The Piccolo Restaurant on Gosforth High Street featured the River City Jazzmen on Tuesday nights - did the venue have a previous name? I seem to think it did. A few doors down was Dave Bell's bookshop. Dave, for some years, hosted a jazz record show on Radio Newcastle and yours truly was interviewed on the show. This wasn't because Dave saw me as the next Stan Getz but because I (along with the late Ron Pollard) almost always won the guess the record quiz at the end of the show. This wasn't too difficult as, at the time, I worked in a shop selling jazz records!
The Diamond in Ponteland was the Wednesday home of the Vieux Carré Jazzmen. who also played on Thursdays at Balmbra's Music Hall. This would be back in the day when 'Gassy' (Peter Gascoigne) was at the helm.
Also on Thursdays, the Panama Jazzmen - probably the best local Dixieland/New Orleans band ever - held fort at the Hawthorn out Benwell way. With a front line of Ronnie McLean, Joe McMullen and Stan Martin plus a rhythm team of Norman Rudd, Ray Jobling Alan Brown and - remind me of the drummer - they were a formidable combination.
The alternative to the above Thursday nights was to go to New York. No not that New York but the one near Whitley Bay where the jam session at the Wheatsheaf had, seemingly, been going on since before Adam met Eve. Regulars included Hughie Aitchison, Leo Harwood - woe betide anyone who got in early and took his seat - Brian Clarke, Brian Fisher, Eddie Saint and, who's to say that Sting didn't dip his feet into the water there?
All are now, like most of the musicians, long gone but, before bemoaning the passing of the venues, take a look at the current BSH listings and ponder upon the thought that you are looking at the good old days of the future! Lance
No comments :
Post a Comment