shows (it was in fact difficult for Jack Higgins to staff their initial seven-day-a-week jazz policy with sufficient acts) and he and I returned there at the end of May for a JazzAid concert, where we appeared alongside Sir John Dankworth and Dame Cleo Laine, Jacqui Dankworth, Tina May, the dynamic young trombonist Dennis Rollins, Courtney Pine and Pete Long’s all-star orchestra.
Thanks to Jack Higgins once again, I had joined forces with George as his writer for a Radio 2 series commissioned by David Roper’s Heavy Entertainment company, and to be called It’s Trad, Dad. The title wasn’t encouraging but the subject was: a history of revivalist jazz in Britain from its beginnings to the present, including interviews with key figures, recorded music and of course George as presenter, using scripts to be written by me.
This shouldn’t have been a problem but George, as a centrepiece of the movement, approached his collaborator’s scripts with understandable caution. After all, he had been there and lived through the glory days of the revival when, as he said, ‘walking down Oxford Street was equivalent to walking through Storyville’. He had known the inside stories of the passions, the laughter, the frustrations and had heard the sibling amateur music of British believers as they bought their instruments, learned to play ‘on the job’ and recognised the great voices of classic American jazz as they grew to maturity. I, on the other hand, had learned of those days through books, not at first hand, and was therefore liable to reproduce the half-truths that once prompted Henry Ford to dismiss most of history as bunk.
I knew the problems, as well as the qualifications, that George must have had; the same as those that my old friend the veteran double-bass player Tiny Winters had experienced when he complained of ‘younger generations trying to rewrite our history for us’. But, so I thought, with collaboration and careful work from me, we should get through. And after all, what was this? A short radio series – interesting enough to be sure – but very unlikely to find its way into any kind of bibliographic history.
I hadn’t reckoned on George’s determination, however. My attempt at an initial draft script arrived back covered in scrawled corrections, adjustments and redefinitions. It looked as if the whole thing would have to be written again. But George’s comments had also redefined the shape of the whole series, which would certainly not please our producer. This was a problem.
George’s point – amplified considerably – was that there was a difference between revivalist jazz (which based itself loosely on the classic recordings of Armstrong, King Oliver and Jelly Roll Morton) and New Orleans revivalism as personified by Ken Colyer. I took his point completely (perhaps the matter had been understated?) and adjusted the script accordingly, but back it came again. I looked at the fee, counted the hours of work involved in constant rewrites, and decided that it might be better if George wrote the series himself. I mentioned the idea to Jack Higgins.
‘You fuckers!’ yelled my agent and mentor. ‘I’m fucking sick of the both of you. All this time I spend in getting you this work and all you do is fuck around with me. Call yourselves professionals? Fuck the pair of you!’ Down went the phone.
This was now an awkward matter and I rang the producer to explain the problem. ‘Don’t worry,’ he said comfortingly. ‘George always does this. Just get on with it and everything will be fine.’
It probably would have been but on our third night at Larry’s Room both the star and his bandleader were, in jazz terminology, ‘feeling no pain’. Driving back in Craig Milverton’s car with George talking loudly to Lisa, I heard a word I didn’t like.
‘Your man,’ accused George, ‘knows nothing about the subject! He wasn’t there. And consequently he’s nothing less than a LIAR!’
I flared and shot across the back seat in dangerous risk of grabbing my fellow passenger’s lapels. ‘Don’t you ever accuse me of lying,’ I screamed, ‘and especially not to my partner! Fuck you! I know a lot about this music you seem to think you own. And, apart from the fact that I’m a musician and you’re not, I’ve spent a lifetime in the music too. So don’t condescend to me, you fat bastard! And apologise now! To Lisa and to me.’
‘Dig,’ said Craig, looking alarmed. ‘Take it easy. He’s drunk. Take no notice!’
‘Maybe he is,’ I said dangerously. ‘But he’d better shut it now or we’ll be out of this car together.’
It was the usual drunken shout-up. But plainly the strain of our relationship was starting to tell and, as bandleader and star were both drinking quite heavily, flashpoints were liable to occur. As usual, though, with sobriety came reconciliation. And we were still busy.
As spring began to bloom we played Burgess Hill, Sir John Dankworth’s glorious Stables Theatre at Wavendon, back to Barrow-in-Furness for the third time, Littlehampton at the new Windmill Entertainments Centre, and even Warner’s Hotel at Hungerford, where peacocks strutted in the grounds and a packed crowd had gathered for a jazz weekend, co-starring Sir John, Dame Cleo Laine and Bill Ashton’s wonderful National Youth Jazz Orchestra.
