With lyrics by Sammy Cahn and tune by Jule Styne, the song Time After Time was written in 1947 and rapidly became a jazz standard. Trumpeter and singer Chet Baker certainly took a shine to it and recorded many versions over the years. I already posted one version from 1956 here. Here’s another excellent one, from Belgium TV in 1964. Chet Baker had an unusual vocal style for jazz: smooth and with little vibrato, rather like his playing on the trumpet. There’s quite a long trumpet solo in this one during which you can hear the influence of Miles Davis very clearly.
Archive for the Jazz Category
Time After Time – Chet Baker
Posted in Jazz with tags Chet Baker, Jazz, Time After Time on September 29, 2026 by telescoperEquinox – John Coltrane
Posted in Jazz with tags Elvin Jones, Equinox, John Coltrane, McCoy Tyner, Steve Davis on September 23, 2026 by telescoperWalking back from lunch just now I suddenly remembered the significance of today’s date. Today is the 100th anniversary of the birth of the great John Coltrane, who was born on 23rd September 1926 in Hamlet, North Carolina. I won’t attempt to do a full tribute to Trane, whose influence on jazz saxophone playing, and jazz in general, is incalculable. I will, however, take advantage of the fact that today is the day of the Autumnal Equinox (as it was on the date of Coltrane’s birth) to post one of my favourite tracks by him. This was recorded on 1960 and originally released on the album Coltrane’s Sound which came out in 1964. The line-up is John Coltrane (tenor sax), McCoy Tyner (piano), Elvin Jones (drums) and Steve Davis (bass). It’s a gently swinging contemplative and very atmospheric blues in C♯ minor called, appropriately enough for today, Equinox.
Everybody Digs Bill Evans
Posted in Film, Jazz with tags Anders Danielsen Lie, Bill Evans, Everybody Digs Bill Evans, film, Jazz, Paul Motian, Scott La Faro on September 20, 2026 by telescoperI’m not exactly an avid cinema-goer but I couldn’t resist taking a short trip into Dublin to see Everybody Digs Bill Evans, a biographical drama about the late great jazz pianist Bill Evans, the trailer for which is above.
I suppose Bill Evans is best known for his wonderful contributions to what many people regard as the greatest jazz album of all time, Kind of Blue which was released in 1959. This film, however, focuses on the period after he had left the Miles Davis band that made that album in order to pursue a career leading a piano trio. It could be argued that it was this step that led to Bill Evans’s most important contribution to the evolution of jazz because he basically created the modern piano trio, converting it from what it had been before – a pianist with bass and drum backing – to an equal partnership of the three diverse instruments. To put such a combination together required him to find musicians of equal creativity and understanding, and he found them when he formed his first regular trio with the brilliant Scott LaFaro on bass and Paul Motian on drums. In a short period that band made four superb albums (two in studio, Portrait in Jazz and Explorations, and two live, Sunday at the Village Vanguard and Waltz for Debby). Astonishingly, the music for the two live albums was recorded on the same day, 25th June 1961.
Just when it seemed a wonderful future was opening up for the trio, tragedy struck. Bassist Scott LaFaro was killed in a car accident, just 10 days after the Village Vanguard date. He was just 25 years old. Evans was completely devastated by this event, so much so that he stopped playing completely for several months. He was paralysed by grief. For a man whose whole life revolved around playing the piano this was an indication of the depth of the bereavement he felt. It also made Evans sink even deeper into the heroin habit he was already struggling with.
The film focusses on the the period after LaFaro’s death, when Bill Evans stays in New York City with his brother Harry (who was also a musician) before his escalating drug use forces him to leave in order to detox with is parents in Florida. It’s essentially a portrait of a man’s struggles with grief and his inner demons, and is at times grim but it is keenly felt and very absorbing. Bill Evans was a shy and introverted man who found his own talent hard to cope with, and was consequently very insecure, but the film does not try to turn him into some kind of martyr. Neither does it try to come up with a glib “explanation” of his heroin addiction. Like the complex harmonic progressions that abound in the music, not everything has a straightforward resolution. The honesty of the film is one of its greatest strengths.
The look of the film is very “art house”. Shot (mostly) in stark black-and-white (see the trailer), it makes striking use of light and shadow. In places it reminded me a lot of Night of the Hunter. Another interesting thing is that although it is set largely between New York and Florida, it was actyually shot in Ireland!
