1959-01-30 — Page 4

THE CHINA (MAIL," ́ ́ FRIDAY, JANUARY · ·30, · 1959.

Parley in Tin Pan

Alley... now I dig the 'gig'!

by PATRICIA LEWIS

Now what do you suppose the men in this photograph are doing?

Voting for strike action? Awaiting the race results?

hanging around for the pubs to open?

Or just

If you will pardon the phrase, most of them are trying to "fix a gig" -which, if you play something other than the horses, means hoping to get a job.

la the Musician. white hair that should only pinched For this

chy 10 Market, the place where the boys happen

in the band gather after the ball Chburn,

over.

sonia

and pale as veterans, coloured and laughing, some coloured and sad.

Van Junie

A while later he passed me the axed for again. That's

a

Every Monday, 12:4 dusk presses down on the shabby roofs of Sabo, you can find them the week," he inuttered with

wink. "Just got a booking at 500 Church':."

....304406.maybe packed like straphangers in the rush hour, the length, breadth All around me diaries were end depth of Archer Street, be- being thumbed, penclls being hard the Windmill Theatre.

hked, and dates pencilled in.

As the hours pass at the tali flows, the groups mix and swell and Burge from side to side of the street until the whale thing looks like a judicrous outdoor cocktail party.

(Except that

All around me brief-cases and wallets and pockets were dis- gorging money which appeared, changed hands, and disappeared on the last day of the sales.

most cocktail parties are not

All around me the voices rose, Hable to, be "moved on" by roller, or moved through by Say, tn, where've you coal-frucks, flowerbarrows, libera? A tenner to play that I spend that nines, and boxing touts yelling much overtime? "Black tickets for the white ting high enough to do the Bht.) Everybody knows every- body.

The entire purpose of this Monday meeting is to hire or be hired, pay or be puid, and to trik, task, talk.

The talk

II.

Lou! I'm Through with that Lyceum bit, so whe do we start on the ...."Are

yon in on the darts ion. Scully?"..."Alf!

I owe you money".

quartet

Do

"How you find playing with Alf that double rhythm section,

polia You know". "Listen, Dut, you oughta try memorising

"Why do I come here?" Kahn looked at my suspiciously. Bill? "Because I've been coining here NOW, every Monday for 28 years. Me?

I play saxophone, clarinet, the, ght onangements

piccolo....mestly

free

21 salisiled

bel

tative." He Rave

"Actually today I'm trying to

Fake up a game of golf.

The faces

Farage

The faces? Mostly middle-

He moved off with a "Hey, red and bespectacled, some Snowball to shake the hand quite old, relaxed and pink as

of a man with the shock of wild, Babies,

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N

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Then I saw a face I knew. Bill Su'ell, who plays sax and TV "Dig. This!" clarinet on

"What are you doing here, Bill? You've got a job."

muk

"I've come to see me Iriends," he replied, turning to with cymbals tucked neath cach arm, ", Keu! Wanttn you here for?

3

MUSIC-MAKERB-JUST WAITING AROUND FOR A GIG

Parnell's band," nudged the drummer. "Blg session boy never stops working."

The pride

of

"Mr Winters," I said, "what's for coming here your reason

week regardless every whether you have business to do or not?"

Fr Winters gave me a cagey glance.

"To see my friends," he said. understand-the Just under you

street is exclusively for dance- rend musicians. The orchestral boys meet in that building down Archer Street to the left-the Association R'o Orchestral called, And the thing I'd like to know is why we can't have building to meet in too-tke of standing gentimen-Instead around in doorways like a lot

"Well," said drummer Ken Ward, "thought I'd buzz up here to fill in the afternoon,"

They both turned as a man red silk tie joined the It was Manny Winters. He's always on TV with Jack

group

◊ A short

glossary

for squares

of hawkers!"

A

"The union" i suggested. Came a chorus: "They always ay they haven't the funds." A clannish fot, musicians wary fot, where outsiders are is concerned-which, maybe, why they have their own idiom, That is A proudish lot too. why I would like to see then Bet a new Monday-go-to-meet- JUST supposing you don't dig ing place because, as one of the the Archer Street Arnotbuys might ray, the current have compiled this list of thee is pretty doomy. more swingin' phrases that make musician-Lalk hensible to the sub-hip.

near-incumpre- FOR JAZZ ̧

BREAD. money, preferably earned. As in "When do I get the bread?"

