Coventry Jazz Clubs

Hi mich I was an original member of the Sherbourne Jazzmen.... on piano. We rehearsed in the Standard club on Tile Hill Lane & sometimes played at the Waterworks Club in Spon End. I was on the float in the Coventry Carnival 1955. Pic shows myself & Dave Wagstaff (our defacto leader). If I can work out how to do it I will enclose some pics! In later years I was a semi-pro muso in Melbourne with my own quartet

Hello Johnno Thank you for your posts. We have a members gallery section as part of our site which can be your own gallery of pictures, to which you can add titles as well as comprehensive descriptions.

Most of the Tierra Buena lads are still around - playing Monday evenings in the Ansty Club. Oh, and before the Pilot Hotel in the 50s they played the Station Hotel opposite Foleshill station.

Though, statistically, Cynic is wrong in claiming that most of the the Tierra Buena Jazz Band are "still around - playing Mondays at the Ansty Club", he is quite right in the spirit of such things. The sextet at the Ansty Club comprises three original members, so - after 55 years - no small achievement, and - from across the Atlantic, with little in the way of substance to justify my assertion - I'm sure that the originality (and bravado) that informed the band's first appearance in public, still informs the TBJB's every performance. As a lad, a stripling, I lived for Monday nights at THE PILOT, for such was the home of the band when first I was old enough to enter a pub and drink beer. (I certainly was too young to have entered THE STATION HOTEL, the venue Cynic describes as their first, for all that said hotel was on my side of town. In another place, cornetist/trumpeter Brian Bates has held that the dancing at THE PILOT was a big attraction, and so it was. Any number of the stomping cognoscenti would turn out of a Monday night to strut their stuff to the frustration of those dancers - poor, unimaginative souls - who simply wished to dance with their partners. And the band rewarded these adventurous dancers with adventurous music, albeit in a melodic/rhythmic manner of earlier days. The Tierra Buena Jazz Band, in that architecturally indescribable pub, brought together - through its music - something I have/had never witnessed before - the celebration of an earlier generation's music in an entirely positive fashion. I share Brian Bates's expressed (elsewhere) wish - cornetist/trumpeter that he is - that there were young folks who would assume the baton. Thank you, Cynic, for a warm appreciation of the band.

I remember in the 60s, the Mercers arms on Highfield Road was a great venue for trad jazz bands. I remember all the top bands played there! Acker Bilk, Chris Barber, Kenny Ball, Johnny Dankworth with Cleo Laine to name a few. Sadly the Mercers Arms was demolished a while ago, so all we have now are the memories!!

Hi dave I remember the Mercers Arms too, as well as some who played there. Sadly, some unsavoury behaviour on several occasions including a serious crime incident, lost the pub credibility, from which I do not believe that it ever recovered. Thank you for your post. Mercers Arms

What was the 'serious crime incident' Philip? Was it the affray in 1970?

Hi Wearethemods I do recall a knife crime event from around then.

What year did the Sherbourne jazz band start at the Pilot?? I do not recall any dancing just a smoke filled room with people sitting at tables but perhaps my memory is fading. I recall we played at one end of the room and there was a bar at the other end and very strict rules when the bell sounded.

Dear Mich, It seems that 1959 was the year, but - by that time - the band had changed its name to the Tierra Buena. I remember the Pilot from 1961, when I was old enough to enter a pub and buy a pint, and then the band played at a 90 degree angle (stage left from the stand). While I'm sure that strict rules applied "when the bell sounded", it was no unpleasant place in which to listen to a Coventry interpretation (post WWII) of New Orleans jazz of the post-war (WWI) years. For all my love of the Dud Clews Jazz Orchestra at the Mercers' Arms (Saturdays nights) - recreating the orchestral music of Fletcher Henderson, King Oliver's Dixie Syncopaters, Duke Ellington's Jungle Band, and the like - the Tierra Buena Jazz Band at the The Pilot (Monday nights) was just about as good as it could get for jazzers who appreciated an opportunity to dance to a 2/4 time. Eventually, I became more enamoured of the Chicago style, its 4/4 swing, but I will never forget the Tierra Buena Jazz Band that took me on a rewarding (and expensive) trip among reissued records, my favourite of which were the Decca ACE OF HEARTS reissues that featured so many 1920s musicians that have never seen the light of day on a CD issue. More to the point, perhaps, you we there - Mich - in the infancy of this band, albeit under another name for the band, and it is you we now celebrate, along with the still-performing members of the TBJB. What a legacy you bequeathed us all. Thank you, Mich.