Mark O’Halloran’s script avoids a linear narrative, instead jumping backwards and forewards, giving the story a dreamlike quality. For example, flash-forwards to the 1970s are shot in vibrant saturated colour to contrast with the monochrome of the rest of the film. These sequences are previews of yet more tragedy in Evans’s life: the deaths by suicide of his partner Ellaine Schultz in 1973 and his brother Harry Evans in 1979. Bill Evans himself passed away in 1980.
Finally I have to take my hat off to Norwegian actor Anders Danielsen Lie for his utterly compelling performance as Bill Evans. I can’t think of many examples of an actor so completely inhabiting such an enigmatic role. I suppose he was helped because there are quite a few examples of Evans playing and talking on film, but even so it was a standout performance.
Everybody Digs Bill Evans is highly recommended, and not only for jazz fans! It’s showing at The Lighthouse and the Irish Film Institute in Dublin.
P.S. The title of the film is the same as that of a studio album made by an earlier manifestation of the Bill Evans Trio, with Sam Jones on bass and Philly Joe Jones on drums, before he teamed up with Scott LaFaro and Paul Motian.
P.P.S. Since Autumn is coming on, here’s my favourite track from Portrait in Jazz with Bill Evans, Scott LaFaro and Paul Motian showing what they could do.
Ireland’s Campaign to “Put Down This Jazz”
Posted in History, Jazz with tags Gaelic League, ireland, Irish Black Bottom, Louis Armstrong and his Hot Five, Peter Conefrey, RTÉ on September 5, 2026 by telescoperI’ve been listening to a radio programme about the centenary of RTÉ, it being a hundred years since the first radio broadcast by Raidió Éireann in 1926 (before television existed). One of the things included was a discussion of the fierce campaign against Jazz in Ireland during the 1930s. On New Year’s Day 1934, a Fr. Conefrey led a march through Mohill, County Leitrim, in which demonstrators shouted “down with jazz” and “out with paganism” and called on the government to close the dance halls and ban all foreign dances in Ireland. Jazz, the campaign argued, was “abominable” music that originated in central Africa and was exported to the West by “a gang of wealthy Bolshevists in the USSR to strike at church civilisation throughout the world.” Jazz was an “engine of hell” deployed to do the devil’s work. The Gaelic League weighed in on the day with an attack on then-Minister of Finance Seán MacEntee, who, in allowing jazz to be broadcast on Radio Eireann, was “selling the musical soul of the nation for the dividends of sponsored jazz programmes”.
It seems absurd nowadays that people could take such tripe seriously but it was a significant movement supported, amongst others, by Éamon de Valera. Here are some extracts of a speech which is both hilarious and sinister, not to mention deeply racist, by Fr. Conefrey, to give you an idea. Honestly. I know some people don’t like jazz, but this is just ridiculous!
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Let me tell you why this campaign is the most important step taken by the Gaelic League for many years.
While the Irish music has died out it is being replaced by a foreign system of music introduced from savage Africa by people out to kill religion and destroy morality. This ‘jazz’ represents the sin of impurity and young people leave their homes every night to go to dances where jazz is practised.
All night jazz dancing is one of the greatest evils Ireland has ever seen. Jazz is an even greater evil than both intemperance and landlordism combined. It is a menace to religion and nationality and its objective is nothing less than to destroy virtue in the human soul.
The reason it has been tolerated and indulged in so far is because the public in Ireland do not understand its meaning and do not see the danger.
Now we still have some people asking what is jazz? Some have asked in good faith if it excludes waltzes and barn dances? My answer to that is that the ‘anti-jazz campaign’ excludes no dance that is in keeping with public Christian decency. But no-one could make anything out of the jazz dancing, and there was no music in the jazz tin squealing.
A professor in Oxford University tells us that the word ‘jazz’ is a Central African word and means the acting in public of something that St Paul says should not be so much as named amongst us.
The dance and the music with its abominable rhythm was borrowed from Central Africa by a gang of wealthy International Bolshevists in America. Their aim is to strike at Christian civilization throughout the world and to steer Roman civilization inro the dust: they employed this jazz – this engine of hell – to do this devil’s work.
They laid their plans carefully. They employed mass suggestion. In the music they knew they had something that would appeal to debased sexual instinct. Its superlative, savagely extreme use of syncopation, allied with the copulative beat, beat, beat of the drum, stirred up forces all over the world.
