The 606 Club will be celebrating 25 years at Lots Road with a 12-day festival involving 42 bands.  

Bobby will be playing with Don Weller as part of the festival.  Here’s a short interview with Bobby on his years playing at the club.

You play regularly at the 606 Club, when did you first get to know the club’s owner, Steve Rubie?

Steve and I go back many years but it was his brother, Peter, I knew first. I met Peter in the seventies and we did some gigs together with Peter on guitar, we just did little pubs here and there.  Then, Steve came around, he played both saxophone and flute, so we all played together and became friends.

Did you play at the old club on Kings Road?

I did, I started going down the old club in the eighties, which was at number 606 on the Kings Road, of course. So I had a play down there and got to know Steve very well and occasionally used to flop at his flat round the corner.  Steve became a very good friend and I have to say he gave me some very sound at advice at that time which I won’t forget… but that’s another story!  He moved to Lots Road so I started doing gigs there. I play one Saturday per month with the quartet: Liam Noble on piano, Dave Wickins on drums and Dave Whitford on base.  Saturday nights are usually heaving and can get pretty lively.

What do you think makes the 606 a great jazz club?

Well, first of all Steve has put a hell of a lot of work into building up the club over the years and we all know that jazz is a difficult business. So, well done Steve.

People like “the six” [so called by the regulars] because it’s relaxed and intimate and it attracts a good mixture of people, so it’s always interesting for the customers as much as it is for the players to see music lovers of all ages, nationalities and so on coming down to eat and enjoy the music.  Various family and friends have come to gigs over the years and they love it down there.  It has become a bit of a home from home for the Wellins’!

Of course, there’s no wine being served out of teapots and tea cups and saucers like at the old club, it’s all legitimate now!

You do get a few famous characters down the club from time to time. I remember one night John Le Mesurier came down with a lady friend, we had just finished playing  What’s New and he came up to me and said “ Excuse me Bobby, do you think you could play What’s New?” and I said, “oh John, we’ve just played it” and then he looked at me with that wonderful look he used to have in Dad’s Army and said “I suppose you have really”.

The other thing to point out is that it’s one of the few clubs in London which employs jazz musicians who play jazz.  We all have to be grateful to Steve for keeping us in employment.

And we mustn’t forget that aside from the music, they do great food, the staff look after everyone and James, the manager, really takes care of everything and keeps it all running smoothly.

I’m really looking forward to playing with Don [Weller] as part of the 25^th anniversary celebrations. It’s going to be a cracking night and a super festival.

Here’s to the next 25 years!

Bobby Wellins and Don Weller – Saturday 1^st June.

www.606club.co.uk

It was recorded on 17th of November 2011 at the Crossley Gallery in Halifax, Yorkshire and features Bobby on tenor and Kate Williams on piano.

Track Listing:

• Smoke And Mirrors;
• While We Were Young;
• Minor Pennies;
• What If…;
• If You Never Come To Me;
• The Man I Love;
• P.S.;
• Imagination.

Bruce Lindsay’s review for All About Jazz ( http://www.allaboutjazz.com/php/article.php?id=42365 ) describes it as  “relaxed interplay between tenor saxophone and piano that has the effortless ease that can only come from players in total command of their craft.”

John Fordham’s review in the Guardian ( http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2012/jul/19/bobby-wellins-kate-williams-review ) gives it 4 stars “It’s an unpretentiously delightful encounter.”

According to the review on London Jazz: ( http://londonjazz.blogspot.co.uk/2012/07/cd-review-bobby-wellins-kate-williams.html ) it “exudes elegance, taste and refinement that at times borders on the exquisite.”

The late John Dankworth (1927-2010) made a string of recordings in the 1960s that have since come to be regarded as some of the finest British jazz albums of their time. This release excavates two albums and presents them remastered from the original tapes. 1963′s literary-inspired jazz suite ‘What the Dickens!’ saw Dankworth painting musical portraits of several of Charles Dickens’ best-known characters. And with a band containing a wealth of world-class players – the sax section alone consisted of Ronnie Scott, Tubby Hayes, Pete King, Dick Morrissey and Bobby Wellins – the jazz on offer here is of the highest order. Dankworth turns in some truly inspired compositions, enabling the entire suite to gel into a coherent whole, and the result is one of the most satisfying albums in his extensive discography.

