The Hidden Musicians - Ruth Finnegan Music Culture

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a nativity theme as their Christmas production, while both primary and secondary schools sometimes put on musicals as their main annual production. This sometimes led to complications because of copyright difficulties for well-known musicals, so many schools turned to writing their own. Such occasions necessitated a huge amount of effort and enthusiasm by children and staff alike and – though scarcely attaining the professionalism and scale of the Amateur Operatic Society’s productions – still in their own way demanded the same range of theatrical skills on and off the stage. Church social groups too produced musical plays, sometimes composed and written by their own members, and these too could involve the members in many months of work and the need to draw on the varied resources of a wide number of people – not just chorus and actors, but also people to provide the costumes, props, backcloth and stage management generally.

      Despite the heavy demands on time and expertise in this particular form of musical expression it still attracted considerable numbers both in societies organised specifically for the purpose and in other groups for whom this form was appealing in itself and popular with their potential audiences. Clearly the ‘finish’ of the various productions throughout the city varied considerably, but they all worked recognisably within the same musical theatrical framework.

      The ideal model drew on the expert and lavish productions which were known from visits to professional shows (or to some extent from seeing broadcast or filmed versions), and this informed both the productions of the leading societies and, perhaps through their performances in turn, the smaller-scale events in the schools and other groups. But though this model helped to form the aspirations and expectations of local participants, the local amateur performances were not just imperfect copies of professional productions but made up a world in their own right which both transmitted and, in a sense, constituted the world of operatic and theatrical music for its admirers and executants in Milton Keynes and, no doubt, for many others through parallel institutions elsewhere in Britain.

      8

      Jazz

      The world of jazz was more fragmented than those discussed so far, in its musical styles, social groupings, training, and the model drawn on by participants. Jazz was regarded as distinctive, but at the same time as shading on one side into rock or folk, on the other into brass band or classical music. Within ‘jazz’ too there were several differing traditions each with its own devotees, making up networks of individuals and groups rather than the more explicitly articulated worlds of, say, brass band or folk music. But, as will become clear in this chapter, jazz was certainly played and appreciated in Milton Keynes. To the outsider it was less visible than classical, operatic and brass band music on the one hand or the plentiful rock bands on the other, but for enthusiast ‘in the know’ there were many opportunities for both playing and hearing jazz.1

      Take first the various playing groups. In the early 1980s there were about a dozen jazz bands in or around the Milton Keynes area. Some were local only in the sense of having one member living in the locality and making regular appearances there, but for many most of their members were locally based. A few were short lived, but some had been going for years (often with some change of personnel or developing from an earlier group) and in many cases put on regular performances with a healthy local following. Three of the bands playing in Milton Keynes in the early 1980s – the Original Grand Union Syncopators, the Fenny Stompers and the T-Bone Boogie Band – can illustrate some of the accepted patterns as well as differences in the local jazz scene.

      The first two had much in common. They shared the same basic jazz format of six players: clarinet or saxophone, trumpet or cornet, and trombone (the ‘front line’ where the solo spots were concentrated) with a rhythm section of banjo, percussion and (string) bass, some players doubling on occasion as vocalists. Both bands put on regular performances both locally and (less often) further afield to enthusiastic audiences.

      In other ways they differed considerably. The Original Grand Union Syncopators started up in Bletchley in 1975, reputedly the first real jazz band in Milton Keynes. From the start they were favoured by the new city planners, with whom the band leader (himself a senior management officer in local government) seemed to have consistent good relations. In contrast to other small bands they were encouraged to appear alongside the classical groups on large-scale occasions like the February Festival or the televised city centre Sunday Service in December 1981, and to represent Milton Keynes in cultural exchanges with its twin town of Bernkastel. Despite this official interest, the band very definitely regarded itself as an independent group, making a point of taking its name not from anything redolent of the ‘new city’ but from the historic Grand Union canal.

      Their main performances were in local pubs and clubs, where they had built up a core of 50 or 60 regular followers. By the early 1980s they were putting on around 60 gigs a year, mainly of ‘trad jazz’ music, and reckoned they had a repertoire of around 200 tunes. They had occasional rehearsals in the winter (about once a month), but for the rest of the year were busy enough with performances not to need additional practice, appearing frequently in the Bull in Stony Stratford, the Swan in Woburn Sands, or the King’s Arms in Newport Pagnell. Their most favoured engagements – as for most jazz bands – were ‘residencies’, as when they appeared regularly on alternate Sunday evenings at the White Hart in 1980 and fortnightly at the jazz evenings at the Cock in North Crawley, as well as regular appearances at (among others) the Woughton Centre and the Great Linford Arts Centre in Milton Keynes itself and WAP in Wavendon. They also travelled further afield to perform at jazz clubs at Watford or Nottingham as well as playing for private occasions like weddings or, from time to time, free for causes like Christian Aid or local charity organisations.

      They took themselves seriously as musicians and as propagators of trad jazz, but had no intention of turning professional or regarding their playing as anything but a hobby, and so were content just to earn enough from fees to cover expenses like transport, amplification, advertising and telephone. The current members were in full-time paid employment: art lecturer, local government officer, teacher, musical instrument repairer, artificial limb maker and graphic artist. They could thus afford to engage in their passion for jazz in both the Original Grand Union Syncopators and the other bands they from time to time played or guested in, without having to worry unduly about finance. They did encounter the familiar difficulties of competing commitments, and the frustration of never quite being able to get a really flourishing jazz club going. Despite the problems, the band had stayed together as a named group for ten years or so, though, typically for a jazz band, there had been occasional changes both in instrumental composition and in personnel as people moved to other areas intending to resurrect jazz there too in the same way as the Original Grand Union Syncopators had done for Milton Keynes.

      Figure 15 The Fenny Stompers in 1987: popular traditional jazz band playing since 1978, based on a constant nucleus of two brothers, Dennis and Brian Vick: publicity photograph in their band uniform

      The Fenny Stompers had the same enthusiasm for traditional jazz but in other respects were very different. In contrast to the higher education or art diplomas of most of the Original Grand Union Syncopators all but one of the Fenny Stompers had finished full-time education at 15 or 16 and, by now in their thirties or forties, were involved in such work as warehouseman, self-employed plumber, school lab technician and carpenter; there was one teacher. Unlike the Original Grand Union Syncopators, some of whom had had some formal musical training, they were mostly self-taught as instrumentalists. They were formed in May 1978 under the title of Red River Stompers, soon changed to Fenny Stompers after Fenny Stratford, where their leader Dennis Vick lived. Despite some changes of personnel, especially among the drummers, the band with its nucleus of two brothers quickly took off, not least because of its leader’s effective exploitation of free publicity in local newspapers. Within a few years their smart uniform of pink and white or red shirts with black trousers became well known to jazz audiences around the area and beyond.

      By the early 1980s they were in demand for gigs two or three times a week. They performed not only at local pubs and clubs like the Bull Hotel in Fenny Stratford, the Bletchley Conservative and

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