We played Belfast too, and it was here that George once again evinced his talent for making friends where and whenever. The Half-Dozen had gone in search of a pub and received a sobering warning. ‘There is a pub round the corner,’ said an adviser. ‘But don’t go in. It’s got a violent reputation and only a day or two ago a man was beaten up and killed in there. There’s another one fifteen minutes away. Go there.�
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We took the hint. But after the performance George’s detective qualities went to work. ‘Nonsense,’ he boomed. ‘There’s a perfectly good pub just around the corner.’
‘George,’ protested Dominic. ‘It’s really dangerous – a no-go area.’
But already our star was on his merry way and cautiously, after a band conference, we followed George in to discover him surrounded by fans and genially holding court.
It was soon after this that George and the Half-Dozen played Goring Jazz Club, a village hall, packed to the rafters with seats spread over the stage and hall in tight-knit ranks and standing room only in the foyer. The Half-Dozen and its star guest were crowded on to a tiny makeshift podium a matter of inches from the inquisitive faces of front-row guests. And in the dressing room – equipped with a table piled liberally with hospitality from our hosts – it seemed likely that every fire regulation set up by Goring District Council was being comprehensively overlooked.
It’s lucky we’re near the river, I thought.
Our show proceeded with its customary panache and at half-time Julian and I manned the stall, loaded as usual with CDs and books and handily set up on a canteen-counter leading to the foyer. The queue stretched a long way and after the show we returned to our salesmen’s duties only to be interrupted by a worried-looking guest.
‘I think,’ he said, ‘that you ought to come and see Mr Melly.’
Julian and I hurried back-stage to find our star peacefully asleep on the dressing-room floor. Nearby were an empty bottle of Jameson’s whiskey (his favourite) and one of red wine, and George had drunk the lot.
Heroically, Julian and I lifted our guest to the back of the car and began the journey home accompanied by a surreal if subtone monologue from our passenger in which, as we neared west London, only the word ‘piss’ was audible. Julian pulled hurriedly to the side of the road and we hoisted him up against a tree while the call of nature was generously answered by our star. Then, after arriving at George’s house, we helped him up one flight of stairs (several falls but no submissions) and into a deep and comfortable armchair in his sitting-room from which he waved us a beatific but silent goodnight.
Diana found him there next morning and was far from pleased. On the following Monday – unlucky 13 June – it was time to record our (now resolved) It’s Trad, Dad series, on which the presenter’s delivery was noticeably more plummy and luxurious than usual. But next day the news came: our two concerts that week, at Nottingham and the Ashcroft Theatre, Croydon, were summarily cancelled. ‘It’s bronchitis!’ yelled Jack down the phone. ‘Nothing more.’ And sure enough, by Sunday, after (presumably) an intensive course of ‘rehab’, our star was ready to fly with us to Glasgow Jazz Festival. Then the following week, back on the road we went. Two nights in Havant followed by another at Tunbridge Wells’s E.M. Forster Theatre and, last of all, an early-evening show at the remarkable Redoubt Fortress in Eastbourne: a venerable and impressive naval defence stoutly separated from the tides by high walls and boasting a sound system to die for. I had never heard my friend (dressed in a fetching multi-coloured kaftan) sing more strongly and after our show even he was prepared to agree, despite an inbuilt and sedulous capacity for self-critique. It had been a fabulous concert.
CHAPTER TEN
Back in the Groove
Now, the summer of 2005, it was time to consider the matter of a second album for George. At 1.00 a.m. the phone rang again and it was Jack Higgins. ‘I have a surprise for you! You’ve got a new album deal – with Candid. Sort out a budget and let me have it. Right away.’
This was a surprise indeed. Candid remains a high-profile label, founded in America and later taken over by my good friend Alan Bates, formerly the mastermind behind Black Lion Records, the recording home for British traditionalists. For Alan’s old company I’d recorded my first solo albums. I’d also worked for a year or so around 1977 at his Hammersmith office, as a producer and all-round helping hand, as a buffer against the threat of full-time work in jazz pure and simple. Since then we’d stayed in friendly and regular touch. During the 1980s he’d both produced my Portrait CD compilation and later signed the Great British Jazz Band for three successful albums.
But the offer, however welcome, put me in a quandary. Peter Clayton, the producer of our first album with George as well as my own second band album, Things Ain’t What They Used To Be, had become a firm friend by now, and had remained in constant touch, the offer of a second album with George being very much on the table. The problem was that Jack Higgins and Peter had had trouble getting on. Peter found Jack frosty, hard to talk to and impatient. Jack, in turn, complained that sales figures and related business returns were slow in coming in. And George, for no reason that I could see, had decided that the ‘sticker’ issue surrounding his much-prized quote from Sir Paul McCartney had branded Peter an amateur.
