Nostalgia on Felling Square

I came across the following article in my archives dated 1964. Written by one D.Knox-Crichton the original cutting was so creased and yellowed with age that it was unscannable so I have typed it as published - warts and all!  Lance 

 

Diminishin' 13ths at  The Bluebell (Blue Bell)

(© Russell)

All right. So it's a collision between a truck load of milk cans and a van full of ducks. Me, I happen to dig it.

That is why I hied me to Felling's jam-joint, The Bluebell Inn (sic), last Sunday noon and lined up at the packed long-bar, with the other saloonees, for the weekly jazz-fest promoted by the host CHARLIE JAMES.

Yep, I'm what the long-hairs of jazz despisingly call all the simple admirers of Dixieland,  a Moldy Fig. Prior to the weekly work-out, the brass-stormers kill their thirsts in advance. The conversation being music, music, music.

The merits of mop - mop (mechanical stuff full of riffs) against the back-alley (or low-down dirty); the slurred gut-bucket; the blaring tailgate; the smooth; the mellow; the swinging.

Swinging, because it is claimed to create itself and to continue on its own momentum.

There were intriguing arguments on such life-and-death matters as chord extension improvisations; close harmony intricacies; complex phrasing techniques as first introduced by old-time wizard of the small pipe, CHARLIE PARKER.

There was much cut-and-thrust over the melancholy blue of lost and rejected love, expressed slow tempo in diminishing 13ths, 5ths and 3rds.

Jazz. Once summed up in three words: Lies, exaggeration; insincerity.

Pick-up combo becomes swinging gate

Time for the Dixietomaines, buddied up for just this particular session, to climb onto the bandstand and do their blocks. This week, the line-up was, they told me, smaller than usual.

ARTHUR LUKE, easily one of Britain's finest exponents of the slush-pump. He even plays it with his feet -- AND EVEN KEEPS HIS SHOES ON! ARTHUR doubles on double bass and anything else around.

TED LANGSTON, North East's star triple-tongued trumpet. RAY JOHNSON, impressive guitarist, skin-tym and cym-happy percussionist and gravel-growler JIM STEVENSON, who can even get kicks on a cigar box with a couple of pencils.

Finally, tickling the ivories, BILLY LUKE, Arthurs knowledgeable nephew. BILLY leads 'em and holds 'em with heavily accented tempo and short, fast quodibets and twiddly-bits.

They open, a pick-up combo. But in no time they're a solid swinging gate with an ever building scooping pitch.

During this enjoyable stake-out, I picked up items of interesting jazz history titbits.

"Dixieland" (from DIX printed both sides of their 10 dollar bills)...

...Sadly, the rest of the article has been lost in the mists of time however, it does bring back memories for me of those Sunday lunchtime sessions at the Blue Bell although I don't recall the band ever discussing chord extensions - it was more likely to be along the lines of "whose round is it?" Lance