BSH interviews Alan & Olive Rudd

Olive and Alan Rudd have been iconic figures on the north east jazz scene for probably longer than they will care to admit! BSH spoke to them both about the highs and lows (if any) of their careers.

BSH: Olive, where did it all begin? When did you realise that you could sing?

Olive: I realised whilst at school that I could sing, and that I enjoyed singing. So I joined the school choir, and sang regularly with them. I can remember singing at Newcastle City Hall with my school choir, possibly in a competition with other schools. 

BSH: Alan, you have a rich musical heritage. Your father, Norman Rudd, was for many years considered to be one of the top swing/mainstream pianists around. Did he inspire you to take up the bass or did you try other instruments first?

Alan: Thinking back to my early childhood, I guess there was a great deal of music going on around the house. There was always a piano in the house which my dad often played, as well as records of Louis Armstrong and Fats Waller. In addition my grandfather played the concertina and piano. My first attempts at playing music were via a recorder and later on clarinet. However, when I started high school in the 1960s I found everyone was really into guitar. Consequently I bought a cheap guitar and began learning guitar chords and trying to play the pop songs of the day. Some of my school mates were also listening to blues material, John Mayall's Blues Breakers, Peter Green's Fleetwood Mac, and much earlier bluesmen, so we spent some time checking out that genre. I also followed some of the early rock music bands,such as Focus. I could play in various styles, and had electric/classical/bass guitars, but I only started playing bass on a regular basis when my father was struggling to get a bass player for a Panama Jazzmen gig. It was quite a bit later when I bought a double bass.

BSH: Olive, you're currently typecast as a jazz singer but, back in the day, I seem to recall you singing with big bands in dance halls and small groups in night clubs. Tell me about those days. The bands, the venues and some of the musicians. There were quite a few characters on the scene.

Olive: I was working part time as a barmaid in the Burton House pub in Burnopfield. The owner, Ronnie Metters, was a good piano player and he  started off a piano/bass/drums trio, which played several times a week. This attracted visiting singers who would sit in with the trio. However, some were not great and I felt I could do better. So I started to sit in occasionally. The trio featured the great Al Collins on double bass, and Alan Reid also helped on Bass, John Shield was on drums and vocals. When Ronnie Metters went on holiday, he employed some great piano deps, namely Ronnie Pipe and Ken Morrell. Both Ronnie and Kenny encouraged me greatly. At that time I was singing pop songs by the Carpenters as well as a few jazz standards, Ronnie Pipe started writing some arrangements for me to sing. In later years after Ronnie Metters sold the pub, Ronnie Pipe & Ken Morrell were the main pianists, but George Rico, George Shenton, Jack Cowan, Alastair Atkinson, and Alan Atkinson often helped out with Doug Milburn on bass.

Ronnie Pipe invited me to sing with Stan Coates' big band at a school in South Shields, which turned into a weekly session. Alastair Atkinson also invited me to sing with his big band on occasions too. I occasionally sang on the club circuit, but it was not really my scene. Unfortunately, my partner died suddenly about this time, and I stopped singing for a while.

After I met Alan I started singing with bands he was playing in, the Tees Valley Jazzmen, and the Maine St. Jazzmen, which I enjoyed wholeheartedly. I had an impromptu audition with former River City Jazzmen pianist Malcolm Armstrong, who asked me to join Ponteland Ladies Choir where he was the accompanist. I also joined a smaller group within that choir called Imagine, singing Beatles songs and other 1960s' material. Alan played bass guitar on their gigs. We eventually left these bands to embark on Classic Swing where we had more scope to feature my vocal material and arrangements. 

BSH: Alan, who were your inspirations on bass? Did you take lessons? Can you remember your first gig? Was it with your dad?

Alan: As I mentioned above, I started playing bass guitar regularly when my father was short of a bass player for his jazz group. He encouraged me to play more bass after that, and bought me a second hand copy of Bob Haggart's Bass Method which was my introduction to jazz bass playing. I listened to lots of bass players on record and took inspiration from them. I particularly liked Ray Brown's playing at the time, but also was inspired by the likes of Israel Crosby, George Mraz, Slam Stewart, and Michael Moore, to name a few. My first gig was actually on guitar with my dad, playing for a dance at Shieldfield Club. Seems like a long time ago now!

BSH: Is there a budding composer/lyricist in the Rudd household?