BEING DOWN: to be made depressed.

brought

young.

"He

right down."

BUSK: (a

Play

music. "We'll busk it."

-BRITAIN

produced some dice and got crap game going on the floor anxi won

a

He did everything to make himself the year's least likely

jrz tac contender

Rood- except stakes → quesmanship

for one moment.

I'd asked him when

going to visit London.

I'M SICK

OF COMEDY

-a surprising admission from Kay Kendall

бай

THAT chic, fashionable beauty Kay Kendall is planning a

change.

She has built a career on the sly art of purveying sophisticated humour for the musses

But she will make her farewell appearance as a comedienne in "Once More With Feeling," in which she will play conductor Yul Bryn ner's harp-playing wife.

This is indeed a curious dc- Her voice grew teteles. Said member when I was doing a elson for a young wanton who che: "I mean, really, I don't difficult reene in 'Les Girl In has devoted most of her profes- noe the polut 1:3 worrying Hollywood.

and "Bing oneself to a standstill,

Cronby ond Fred sional fe lo mastering the rubtle technique of making a pocple turn round and say, Asialre walked on to the set and drunken collapse look, graceful Darling, what gorgeous fun." wniched me. and a bounced eyebrow SA tastefully sexy.

So why, at 31, is Mist Kendal scheming to shelve that special talent whileh bas taken her from

"Isn't fun, belleve thr. Remember that scene in 'The Reluctant Debutante when I

tripped down the stairs?

"I told Vincent Minnell, the dear, sweet an. £15- weck temperamental, director, a underrated Rank starlet to a that I couldn't do it. It was £500-a-week top star in four much too difficult. turbulent years?

HARD WORK

"I was almost in tears with frustration and anger trying to ret R right. Ten times I did A. Ten mes. Nothing very gay about that, is there?"

Slowly, the volce with a hint of mint went on:

suppose I idiotic But I do

and pompous talking like this.

The other night, she told ing frankly: "I am sick, slek, sick and tires of these frothy

IL 19 tremendously sound he was comedies,

hard work and no one outside "Gee herald breathlessly, the acting profession appreciates "I'd love 10% bul where and. The public thinks you're

having a joyous time. how would I present niyself?"

"It really is desperately diffi- "Don't worry. Sammy," said

heim

light and may

I go over to do my next thow."nine o'clock on a Monday morn

hg in a cold film studio.

"Afterwards they tol mo how much they enjoyed my performance. Now that was a big thrill to me and very re- warding."

She used, when the spoke she was again Kendall the fashionable sophisticde.

Sald she: Of course, if t give up comedy and am un- successful that is hard cheese But if I didn't take the for me. risk wouldn't be worth much, I mean as a human being.

"And that's what really counts human successful being being."

"At

П

She added

truthfully:

Icast I've always got comedy teef rather strongly about It,

"Oh, low diere is a lot to fall back on if I'm a dismal to be said for a performance failure at anything else."

fools the compistely which public. And, of course, there is

a voice. "I present you when cult

at

when you've acted your

And heart

A lot of personal satisfaction to be had from it all,"

of

out, people come up and say, It's simply rou, darling."

SAMMY DAVIS JUN.

as

It was Jack Benny. And the

was about suggested blend natural as teaming Maria Calas and Ella Fitzgerald,

Mr Davis blinked twlcon

With a surprising show nalvete the mistress of brittle cocktail small-talk said: "I re-

But she won't fall. And I'm bad.

PETER EVANS

-(London Express Service).

ROUND- UP

TO LAUNCH NEW LINER

THE Queen Mother is to launch the new Union Castle liner, Windsor Castle, largest on the mail service to ship ever to be used

38,000-ton Biner is being South Africa. The built at Cammell Laird's Birkenhead yard and will be hunched on June 23, The Windsor Castle will carry 250 drst-class passengers and 600 lourist class. All Grst-class cabins will have private bathrooms and each class has its own swimming pool. The iner, which is 783 ft. long, will have a crew of 450.

then gave great, blistering NEW SWIMMING POOL

smile.

