All This Jazz: Introducing Jazzy Jill
Jazz singer Jill Grant will be writing a fizzy, funny diary-blog for Open Writing. Here's the first page. Watch out for All This Jazz.
Jill began singing very early in life - her parents told her she was singing melody lines before she could speak. At seven she discovered jazz when she heard Count Basie’s “One O'clock Jump”. “It leapt out and grabbed me,” she said. From that moment on, she was hooked. Jill listened to anything and everything all through her childhood and teens - from Jelly Roll Morton to Ornette Coleman, and while at art college she began singing in jazz clubs in Birmingham where she was a student. Since then she has formed her own trio and quartet.
Her regular musicians include Alan Berry and Richard Madgwick (piano), Ernie Cranenburgh (guitar), Stan Robinson and Dave Quincy (saxophones) and Mick Durell (bass).
She has worked at the Watermill, Dorking, the 100 Club, Shepherd's Restaurant, Belgravia, The Green, East Dulwich, the Forester's Arms, Forest Hill, the Park Lane Hotel, Piccadilly and HMS Belfast and regularly at Pissarro’s, Hastings.
Musicians she has worked with recently include Janusz Carmello, John Burch, Simon Woolf, Kenny Shaw, Jim Richardson, George Oag, Roger Curphy, Roland Lacey, Geoff Castle and Mike Cotton. She has recorded her debut CD "Who Needs Spring?" This has been most favourably reviewed by jazz critic Alun Morgan, and played on Jazz FM.
Some comments about Jill's singing: “A fantastic CD” – Art Themen; "Jazz can mean different things to different people but there is unanimous agreement that Jill's singing has all of the necessary jazz elements." - Alun Morgan; "Jill has a unique style" - Pete Cater; "A talented singer" - Derek Nash; "Jill has recorded a super CD" - Lee Gibson; "Jill's pitch is stunning" - John Mumford; "Jill is a good singer, who has chosen a strong programme of material to record" - Alan Barnes.
Well, here's me brand new blog. What can I say? Today's been rather uneventful - got up, had tea, kicked the cat (I jest), scratched me head a bit, picked the splinters out of the ends of me fingers - you know the kind of thing. Didn't even make it to Joe's Gourmet Nosherie and Speciality Deli in the Balls Pond Road for a posh blow-out. Food's grand, mind you even if Joe does chain the teaspoons to the tables (you get a funny class of customer in there sometimes......)
Enough of this - there's work to be done. A few new songs, amongst other things. Ta ta.
Ada, Ada, Pride of Maida (Vale)……..
Bumped into Ada Scroggins today when partaking of refreshments in the Motherboard and Microchip (it used to be called the Old Bull and Bush, but I suppose you have to move with the times). Ada - star of stage and screen and musicals in her heyday, circa 1925, when she was known as “England’s Little Gem”. These days she’s rather like the lettuce of the same name, a bit sort of withered looking, if you know what I mean. Still, get her on the rum and pep and she can still do a fair rendition of “One of the Ruins that Cromwell Knocked Abaht a Bit.” Quite appropriate, really. Or her theme song:
“I’m Ada, Ada
I don’t drink lemonade-ah
Just give me rum and pep
‘Cause I’m hep
When it was hip to be hep
I was hop
I think I’d better stop…….”
She comes to my gigs sometimes which is a mixed blessing - she is rather noisy and given to calling out improbable requests: "Come into the Garden Maud" for example. Still, she knows a few people; Lloyd George knew her father, or so she tells me. Very useful.........
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Record Recital – Jack Teagarden
I’m giving this in October, for the Count Basie Society. Great – I get the chance to get up and go yap yap yap for an hour (interspersed with Jack’s recordings, of course). And you know what? Nobody heckles (or jibes, or even jives – no room in the room, if you see what I mean). There’s a reason for that. Two reasons, in fact – the bouncers. Name of Miff and Mole, each possessed of a fearsome set of molars. False, sadly. Miff, the more articulate of the two, has a great line in intimidation. “I’ve got two sets of teef. Me best teef – and me fighting teef……..” No prizes for guessing which set he wears when bouncing.
So anybody shouting “rubbish!” during a recital finds themselves bundled out by our two heavies. They did a bit of moonlighting a while back………at the Nu-Labour Party Conference.