To counter this abomination, the only answer is to revive Irish dancing and music. I appeal to you to support Irish music and Irish dancing: as far as I’m concerned it is a question of defending Christian religion and faith while we have it.
No other nation has the same music as we have. The Irish nation was famous for its music, but all the old violinists and flautists are gone, and it is only amongst the peasantry of Ireland that the real traditional music and dance is to be found.
When I was at the Royal Dublin Society exhibition we had a great show of our local cottage traditions of spinning and weaving and all sorts of knitted goods. But we also had Irish music and dance at our stand. I was congratulated and told by many that never was such music played on the show grounds, and it was one of the greatest treats of the whole show.
Music and dancing are among the arts of the nation and if the nation is to be rebuilt then we must get all the constituent parts reconstructed. I’ve had an idea in my mind for a long time, that we should have a National Reconstruction League to take charge of the language, music, and dance, and for cottage industries and the arts. If we could organise competitions and concerts to play our old tunes on traditional instruments and bring on new pipe bands, we could stop the spread of immorality and irreligion.
There is great musical-talent in Co. Leitrim and it is undeveloped.
We need to see that Irish music is fostered and not despised. But there are certain classes in this country who consider our Irish music is not genteel enough for them, and they look down on it and are out to destroy its spirit. Those Dublin people need to come down to the country where they’ll learn step dancing and how to distinguish one step from another and get the names of the steps. I would like to know what the Leinster School of Music was doing for Irish music: nothing; they are only teaching classical music. Even at the Sligo Feis Ceoil all the music was from Continental authors, and it was only the poor Irish farmers were left to play the Irish music.
Action is needed to be taken by the church and state. First, the government should compel the closing of dance halls at 11 o‘clock. Young teachers should be trained to teach Irish dancing and music, and they should have Irish dancing taught in the Depot amongst the members of the Guards.
One of the greatest offenders at the present time are the Civic Guards. The Minister for Justice should take action and have good Irish céilidh organised in every barracks every week or month, and not allow the Guards to be carrying on their pagan dances until hours in the morning. It is a well-known fact that in most cases there are bars open at these all-night dances, and people attending them are blinded with drink. This is a disgrace, and President de Valera should be ashamed of his face to stand by and allow this conduct to be carried on. It is time for the Government to open its eyes and see to it that this abuse should end.
I appeal to political parties to give up their disputes and unite on this question and put down this jazz.
While I speak to the Government I also speak to the Church, and say that the priests will want to waken up and see that this terrible and abusive jazz dancing ceases. I know that the majority of the priests know that jazz is wrong, but many of them will not speak out. There are others who don’t understand this monster and their idea is to let the people have what they want, which is the jazz.
I fear that if this is to continue and the generation of old people die out, we will have a different type of people in the future. It is up to the people to rise against this ]azz dance and music as it is necessary to save their traditions and faith. It is unworthy of Catholics to support jazz and no one is associated with jazz but shoneens. If people were worthy of their race and traditions they would blow up every hall, where jazz is practised.
More condemnation of jazz is worse than useless, as Henry Ford realised.
Young folk, will dance, but let them dance to rhythms of beauty and in a manner that will scatter morbidity and make for fun and jollity.
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Coincidentally, it was also in 1926 that Louis Armstrong and His Hot Five recorded “The Irish Black Bottom” which I here present to you in the hope of destroying the virtue in your soul.
R.I.P. Plas Johnson (1931-2026)
Posted in Biographical, Film, Jazz, R.I.P. with tags Hanna-Fontana Band, Henry Mancini, Jumpin' the Blues, Plas Johnson, The Pink Panther on July 23, 2026 by telescoper
I first heard news of the death of tenor saxophonist Plas Johnson (left) a couple of days ago, and since then there have been numerous tributes including this one in the Irish Times. Almost without fail the obituaries introduce him as the man who played the saxophone part of the Pink Panther theme written by Henry Mancini. In fact, years ago, I won a tiebreak for my team in a pub quiz by knowing the name of the person who played that tune.
