Hep Cats, Jive Cats, Cool Cats and A Catalogue Of Mogs

During a quiet spell in the office when no-one out there seemed inclined to enquire after one of our smashing bands to help them celebrate their birthday, wedding or death I thought I’d look at one of our YouTube videos to reassure myself that what we had to offer was really rather good.

First thing I alighted on was the Pete Long Orchestra playing Shiny Stockings and I noted that 363 people had watched it. Now that video had been up for around 6 months so it’s not a great total. 

The Pete Long Orchestra plays Shinny Stockings

The Jazz Repertory Company's 1956: A Jazz Jubilee

Like a chump, I had to go and make myself feel even worse by arbitrarily choosing a cat video and seeing how The Jazz Repertory Company compared.  First one I saw was “The Funny Cats Compilation 2016.”  This had been up around the same time as Shiny Stockings but it had racked up 2,381,238 views.

The Funniest Cats Of 2016 Compilation

Having seen all seven series of Mad Men and having replaced my fantasy of being Buddy Rich with my very recent fantasy of being Don Draper I sprang into action immediately.  I put on my Brooks Brothers suit, drank a bottle of scotch, made a (failed) pass at the woman heading up my accounts department (my wife) – called a meeting of all my staff (my wife) and proposed that we immediately instigate an advertising campaign for The Jazz Repertory Company using cats or, possibly with our somewhat limited budget, a cat. 

With the budget being set at six cans of Whiskers, a Sainsbury’s pack of king prawns and £5 worth of assorted cat toys I was ready to go.   By a remarkable coincidence I had programmed into our September Cadogan Hall concert  “Jazz at Carnegie Hall”  Zez Confrey’s  1920’s piano novelty Kitten on the Keys – this would be a perfect opportunity for a cat to be brought on stage and do something cute like……  oh it doesn’t matter the bloody cat would refuse to do it anyway.

Zez Confrey's Kitten On The Keys

We had found a cat – he was called Archie.  Archie had opened a twitter account a couple of months back and had already overtaken me with the number of followers he had – this was clearly a cat with charisma.  I called Cadogan Hall and told them I intended to have Archie come on stage during Kitten on the Keys and refuse to do something cute.  I assured them that Archie’s equally cute owner would bring him on with a lead and the whole thing would be an amusing throw back to 1974 and a cross between The Generation Game and Animal Magic.

However it was now 2017 and Cadogan Hall’s answer was that due to the following, Archie’s presence was impossible.

1. Health and Safety
2. Countless EU regulations (come on Teresa, pull your finger out girl!!!).
3. Their insurance policy and (confusing cats' bathroom habits with dogs) the possibility that musicians could slide on Archie’s widdle then plunge into the front row and squash a handful of OAPs thus instigating a multi-million pound lawsuit (Archie Cattus Domesticus vs Regina).

Not put off by this set back we have continued with our experiments playing various styles of jazz to Archie to see where his tastes lie and what may cause him to react in a way that may lead to 9 million views on YouTube.

Archie - Photo by Giles Bracher

The test results thus far are as follows.

Miles Davis:  SevenSteps To Heaven

Archie’s response:  Nothing

Jelly Roll Morton: Doctor Jazz

Archie’s response:   Nothing

Kanye West: Bohemian Rhapsody

Archie’s response:  Yawned and licked his genitalia

Glenn Miller:  In The Mood

Archie’s Response:  Nothing

Glenn Miller's In The Mood

The Jazz Repertory Company

I think Archie so far has been taking the art of cool to ridiculous extremes – I keep showing him the seating plan of Cadogan Hall with its sea of unpurchased seats and I explain just how crucial his contribution is.  Archie’s response:  Nothing.

We will be publishing an update on progress in August – for the time being here is a picture of Archie enjoying Diana Krall’s latest CD. 

Archie