Alan: Funny you should ask that question Lance! During the Covid lockdown, when there were no gigs, I spent my time attempting to write some tunes, with lyrics. I ended up with 12 tunes which I recorded on keyboard with backing tracks that I'd generated. I never got round to recording the vocals but have generated the sheet music with lyrics. You're welcome to a copy of the CD! I've written a few more tunes since Covid but have not recorded all of them yet! My brother Steven is also a musician and composes songs. He has a YouTube channel which features some of these songs, often with accompanying video. My Sister Alison is an accomplished organist who regularly plays for church services, and occasionally plays organ recitals. She has also composed and recorded her own material.

BSH: Your band, Classic Swing, has been pulling in the punters at Cullercoats Crescent Club on a Friday lunchtime for quite a while. How many years has the band been resident at the coast?

Alan/Olive: We started playing at the coast back in October 2017 when we started a gig at the Ship in Monkseaton on a Tuesday afternoon. However, this gig eventually stopped with the outbreak of Covid and the subsequent lockdown. After the lockdown restrictions were lifted we restarted at the Cullercoats Crescent Club on a Friday afternoon in October 2021, This was a much more suitable room in terms of size and shape, and most of our supporters followed us to this new venue. So this is the 8th year we've been playing regularly at the coast. We all get on well and enjoy making music together and entertaining our loyal supporters at the club.

BSH: Talking of the Crescent Club - when you need to put in an occasional dep, do you have an extensive contacts book? And a supplementary question - would you be happy to offer an opportunity to one or more of the many promising undergraduate/graduate musicians on Tyneside?

Alan: Yes we occasionally are in need of a dep, to cover holidays, sickness, and occasions when our musicians have a prior booking with one of the other bands they are in. We do have a few musicians we rely on to keep the gig going but there are occasions when they are not available, and we have to ring around and find an alternative. I do have quite a list of contacts built up over the years, so we usually manage to get sorted. However, I wouldn't discount the possibility of using some emerging talent to help out. We play a different program every week so deps are expected to sight read the parts, but we have lead sheets/arrangements for everything we play.  

BSH: Does a Classic Swing Live at the Crescent Club album hold any appeal?

Alan/Olive:  Yes that's a possibility. I haven't recorded anything for quite a while, the last time was probably the gig at Ayr Jazz Club in 2019 featuring previous band members Tommy Moran, Tommy Graham, and Colin Haikney, plus Jim, Neville, Olive, and myself on bass. I used to occasionally record gigs back in the day and have some treasured recordings of the Stan Martin Quartet, Panama Jazzmen gigs from the 1980s, Norman Rudd Trio, and George Evans.

BSH: Occasionally the band plays gigs further afield, for example, Carlisle Jazz Club. Do you actively pursue gigs elsewhere or are you happy to wait and see what comes along?

Alan/Olive: The band played quite a few further afield gigs in the early days, Carlisle, Bedale, Boston Spa, Ayr, Saltburn, and I passed contact details to other venues/festival but there has not been anything in terms of gig enquiries from any of these lately. We do also have a website and facebook page to try and generate a few gigs but there doesn't seem to be much in the pipeline. We do have a gig at this year's Mouth of the Tyne festival on Saturday July 12 at 3pm.

BSH: I should have asked you this at the beginning - how did you meet? Was it on a gig?

Olive: I met Alan at the Burton House. He used to come along and dep for the resident bass player, Doug Milburn, although I didn't know him too well at that time. However, after my partner died, Alan stopped behind after one of those Burton House gigs, and we had a chat and shared a fish supper brought in by the manager for his staff.

For our first date, Alan took me to see the Tommy Moran Quartet at the Turks Head in South Shields. We hit it off and, as they say, the rest is history. We've been together for 30 years now and are married.

BSH: Finally, we're going to whisk you off to a desert island. Which discs would you take with you (pretend Spotify doesn't exist)?

Alan/Olive:  Olive loves to listen to good singers,her favourites are Jack Jones, Peggy Lee, and Karen Carpenter. So it's a toss up between these three. She's opted for Peggy Lee, Beauty and the Beat with George Shearing on piano.

Alan loves to listen to piano players, especially in a trio setting with a good bassist. There is a wide choice in this category, Ahmad Jamal, Bill Evans, Erroll Garner, André Previn, to name a few, so it’s quite a difficult choice. It would probably be Garner’s Concert by the Sea for Alan. The recently remastered edition with quite a few additional tracks not on the original release. Second choice is an album by trombonist Roy Williams called  Absolutely.

BSH: Thank you both look forward to hearing you soon.