There didn’t seem to be much I could do. I had to tell Peter and I knew that he was upset and hurt, though he put a brave and cheerful face on the matter. I couldn’t blame him and neither could bassist Len Skeat, one of my oldest friends on the scene. ‘Come on, Dig,’ he insisted. ‘Own up! We all know it’s very unfair . . .’ Which in a way it was. But caught between two friends and professional colleagues I could either face the dismissive wrath of Jack by arguing the case or go with a mechanism set up by the agent, who for thirty years had directed both George’s, and latterly my, career. As well as the fate of the Half-Dozen. It seemed there could be no choice.
Soon after this predicament was temporarily resolved, for better or worse. Perhaps it was lucky that George Melly and the Digby Fairweather Quartet (Craig Milverton, Len Skeat and Bobby Worth plus their distracted leader) were offered the respite of a cruise around the Norwegian fjords during the month of August. Beyond the chance of a holiday I wasn’t over-excited by the project. Based on my O Level Geography (failed) I had presumed that the fjords would simply constitute a set of navigable impasses surrounded by some sort of green flatlands. But of course I was wrong. Opening our cabin curtains in early August 2005, we saw stone-blue mountains rising to snowy peaks, flecked with tiny technicolour dwellings and between them slim white waterfalls gushing from the mountain heights to the waters beneath us. Green flatlands too, but dotted with enchanting homesteads as sweetly pretty as Swiss cuckoo clocks. As he saw these overpowering beauties for the first time, Bobby Worth, back with the quartet as a regular with the band, broke into tears of joy.
We were in for a relaxed time of it too. Our kindly hostess, the classical impresario Kim Colwell, had indeed scheduled us an easy run for our money and we were to play just two concerts with George throughout the week. Then, beyond a dual-header Desert Island Discs show hosted by the enchanting Kim, we were free to wander the decks, explore local haunts in dock and tone ourselves up in the ship’s fitness suite and pool. Our hostess carried a packed case of classical CDs and high-quality player with her. And an enduring memory is of Len Skeat listening as the music of Mahler in her headphones magnified the monumental might of the scenery around him. ‘It makes us all seem so small,’ said my friend, his eyes brightened with a glint of joy.
In fact we were due to play so little that – after a night or two – creative musical juices began to flow and someone suggested a late-night jam session in the ship’s main lounge. Why not? Good idea! So, each evening thereafter we took to a corner of the lounge to play for a shipful of people from grandmothers to toddlers for whom the sea breezes had apparently produced an appetite for swing.
All this went well and on the last night our star guest was happy to join us. A thrill of expectancy filled the room as he made his airy entrance, glorious in an exotic kaftan with buttons at the neck, and took his seat to sing the blues and other of his specialities. But by the end of the night, however, fuelled with our favourite tipples, the leader and singer had the wind behind them.
‘Go on, George! “Shave ’em dry”!’
George leaned forward in his chair, spectac
ularly baring his chest.
‘I’ve got nipples on my titties . . .’ There was a sudden rush as mature ladies of the audience and mothers covering their toddlers’ ears raced from the room like lemmings, in all probability, it seemed to me, making for the other side of the ship and comforting protection of the sea.
But back home again it was time to begin planning our new album, this time for Candid Records.
To begin with, I was determined that our new project would be recorded like a pop album – laying down rhythm tracks first, then vocals and adding brass, strings and other extras later, rather than doing it the old way of ‘down in one’; everyone in the studio recording at one time. That method was the proud boast of old-time studio players, recording three or four times a day, year in year out in studios, but that was then and this was now; a time when many jazz players didn’t see the inside of a studio once in a year. My way would mean no half-hearted takes or, worse, mistakes. It would be good to mix the music in Julian’s new state-of-the-art home studio. And new repertoire was popping into my head too. Fun, I thought, to rewrite the weathered music-hall anthem ‘Mr Gallagher and Mr Shean’ (made famous by Bing Crosby and Johnny Mercer) telling the broad story of George’s life. Fun, too, to update ‘Gone Fishing’ as a duet for us both. And I even had an original up my sleeve, a dance anthem designed for the elderly, which I decided to call ‘The Trudge’. George as usual was the perfectly compliant collaborator. ‘Not that keen on all those things,’ said our accommodating singer. ‘But, if you want, I’ll do them!’
On the Road with George Melly Page 8