Track listing: WHAT THE DICKENS! (1963) Prologue, Weller Never Did, Little Nell, The Infant Phenomenon, Demndest Little Fascinator, Dotheboys Hall, Ghosts, David and the Bloaters, Please Sir I Want Some More, The Artful Dodger, Waiting for Something to Turn Up, Dodson and Fogg, The Pickwick Club, Sergeant Buzfuz, Finale /

OFF DUTY! (1969) Ja-Da, Off Duty!, Little Brown Jig, Sophisticated Lady, African Waltz, Bernie’s Tune, Skyliner, Basin Street Blues, To Emma, Don’t Get A round Much Anymore, Song of India, Holloway House

You can buy the CD now at Amazon for £9.99 (price correct at the time of posting this article.

The winner will be announced at the awards presentation at the Concorde Club, Eastleigh on Monday October 22nd (start time tbc).

Details of the venue including directions can be found at http://www.theconcordeclub.com/contact.php

We hope that Bobby will continue his success, having won the UK Parliamentary Jazz Awards as Jazz Musician of the Year in May 2012.

We’ve spotted it on Ebay here but it will be available through other stockists too.

The CD features the late Pete Jacobsen, Kenny Wheeler, Spike Wells, Ken Baldock, Chris Karan  plus a string quartet and is a wonderfully atmospheric suite of pieces.

You can buy the recording here on Amazon:  Whole Lotta Tony

Recorded in 1961, this is essential listening from a seminal period in British Jazz, and features the rarely recorded Harold McNair, fellow Scot Tommy Whittle and Gordon Beck on piano.

You’ll find more info on the recording in the Discography page.

“Tim Lapthorn is one of the most emotional piano players in Europe. His album ‘Natural Language’ is a thing of great beauty”. Ian Shaw

“Lapthorn can really execute some tough and virtuosic shapes and ideas. I’ve watched him run through solos on a tune in a studio situation and they’ve all been different and ambitious, even electrifying at times. In short, the guy can play”. Richard Cook, Jazz Review

Jazz at The Bakehouse, Great Northern Hotel

Doors  7.30pm
Concert  8pm

£13

Phone: 07761 726343

http://www.peterboroughjazzclub.co.uk/

The interview is a very warm one, recorded last week at the Oxford Jazz Festival2011, and opens with Alyn introducing Bobby as “one of my favourite saxophonists in all of jazz – and I mean not just in the UK, not just Europe but everywhere in the world”.

You can listed to the programme until 7th May 2011, here.

You can read about the tracks played here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b010nqql#segments and if you’d like to buy any of then you you can read about how to do so here: http://bobbywellins.co.uk/2011/03/12/where-to-buy-bobbys-cds/

Ian

Peter King, Aberdeen 2005 (c) Ian Watt

Peter King has written an excellent autobiography:  frank and honest, with considerable self-awareness and insight into what drives him. It describes with great candour the life of a man who left school with few qualifications, yet obvious intelligence, and who rose to the top of his field in only a few short years.

When still an early  teenager, Peter found that his parents wouldn’t buy him a clarinet (having seen him abandon his piano and violin lessons).  So, being keen modeller, he decided to make himself one, such was his obsession with the instrument. Both that obsessiveness, and rejection of barriers that would see others quit,  emerge as strong themes throughout the book, as does his nervousness which he found a debilitating condition in many situations – not least when travelling by air, sea or road.

Once turned on to the recordings of Charlie Parker, King switched to alto and learned it obsessively. In only a few short years he had become such a mature player that he was asked to play at the opening of Ronnie Scott’s new club while still aged only 19! While we see today some great young players one should remember that he was essentially self-taught, with no access to play-along CDs or modern jazz theory books.

From then on Pete became immersed in the British modern jazz world, not only playing with the top UK names of the day but also meeting or playing with the cream of the US musicians. These include Bud Powell, Ben Webster, Phily Joe Jones, Paul Gonsalvez, Stan Getz, Jimmy Witherspoon, Red Rodney  many more big names. Pete provides many amusing and original anecdotes about several of them, often from first-hand experience.