27

"Sure, Jack, sure! That's great idea. We about it." "We

will," caid

дис patting

+

the

î ginnt 4,000-seater covered oughta Walk PLANS for

Chiswick, London, pool in swimming

£300,000, are being discussed costing about Benny

by Brentford and Chiswick Borough Council. It is hoped to hold international swimming events, boxing matches, tennis and badminton The idea was suggested tournaments there. by the publie halls and baths committee be

I'd like you to meet one of smoothly the mouldiest gs this side of patent-brilliantined Davis head me decomposition: George Lewis, strolled nway.

fragile seven-stone leader of the only original New Orleans Jazz without band still surviving.

But the words of "tradi-

DIG: to like or understand. tional" juzz and present-day

"I dig you-but i don't dig jazz are further upart thai

that plano."

DOTS: notes of musko 011 band-parts and arrangements,

would seem possible in a mere two generations.

I sat astonished with 58-year-

DOOMY: dreary, dull place old Mr Lewis as he told me ia

or person.

DOWN: where one is brought by doomy places and people,

now

a Creole-French whisper that England is the only place where his kind of music will survive,

I've been playing the same way since 1914, when I got 75 FUNKY: originally 13- cents for a Saturday night club, pleasant,

means

you can't get the young earthy, I but riceped in a "Blacsy" atmo Negro to play traditional juzz cny more. They've had it every day for all their lives, and GAS: noun or verb rating they're all trying to get away

their Fomething highly. "He's a gas," from

old environment OF "I was Cassed."

with modern jazz and rock 'n' 10ll,"

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GIG: originally a one-night aland or temporary job, now

means any musical engagement. SUBDUED

HOORAY HERBERTA AND HENRYS: the

Guardee-type SAMMY debs' delights who think it's terribly hip

the

to - clutter up jars ciuli but don't really dig a single dot.

HOW BAD!: means, conveme ly, "How great!"

LIKE: A noun used when words fall. "It was lite well...ke, like, man!"*

LOOT: bread, loot, and money are synonymous.

MOULDY FIG: a traditional fax purist

OOGLIES:

Been catching up on my Alm- going recently. One produc- on held a personal interest Lucast" -- for me "Anna wherein Sammy Davis Jant, makes his film debut,

Sammy Davis-a ridiculously short, painfully thin, extra- ordinarily valy Neitro 13

in America thought by many (including Sinatra) to be the greatest entertainer of the day.

I met Davia jun. at a Holly wood party and was shaken to

the Morens-not | and him even shorter, thinner,

· Devosmrity-- Hooray———Berberis. pri uglier than I had expected.. and Ileury-who ofalter up Yet in a room comprising the Jaxx clubs but don's dig. Mlaster, Dean Marin, Jack

SQUARE: there аго наду In the mata exclusive residen-

of tial districts

(owns

and

Benny, Gary Cooper, David

.Curtin, Niven, Tony

Ernin Kovacs, and other friends na well his personality swamped the othera - Alil everyone WAILING: When a musician seemed to be swimming along

ellies everywhere.

I playing particularly weif. In the Sammy Davis wake,

"I had a wonderful

danced, he He wall Inst

Fang, he flopped, he vibrated, he clowned, be played his own records, ha

night."

-London Exprata Service).

Sammy Davis wat subdued for the rest of the evening,

BOURNEMOUTH EAST CONSERVATIVE

SSOCIATION

THE CAT

FOR

NIGEL

UP THE

EMPAH VOVALISTS

MAJOR

FRIEND

BOURNEMOUTH

IS SO RELAXING!

DOWN FRIEND

WITH

eLure they thought Chiswick school-children were not getting enough swimming practice in winter. The only two open-air pools in the winter. Counciller George area are closed in Coleshill, the committee's chairinan, sold it will be big enough to attract International sporting events. It will have a, sun-terrace, sun-lounge and gardens. The pool will be about 100-fect long.

PUBLICANS GO TO

BUCKINGHAM

FIVE publicans will be going to Buckingham Palace on February 1 to get their armup! Green licences renewed by the Board of the Cloth, court with a history of many hundreds Whitehall are of years. Four public houses in controlled by the Queen. Cross, the Clarence, the Shades. The lence of the where Bernard Shaw, once lived is also trolled by her.

OUT

They

are the Silver Old Ship and the Whitehall Court,

RANDOLPH

IS SO BRACING

WITH

NIGEL

SHAME

NIGEL

NICOLSON

NO

*Ladies and gentlemen, I hear you're looking for a nice, solid, dependable

candidate

Lundon kajian arike

con-