Even very good musicians struggled to make a decent living from jazz after the arrival of rock-and-roll as a popular musical phenomenon in the 1950s. Like many jazz performers, Johnson addressed this issue by moving to Los Angeles, where he found work as a session musician working to support such artists as Frank Sinatra and Marvin Gaye, or on film and TV music. Henry Mancini noticed Plas Johnson’s quality and it inspired him to write the Pink Panther film specifically for him. Most of these performances went uncredited, which is why his name isn’t more widely known despite him being a very fine saxophonist. Nonetheless, having the financial security of being much sought after session musician, Plas Johnson was able to continue to pursue his love of jazz. He made some fine albums as leader (I have Positively on vinyl). He also moonlighted as Johnny Beecher to evade contractual issues.
The reason I knew of Plas Johnson as a jazz musician before I found out he was the Pink Panther guy. That’s because I used to listen to Humphrey Lyttelton’s radio programme The Best of Jazz on Radio 2 on Monday evenings from 9pm when I was at school and Plas Johnson came up a few times, including on the track I’ve included below from one of the famous Hanna-Fontana sessions at the Concord Jazz Festival. The recording was made in 1975 but the record wasn’t available in the UK until a couple of years later. I used to tape Humph’s radio shows but no longer have any of the cassettes so I had to spend much of my spare time the last couple of days trying to find the track Humph played. This is it! It features Plas Johnson (ts), clearly enjoying himself in the company of Bill Berry (tpt), Carl Fontana (tb), Herb Ellis (g), Dave McKenna (p), Herb Mickman (b) and Jake Hanna (d). Not a bad line-up!
R.I.P. Plas Johnson (1931-2026), so much more than the Pink Panther guy!
Whistler at Tate Britain
Posted in Art, Jazz with tags Billy Strayhorn, Chelsea Bridge, J.M.W. Turner, James McNeill Whistler, John Ruskin, Tate Britain on July 5, 2026 by telescoperBack to the hotel for a short siesta after spending most of the day at Tate Britain, where there is a special exhibition of works by and about James McNeill Whistler. The main collection at Tate Britain is free, but the Whistler exhibition costs £24 to see. It’s well worth it though.
The first picture shows Whistler’s famous portrait of his mother, who seems to be holding court. My favourite pieces, however, the Nocturnes, two of which I have mentioned on this blog before. There are three shown below, but photographs don’t do them justice at all. The appearance of the paint when seen close up is quite remarkable, a sort of translucent quality to it even when the picture is very dark. Whistler was one of the first artists to really master painting in the dark without using moonlight or other obvious illumination.
The last of these is particularly interesting to me. When the great American songwriter Billy Strayhorn saw the beautifully evocative painting (above) of one of the bridges over the River Thames, it inspired him to write an equally evocative song to be performed by his longstanding musical collaborator and friend Duke Ellington. The song was written in 1941, but it was only years later that he realized that he had named it after the wrong bridge. The painting was of Battersea Bridge; but he had named the song Chelsea Bridge, a much less romantic location. Chelsea Bridge is an intriguing tune, based on minor sixth chords voiced via their third inversions, it sounds almost atonal but very evocative, just like the painting.
In one of the video segments played during the exhibition we hear the actor Anton Lesser quoting Whistler with words the effect that he saw colours like notes on a keyboard; he started naming his paintings after musical works, e.g. “Symphony in White” before he got to his masterpieces, the Nocturnes.
I wrote about another of the Nocturnes here. Nocturne in Black and Gold, in the same series as the third picture above, is famous for having been at the centre of a libel case. The influential art critic John Ruskin hated it and accused Whistler of “flinging a pot of paint in the public’s face”. Whistler sued for damages (though he couldn’t really afford to). He won the case against Ruskin, but the outcome was financially disastrous for him because he was awarded only one farthing in damages and was bankrupted.
Tate Britain has an extensive permanent collection of primarily English art from about 1600 onwards, not least a huge collection of works by J.M.W. Turner. It’s fascinating to see so many of these together, charting this extraordinary artist’s evolution from brilliant if conventional upstart to pioneering impressionist. Along the way Turner’s interest in conventional themes began to wane in favour of the interplay between sea and clouds, to the extent that his works began to look like abstracts. There is in my mind a strong influence on Whistler. This one, ostensibly a seascape with a distant shore, reminds me of Rothko.
My Bucket’s Got a Hole in It
Posted in Biographical, Jazz, Maynooth with tags Humph at the Conway, Humphrey Lyttelton, Jazz, King's Birthday Honours, My Bucket's Got a Hole in It on June 14, 2026 by telescoper“Only connect” is EM Forster’s best known adage about writing, though he didn’t mean it in the context of a “shitty WordPress blog”. Nevertheless I do find it fun sometimes to connect disparate things, so here goes.
