Post-World War II Jazz in Britain: Venues and Values 1945–1970

Abstract

IntroductionThe relationship between jazz and its performance spaces is bound up with cultural connotations and audience expectations. From its birth in turn-of- the-century New Orleans, jazz and its reception have been restricted, legiti- mized and liberated by different performance venues. In this article, I focus on London in the quarter-century after World War II, showing how different types of venue and the ethos associated with each of them allowed for dif- fering styles of presentation, mediation and reception of jazz.My relatively narrow geographical and temporal focus allows me to draw specific conclusions that can be applied to the larger jazz scene in Britain. In this twenty-five-year period, jazz was simultaneously presented in a wide variety of ways in London. I shall focus on four: New Orleans-style jazz was commonly performed in Rhythm Clubs (jazz appreciation societ- ies that began life as record circles) and concert halls; jazz clubs such as the 100 Club that had a fixed venue, but hosted different styles of jazz on different nights of the week, bringing in different audiences; bebop clubs such as Club Eleven, which existed from 1948 to 1950, and Ronnie Scott's Jazz Club (founded in 1959) changed venue throughout their lifetimes, but hosted visiting and local musicians, providing an idiomatic consistency that ensured a regular and loyal fan base; and the experimental theatres of the 1960s and 1970s that hosted the British free jazz movement. Using these four case studies and methods of jazz appreciation as examples of the post-World War II jazz scene in London, I evaluate who was playing what, in what venue, and to whom, in order to assess the mediation of British jazz through venue, during the period 1945 to 1970.My sources for this article are drawn from the existing literature on jazz clubs, historical accounts by fans and musicians, contemporaneous periodi- cals, and interviews I undertook with musicians from the period.1 My meth- odology is therefore a combination of historical and archival research and of ethnographic practices. I use the term 'jazz venue' to refer to any place in which jazz was performed, rather than venues built especially for jazz perfor- mance, which has become the common usage of the term.Early Jazz VenuesJazz is commonly understood to have originated and been first performed at the turn of the twentieth century in the Louisiana port city of New Orleans. Although the geographical specificity of the emergence of the music has since been disputed, the colourful narratives surrounding the location and connotations of early jazz performances provide a context and springboard for this discussion of post-World War II jazz venues in Britain.2The earliest performances of jazz, in the nightclubs, speakeasies and brothels of New Orleans and elsewhere, were characterized by the improvi- satory and energetic 'hot' style of music, and by the intimate dances devel- oped by audiences. The changing nature of jazz venues and reception in the USA over the ensuing decades has been explored in print: Vincent Pelote's 'Jazz Clubs' (2000), Robert P. Crease's 'Jazz and Dance' (2000) and Paul Berliner's 'Vibes and Venues: Interacting with Different Audiences in Different Settings' (1994) are just a few examples. There is very little scholarship on British jazz venues, but a review of the existing literature follows.Early Jazz Venues: the UK CaseThe history of jazz performance and its mediation through venue in Brit- ain is less documented than its US counterpart, but is equally compelling. The primary texts surrounding jazz in Britain and its associated cultural tropes (performance, reception, education) are Catherine Tackley (nee Parsonage)'s 2005 monograph The Evolution of Jazz in Britain, 1880- 1935, George McKay's Circular Breathing: The Cultural Politics of Jazz in Britain from the same year, Duncan Heining's Trad Dads, Dirty Boppers and Free Fusioneers: British Jazz, 1960-1975 (2012), and Hilary Moore's Inside British Jazz: Crossing Borders of Race, Nation and Class (2007). …