Now listen up – this bit is serious. I am very glad I got into jazz so young, because to begin with I heard a lot of older stuff, that is pre bebop – and loved it. At sixteen I heard my first Mingus record, and loved that too. Ditto Miles Davis. Then at eighteen – Charlie Parker. Bang. Total love. Younger players I have met have often gone straight to modern jazz and don’t want to learn about its earlier manifestations. Pity. I am glad I heard and enjoyed it in chronological order so as to have a context, if you see what I mean. I still love the lot – if it sounds good and feels good, it is good, as Duke Ellington observed.
(This Manny Festations – wasn’t he a Bob Crosby sideman at one time? I’m sure he felt at home with Bob Zurke and Ray Bauduc……not to mention a few gigs with Kermit Scott. Everyone was green with envy when they heard about that one.)
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Silly names for trad bands
Ever noticed this – how silly the names of some trad bands sound? Bands like “The Chicago Teddy Bears Society” and “Banjorama Strikes Again”? Every month I scan the Jazz Guide (which I call the Mouldy Fig Guide) and giggle over the daft names.
Here’s a few of my own, should any trad band be stuck for a name.
Betty Bombastic and her Belly-dancing Belles
Claribel Cuckworthy and the Cuck-tones
Bertie Bottle and the Bourbon Street Bar-flies
Syd Snodgrass’s Sydenham Syncopators
Al Dentine and his Driller Thrillers (featuring vocalist Dental Floss)
Willie Wackett and his Wondrous Washboard Wobblers
Denzil Damper and his Down-Home Clacton Clod-Hoppers
“Fussy” Potts and his Nit-Picker Five
100 Banjos and a Girl
This one’s for real – the Jeggpap New Orleans Jazz Band. They are Belgian and have been together for many years. I don’t know who or what Jeggpap is but I am hoping it’s a Belgian town or village, so I can twist a few song titles – like so:
Jeggpap my Jeggpap
Do You Know What it Means to Miss Jeggpap?
I’m Coming Jeggpap
Jeggpap on My Mind
April in Jeggpap
Goin’ to Jeggpap (sorry, but I can’t take you – of course)
Jeggpap State of Mind
Jeggpap Nocturne
Or a couple of film titles:
Jeggpap Mon Amour
A Town Like Jeggpap
Look – if it’s not a Belgian town or village, don’t anybody write in and disillusion me, all right? ‘Cause if you do, you’ll be an even bigger jazz geek than me, not to mention a spoilsport.
And I have been musing about what a Chicago Teddy Bears Society meeting might be like. The teddies arrive in taxis, togged up in fedoras, shades and coats that look like they left the hanger in. They walk up three flights of stairs to be met by the doorman, who demands that they growl three times in order to be admitted – followed by the password of the evening, say, “Pooh”. On entry and having shed their disguises, they start passing the honey around. Things get very sticky after that……..
Betty Bombastic – she sounds like a vocal diva of the punk era. I can just imagine her on tour, in the dressing room:
“I asked for CAVIARE sandwiches!” (takes a bite and throws sandwich at the wall.)
“This is LUMPFISH ROE! I wanted BELUGA!” (treads on remains of sandwich.)
(It all tastes like bloody fish jam to me.)
Hmmm – I think I’ll keep Betty Bombastic going for a bit. Maybe she might branch into the film industry? Ada Scroggins still gives Method acting lessons, so she tells me. She gets her students to examine the character’s motivation in each scene, while she nips out for a quick rum and pep.
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Endy Loves Swinging......
No no no........I don't know anyone who goes in for that kind of thing. Honest. Would I lie to you?
It was just - I was surfing the net in my idle moments today and came across a site devoted to retro kids' TV. As a child I loathed Andy Pandy; that silly hat and even sillier stripey jumpsuit, not to mention the narrator's toffee vowel sounds and daft laugh - a-huh! a-huh-huh-huh!
But I thought I'd have a look - to see if it was as dire as I remembered.
There was a clip, so I clicked the link to find Andy (or Endy as the narrator pronounced it), disporting himself on a swing. At the very end, our heroine the narrator said: "Endy loves swinging!"
I spat my mouthful of coffee all over the monitor. The keyboard began making strange bleeping noises, probably because my head was resting on it.
So that's what he got up to in that basket with Looby Loo and Teddy.......