Hello LongfordLad, Yes, Milt Jackson's bluesy playing is fantastic. Since writing the posting in January I've managed to collect a somewhat large collection of MJQ CDs, a few LPs and a growing collection of solo works by Milt Jackson and John Lewis. You can pick up box sets of 8 albums fairly cheaply, and more recently the local music shop (In Leamington) has been flooded with Japanese imports featuring quite a few MJQ albums for 6 pounds each. The same series has albums by Gary Burton and Claus Ogerman Orchestra which are also very much in the Third Stream style and incorporate classical influences. I have the ECM full force reissue by the Art Ensemble of Chicago, and it's fantastic. Their albums seem to be more expensive and difficult to find. I also have some solo albums by Roscoe Mitchell, which are very experimental. (I also have a growing collection of ECM albums, mainly newer bands.) Have you ever come across a group called 'The Pyramids'? They were similar to the AAOC, and recorded 4 albums in the 1970s and a new one a few years back. Today I received an album by 'Fire! Orchestra'. This is a big band from Sweden featuring members of Fire! and EST, and it includes quite a 'rock' influence alongside some pretty incredible free jazz. I also bought an album by an Austrian group called The Tingvall Trio - a piano trio, which also seems to touch on classical influences. There is a lot of incredible new stuff from young British bands and Europe. (It was an interest in Prog rock that lead me into jazz, as Prog rock had two distinct strands, one was the more 'Western' influenced bands (Genesis) and the others the ones with a jazz/blues influence (Caravan, Soft Machine, etc.) Feel free to offer up some recommendations!

Ok I have been going through our old B&W photos but only have one of the Sherbourne Jazz Band and that is at my wedding in 1958 so I have posted, no smart comments from the back please. From left front Brian Bates (Tpt) behind him is Brian Wathen (Trombone) then Dave Wagstaff (Banjo) .... Bottom right Bernard Overton (Piano) but holding Guitar behind him Johnny Astle Drummer - missing are John Reed Clarinet and Chas Webley Guitar. We did a few gigs at Rugby and one at Coombe Abbey plus a short tour in Wales To the best of my knowledge Brian Bates, Brian Wathen and Dave Wagstaff are still alive plus myself and pianist Johno in Aussie, also mentioned by "flapdoodle" was the MJQ always the top group in my eyes it is the equivalent of the String Quartet in classical music. I formed a quartet Piano, Bass, Drums and Vibes and we played upstairs at The Bulls Head on the Binley Road opposite The Empress Buildings but although we had a staunch following it was too small to make a go of it and lasted 3 months max. I must try to remember the names of the musicians, I do remember the vibe player was fantastic.

Now, Mich, if that photograph fails to establish your bona fides, then I know not what will. You have Wagstaff and Astle at the top of the steps; Brian Wathen alone on the lower step, and - on the top and bottom steps respectively, both to the right - you have drummer Johnny Astle (holding a snare drum) and pianist Bernard Overton (extending an accoustic guitar, indicating - perhaps - his personal future as a classical guitarist around Coventry). Off you went to New Zealand, Mich, not to be heard from again for so many years (and, here, I censure not, lest I be censured). I did not meet these guys until the spring of 1961, and - in the photograph - I exclude yourself and your lady wife, of course, whom I have never met (and there are any number of people behind you in the church doorway unknown to me). None of the Tierra Buena Jazz Band has hair down to his shoulders, and that much certainly was a hallmark of the band by the time I met them, save for Bernie Overton, but - that aside - I have no problem in confirming the identity of the musicians, as you identify them, on the church steps. For a family photograph of your wedding - superb. For those of us on this site that cherish Coventry's post-war contribution to jazz - priceless. Thank you, Mich. P.S. Batesie looks like he has just survived a "grow-a-beard" contest among newspaper delivery boys! You, on the other hand, look like a guy that surrendered his newspaper round to someone else (though perhaps not Batesie) within the previous twelve months. Thank you so much for the special piece of Coventry history - jazz history.

Thanks Longfordlad I must admit that a lot of water has passed under the bridge and quite a bit of red wine through the system which has not helped my memory of those wonderful days, I also played in various trios in pubs and hotels but these were not trad jazz. I can honestly say that I never came into contact with any forms of drug use in the bands but then I was a young and innocent wee laddie the only suspicious thing that I remember all these years after the event was a musician that smoked a pipe with funny smelling tobacco he said it was "Herbal tobacco" and he was probably right.

Does anyone remember such jazz bands as The Heart of England, Harlem, Apex, Savannah, The Antique Six. This is just a few who used to play at the Maudslay and Cocked Hat.