I was doing a turn in the garden this afternoon when I noticed that an old bucket left here by the previous occupant had corroded enough to develop a hole:
This reminded me of the old song My Bucket’s Got a Hole in It and especially this very enjoyable version of it by Humphrey Lyttelton’s 1954 seven-piece live at the Conway Hall in London.
It’s hard to believe that it’s 18 years since Humph passed away, but it’s great to hear his voice again in the introduction to the track which ends the A side of the album Humph at the Conway. The cartoon on the cover is by him too. The record features Humph on trumpet, the clarinet by Wally Fawkes (who plays the first clarinet solo) and Bruce Turner on alto sax who switches to clarinet for the second solo but plays sax in the ensembles which sound absolutely terrific as a result. Many “trad” jazz fans took against Humph for including a saxophonist in his band, but Bruce Turner was a great musician and added a new dimension. The other members of the band were Johnny Parker (piano), Micky Ashman (bass), Freddy Legon (banjo) and George Hopkinson (drums).
So that’s one connection. Another is that yesterday saw the announcement of the King’s Birthday Honours in the UK, which was not covered widely here in in Ireland, but which independently reminded me that Humphrey Lyttelton turned down a knighthood on principle back in 1995. Good for him!
R.I.P. Sonny Rollins (1930-2026)
Posted in Jazz, R.I.P. with tags Hold 'em Joe, Miles Davis, Newk's Time, R.I.P Sonny Rollins, R.I.P., Sonny Rollins, The Bridge, Thelonious Monk, Tune Up on May 26, 2026 by telescoperI woke this morning to the sad news that the great tenor saxophonist Sonny Rollins passed away yesterday at the age of 95. He was one of the most influential and creative musicians of his time and there are many justifiably glowing obituaries of him. I can’t add much that hasn’t already been said by them, other than say that I consider myself deeply privileged to have been able see and hear Sonny Rollins play live, not once but twice, during the 1980s. The first was in the relatively intimate surroundings of Ronnie Scott’s club in London and the second in the Royal Festival Hall. On both occasions he was fantastic. Sonny Rollins was one of those musicians who made me think when I watched him that if you took the instrument out of his mouth it would somehow carry on playing on its own. At Ronnie Scott’s club he opened one set by starting to play in the band room, walking out through the audience onto the stage still playing and then about an hour later walked off back the way he came, still playing. The tune was Thelonious Monk’s 52nd Street Theme. He ended his set at the Festival Hall with an unstoppable version of Don’t Stop The Carnival that had everyone leaping about in the aisles. There was so much music in him it just had to come out. Was he playing the music or was it playing him?
Sonny Rollins began playing professionally when he was a teenager in the late 1940s but came to the attention of the jazz world in earnest when he teamed up with Miles Davis for a 1954 recording session that led to a record called Miles Davis with Sonny Rollins. (Coincidentally, today would have been Miles Davis’s 100th birthday). That record, originally issued on a 10″ LP, showcased Rollins’s big muscular sound on tenor sax, but also consisted of four tracks, three of which were compositions by Sonny Rollins, including a now-standard Oleo. That record was really Sonny’s breakthrough and he went on to record dozens of superb albums both as leader: A Night at the Village Vanguard, Saxophone Colossus, Newk’s Time, and Way Out West, to name just four. He also made many records as a side man, including the must-have album, Brilliant Corners with Thelonious Monk.
Having established himself as a major artist, Rollins suddenly took a three-year break from playing between 1959 to 1961 to develop his technique. Lacking space to practice in his apartment, he did so every day on the Williamsburg Bridge. When he returned to a recording studio in early 1962, the result was another classic album, The Bridge.
(Left: Sonny Rollins c. 1960)
Having established himself as a major artist, Rollins suddenly took a three-year break from playing between 1959 to 1961 to develop his technique. Lacking space to practice in his apartment, he did so every day on the Williamsburg Bridge. When he returned to a recording studio in early 1962, the result was another classic album, The Bridge.
In all he made over 60 albums, of which I have about a dozen. I’ll be listening to them a lot over the next few days and may post a few further items about them in due course.One thing I always liked about Sonny Rollins was his tendency to take a shine to very unexpected tunes and turn them into something magical. Off the top of my head I can think of The Surrey with the Fringe on Top, How are Things in Glocca Morra? and I’m an Old Cowhand.
