Vermin's Drummer of Choice

Many years ago I was asked by my school’s music teacher to return and play some drums behind the school choir for an anniversary concert.  Astonishingly, this little bog standard comp had produced quite a lot of show biz slebs and a few were returning for the great event.  Amongst them was a chap five years younger than me who had left school to become one of the most in-demand drummers in the world.   

Richard Pite on Drums

My teacher said she had spoken to him and he’d given her a list of some of the people he had worked for so she could include these names in the souvenir programme – they included Paul McCartney, Tom Jones, Shirley Bassey, Whitney Houston, The Bee Gees, Frank Sinatra, Tony Bennett and on and on.  She asked me if I could furnish her with some names I’d been associated with.  I had a think and came up with Basil Brush then a long silence.  “Anyone else?”  After more head scratching I remembered I’d done a gig with Roland Rat.  So there we were – 10 years in the business and I was the drummer of choice for vermin puppets.

Basil Brush

Roland Rat was the subject of one of the funniest quips about Breakfast Time TV.  Some wag said “He was the only rat ever to join a sinking ship”.  I remember the gig very well.  I was playing sousaphone in a Dixieland trio in the corner of a supermarket when they announced that Roland Rat was going to do the supermarket sweep (one glove puppet I’ve yet to work with).

Roland Rat

The midget who had the Roland Rat costume on then tore round the supermarket at great speed filling up a supermarket trolley and at the end of the two minutes had pretty much duplicated the kind of shopping which has made my wife ban me from supermarkets ever since.  Chocolate Hob Nobs, tins of rice pudding, Jaffa Cakes, Sugar Puffs, lots of jellies, tubs of ice cream etc.  25 years later and Roland Rat’s shopping proclivities are duplicated up and down the country by the person in front of you at the Tesco check out (so they tell me – I’m banned).

Opening Night of Goodman & Miller - Party Bags for Dave.

Cole Mathieson is the owner of the Concorde Club, in Eastleigh near Southampton.  He is a sterling chap who continues doggedly to promote jazz on Wednesday evenings at his club in the full knowledge that the music will never let you down when it comes to the art of losing money.   

Despite this, Cole kindly agreed to let me run our new show “Benny Goodman and Glenn Miller at Carnegie Hall 1939”  and fifteen musicians joined me in recreating the night 75 years ago when the two famous bandleaders shared the stage.  

Man of the match was Dave Chamberlain who was playing the role of Charlie Christian – not only had Dave managed to replicate the sound of Christian and his primitive 1939 guitar amp but he’d also learnt the Christian solos and reproduced them all beautifully – Dave, I doff my chapeau and there’s also a Jazz Repertory Company party bag winging its way to you.

On Mending Noses and Putting Them Out Of Joint

Mr Pite goes into hospital this week to have his nose sorted out for the umpteenth time.  He complains that he was bestowed with the Ford Edsel of noses ( it’s big and most of the time it doesn’t work). He’ll be bouncing back at the weekend to resume duties behind the drum kit and smell the roast beef at the Boisdale Canary Wharf Sunday Lunch .  In the meantime try these:

http://www.theguardian.com/music/musicblog/2013/jul/04/readers-recommend-songs-smells-results

http://content.time.com/time/specials/2007/article/0,28804,1658545_1657867_1657781,00.html

So little rest for the wicked:

The Jazz Repertory Company’s new show Benny Goodman and Glenn Miller at Carnegie Hall 1939 premieres on May 14^th at The Concorde Club in Eastleigh nr. Southampton.  Then on Sunday 18^th May the show can be seen at the Stables at Wavenden, in the build up to its London debut in November at Cadogan Hall. 

Benny Goodman’s 1938 Carnegie Hall show is one of the most famous concerts in jazz history but the 1939 concert is not so well known even though recordings of it exist.  Goodman and Miller shared the bill with the orchestras of Paul Whiteman and Fred Waring.  

Benny Goodman at Carnegie Hall, 1938

Benny took the mickey out of Fred Waring’s very square music when his band hit the stage and he also did something rather cheeky – his second number in was Glenn Miller’s current hit Sun Valley Serenade.  Miller was to follow and had the number in his programme so must have been seething in his dressing room – no wonder Benny Goodman was such a popular guy!

Glenn Miller's Sun Valley Serenade

James Rees Europe; #1 in 100 Years of Big Band Jazz in 99 Minutes

The Jazz Repertory Company’s next production is 100 Years of Big Band Jazz.   Big band jazz 100 years ago?  Well, we start with a piece called “That Moanin’ Trombone”  originally performed by the band of James Reese Europe.  Europe was a big star 100 years ago and almost totally forgotten today.  

Here are six fascinating facts about him:

1 . He was the leading figure on the African-American music scene of New York City in the 1910s.  Eubie Blake called him the "Martin Luther King of music."

2 In 1912, Europe made history when he played a concert at Carnegie Hall for the benefit of the Colored Music Settlement School. His Clef Club Orchestra was the first band to play proto-jazz at Carnegie Hall. It is difficult to overstate the importance of that event in the history of jazz in the United States — it was 12 years before the Paul Whiteman and George Gershwin concert at Aeolian Hall, and 26 years before Benny Goodman's famed concert at Carnegie Hall.

Benny Goodman's Famous 1938 Carnegie Hall Concert

3  His "Society Orchestra" became nationally famous in 1912, accompanying theatre headliner dancers Vernon and Irene Castle. The Castles introduced and popularized the foxtrot — "America learned to dance from the waist down."

4  In 1918 he led the official band of the African-American Hellfighters regiment.   The French loved the band and it was the start of the long affection the French hold for African American music.

5  James Rees Europe was the first black American soldier in WW1to face the enemy in combat when he joined a French unit on a night patrol.  This is in stark contrast to the jazz bandleaders of WW2 who were all kept well away from the frontline.

6 He was murdered by one of his drummers in 1919.

Mr Long and the Swedes

This Friday at the Waldorf Pete Long’s Royal Hen (crazy guy, crazy band name) is performing at a party where almost all the guests are Swedish.  We did this last year and the Swedes astounded the band (almost all the band are British) with their elegant dancing, sophisticated dress sense, perfectly pitched drinking (not too sober and not too blotto) and enthusiastic applause for the band. 

Pete Long from Royal Hen Band

Want a memorable party where you don’t have to worry about your guests being sick on the carpet or upsetting granny?  Don’t invite your friends and relatives just pick 200 anonymous Swedes to be your guests and you’ll have a lovely time.