Health warning: Eric Dolphy and Ornette fans please look away. This video is unreconstructed trad. Absolutely no altered chords, extensions or tritone substitutes were used in making it. Pete Churchill tells the story that, as a teenager, his redneck Canadian bandleader used to ban him from playing “girly chords.” So, for those sensitive readers who need their chords to be complex in order to be alluring….this one is unfortunately not for you!
Tommy Pearson, film producer, blogger, and, here, head-banging (sic) drummer has sent me this clip from August 1999 of his Sloane Square Syncopators. It was filmed on the beach and in the water at Camber Sands in Sussex. The band’s great supporter Spike Milligan lived just up the road in Rye.
Pearson writes: “We were a 20s-style band playing mostly Bix-inspired stuff; we formed when we were all at the Royal Academy of Music although I’d been playing this style with another band since school. The line-up is Mike Diprose – trumpet, Stephen Trainor – sax, Mark Bassey – trombone, Graham Read – bass sax, Graham Roberts – banjo,Paul Moylan – piano, Tommy Pearson – drums
“Sadly, after a few albums and many years gigging, the band fizzled out a few years ago as we were all too busy with other jobs. But the video is a nice reminder of good days.”
Categories: miscellaneous
Recent Comments