It’s impossible to pick a single track than can do justice to Sonny Rollins so I’m just going to include a couple here. The first is the very first track I ever heard by him, on a Blue Note sampler album. It’s a Miles Davis tune called Tune Up and it’s from the 1957 Blue Note album Newk’s Time with Wynton Kelly (piano), Doug Watkins (bass), and Philly Joe Jones (drums). Perhaps listening to the energy and invention of his playing, delivered with that characteristically leathery tone then you’ will understand why I fell instantly in love with his music and wanted to hear more.
The second is one of my favourite records of all time. It’s called Hold’ Em Joe and it was recorded in 1965 with Ray Bryant (piano), Walter Booker (bass) and the fabulous Mickey Roker on drums:
As a sad footnote on this sad occasion, the passing of Sonny Rollins means that not one of the great musicians in this famous photograph A Great Day in Harlem, taken on August 12th 1958, is still with us:
Rest in Peace Sonny Rollins (1930-1954), Saxophone Colossus indeed.
Joy Spring – Clifford Brown & Max Roach
Posted in Jazz with tags Clifford Brown, George Morrow, Harold Land, Jazz, Joy Spring, Max Roach, Richie Powell on May 13, 2026 by telescoperThis tune popped into my head when I was walking home this evening so after dinner I listened to my CD of the terrific 1954 album Clifford Brown & Max Roach, on which it first appeared. Trumpeter Clifford Brown wrote the tune Joy Spring when he was just 23 for his wife Larue and it became a jazz standard. This first version features a quintet jointly led by Brown and Max Roach on drums, together with hugely underrated tenor saxophonist Harold Land, Richie Powell on piano (younger brother of Bud Powell, whose influence you can hear in his playing) and George Morrow on bass. The whole album is great, but I think the standout tracks are this version of Joy Spring and their version of Duke Jordan’s tune Jordu. Brown’s solo on Joy Spring demonstrates his beautifully crisp articulation and his superb capacity for sustained melodic invention, moving into and out of double-time. He only plays two choruses, but packs so much into them. Enjoy!
Despite it’s happy feel, this track will always be tinged with tragedy. Less than two years after this session both Clifford Brown and Richie Powell were killed in a car crash: Brown was 25 and Powell 24.
The Original Peaky Blinders Jazz Band
Posted in History, Jazz, Television with tags Garrison Pub, Jazz, ODJB, Original Dixieland Jazz Band, Peaky Blinders on April 15, 2026 by telescoperI’ve been greatly enjoying the boxed set of six seasons of Peaky Blinders that I received as a gift recently. I may do a sort of review when I get to the end, but until then I thought I’d throw in a few tangential things. This post is an example. Here’s another one. This clip is from Episode 2 of Series 1, when the Shelby family are celebrating the reopening of the Garrison pub after it was destroyed by a firebomb earlier on. Listen to the background music at the start.
The music being played is Livery Stable Blues by the Original Dixieland Jazz Band, a record I blogged about here. Released in 1917, it is no exaggeration to say that this was the first every commercial jazz record; I blogged about the 100th anniversary of its release.
The band was originally called the “Original Dixieland Jass Band“. A few months later they changed the “Jass” to “Jazz” – it is claimed because people kept defacing their posters by removing the letter “J” – and the new name stuck. The Original Dixieland Jazz Band is usually referred by Jazz buffs as the ODJB.
Led by cornettist Nick LaRocca and clarinettist Larry Shields, the ODJB was a group of white musicians from in and around New Orleans who had picked up their musical ideas from listening to musicians there, including playing for the pioneering mixed-race band led by Papa Laine, before moving to Chicago which is where they were spotted by representatives of the Victor label. Although the sound quality isn’t great, it gives a good insight to what ealy jazz drummers were like – thumping bass and tom-toms but little use of the cymbals – and shows Larry Shields was a dab hand at glissandi…
Series 1 of Peaky Blinders is set in 1919 (mainly in Birmingham but also with scenes in London). Not a lot of people know that the ODJB actually visited England in 1919. They performed in review at the Hammersmith Palais and then did a command performance in front of King George V, who (apparently) particularly enjoyed their version of Tiger Rag. There is no evidence that they visited Birmingham, but we get a glimpse before the above clip of a band decked out to look like them, playing live in the Garrison pub. I very much enjoy little details like that!