While not immediately a drug user he slowly developed a drugs habit which lasted several decades and took a considerable effort to end. His account of this, the debilitating and destructive effect it had on both relationships and work pulls no punches but isn’t used to shock – merely to place events in context and to explain his mental state and motivation which drove him to certain actions.

As the sixties gave way to the seventies the jazz scene really contracted and the ability for a musician to support himself financially through playing the music he loved became much more difficult, resulting in his having to play in pit orchestras, on soundtrack recordings and backing pop musicians. Having considered Peter a star of British jazz, and assumed that such stardom would bring financial rewards, I quite amazed and saddened to learn just how poorly paid he and his colleagues were throughout their careers. On several occasions he draws attention to how poorly the arts are supported in the UK.

The eighties saw something of a resurgence but it appears that only the young black guys were able to get the contracts from the big labels. Peter did get some recognition in wider circles, was able to travel more and ultimately became friends with not only Bird’s widow Chan and her daughter Kim Parker, but also got blow to two of Bird’s horns. The first was the famous Grafton plastic alto that Bird played at Massey Hall concert but also the King Super 20 which Chan kept by her bedside. I knew that Peter played the Grafton when it sold at Christies auction house for £95,000 in 1994 but didn’t know that he was invited to play it again in Kansas City when it was put in the museum there by the mayor who’d bid for it.

Beyond jazz, Peter’s two other passions come through strongly: aero-modelling and classical music. It is clear that his ability to study by himself, rather than through formal education and apply that knowledge has helped him to great achievements in both fields.

There are so many interesting facts and recollections in this book that it really is a ‘must-read’ for anyone interested in learning at first-hand what it meant to be a professional jazz musician in the latter half of the 20th century.

There are few great jazz autobiographies that I can think of.  Certainly Charles Mingus’ Beneath The Underdog. Art Pepper’s Straight Life  and Anita O’Day’s High Times – Hard Times spring to mind.

This new book stands up there with the best of them!

(c) Ian Watt 2011

According to WSJ:

“Working in New York between 1957 and 1964, the photographer Herb Snitzer witnessed a transition in jazz. The big bands had already given way to smaller groups, but now the music was growing more experimental. Once everyone went to big halls and danced; now aficionados sat through sets in small clubs. In 1960, Snitzer took a picture of Dizzy Gillespie backstage at a Louis Armstrong show. Stylish in a houndstooth suit, the bebop trumpeter laughs with Trummy Young and Billy Kyle, resplendent in tuxedos: the new fella having a smoke with two mainstays of Armstrong’s swinging All-Stars. But bop was giving way, too. An image, taken at the moodyVillage Gate in 1961, epitomizes the new age as John Coltrane (launched in a Gillespie band) and Eric Dolphy perform over the backing of two bassists. Jazz was looking inward. 

“You see it in photo after photo: the joyous performing of Armstrong and Velma Middleton and Ray Nance is replaced by the intense stares of Ornette Coleman and Sonny Payne and the inner storms evident in Thelonious Monk’s face. Some era. Some photos.”

Amazon describe it in this way.

“This is a stunning collection of iconic images and anecdotes from renowned jazz photographer Herb Snitzer. Glorious Days and Nights is a personal account of the 50 year career of renowned jazz photographer Herb Snitzer. A photojournalist for Life, Look, and Fortune, and associate editor of the influential jazz magazine Metronome, Snitzer plied his trade during a period of political, racial, and social strife. But throughout the demonstrations, civil and racial unrest, what remained constant for him was jazz. In Glorious Days and Nights, Snitzer recalls what it was like to go on the road with these musicians. His reflections run the gamut from serious meditations on his development as a photographer working with musicians already of great stature to more conversational recollections of casual moments spent having fun with the jazz artists many of whom became close friends – all accompanied some of the most iconic jazz images ever seen.” 

Now you can buy the book in the UK from Amazon Herb Snitzer – Glorious Days and Nights: A Jazz Memoir.