Jazz Remembered
Tales Of The Jubes
and other bands
by Don Coe
Don Coe
In another article, inspired by the articles written by Ron Drakeford about jazz in Kingston-on-Thames (here), banjo player Don Coe recalled life with Bill Brunskill's band. Don continues here with tales of other bands from that time:
"I feel that it needs to be firmly understood by those who were not there at the time, that bands like Bill Brunskill, the Jubilee Jazzmen and many, many others were strictly amateur. We all had jobs to go to during the day. It says a lot for the talent that formed those bands that they were invariably welcomed into the Big Clubs of the day by the resident band and we often descended into cellars to sit in with the likes of Humphrey Lyttelton at 100 Oxford Street, and, if we could get past Ruby on the door, Ken Colyer in Newport Street.
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There was that weekend when Bill Brunskill's band was invited to North London for a garden party adjoining Hampstead Heath. The band and dancers spilled out on to the Heath and we were joined by the Jubilee Jazzmen at sometime during the second day, a Saturday, in the afternoon. We must have stayed the night there. I recall that Greg Potter was on banjo and I was invited to double up with Greg for a while. It was around this time I joined the ‘Jubes’ and Greg moved on.
The Jubilee Jazz Band at The Fighting Cocks in Kingston
A short time before I joined the band it had been called the Swamp Fever Jazzband and letters from the Performing Rights Society were addressed to a S. Fever Esq. They were very polite in those days!
The Jubilee Jazz Band was centred on North London and rehearsed in a pub in Hampstead. The front line was Dave Cutting, Dave Reynolds, Dave Tomlin on trombone, trumpet and clarinet respectively and in the rhythm section Don (?), Don McMurray and me, Don Coe, on bass, drums and banjo. The ‘Jubes’ were now nice and symmetrical with three Daves and three Dons. We soon began to refer to each other by instrument in the Welsh idiom i.e. 'Dave Trumpet', 'Dave Clarinet'.
The very first job I had with the band was at a famous boys’ school in Kingston to celebrate their 'Hop' for the end-of-term exam results. I turned up on time to find the hall filling up with pupils falling about in anticipation of a wild evening and already slow hand-clapping an empty stage. “Where’s the band?”, I enquired of a sixth-former with beery breath. “In the Head’s office with the police”, came the answer. Apparently the lads were helping with enquiries into the mystery of missing candle holders from the piano following their ‘Beginning-of-Term’ hop a few months before! But all went well, and 30 minutes late, we started an absolute barnstormer of a job which ended in the early hours the following morning when we were all thrown out by the caretaker and his tearful wife.
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So here I was in the mid-sixties with another band, a different lot of friends and new places to play in. I cannot recall how long I was with the Jubilee Jazz Band but I shouldn’t think that it was much more than a year. I do recall that it was all rather uncertain with nights spent away from home at various dubious houses and clubs. (Who did live at ‘Robert Street’?) We also spent quite a lot of the time at the A&A Club. I believe that this all-night Club/Caff was for Actors & Artists but it always seemed to be occupied by taxi drivers keeping warm on steaming mugs of tea and sausage sandwiches. Music-wise, the band was firmly set in Colyer mode with Dave Trumpet, in a semi-dream state most of the time, leading us through rags, marches and stomps. Stevedore Stomp and Going Home were, of course, mandatory at most jobs. My lasting memories of that period were the lilting sound from Dave Clarinet, a George Lewis fan, and the punchy, driving and exciting choruses from Dave Trombone. Dave Trumpet would almost disappear into his tin bowler-hat-mute-thingy, with head, hands and instrument describing small circles in true Ken style. Aficionados of the Colyer band will know what I mean!
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We would play anywhere at a drop of a hat. I remember the band playing on a Central Line tube train all the way from Tottenham Court Road to Epping and back again so that we could call ourselves The Tube Jubes! I know – we were young. In those days we seemed not to leave bands but just drift from one to another. There was never, to my knowledge, any argument or ill-feeling. One just started playing with another band. Maybe it was a case of rose-tinted specs; or something! I don’t even remember how or when, but I was now with the Brian Taylor Jazz Band.
The Brian Taylor Jazz Band
I was still married and had the same daytime job as a designer with an internationally renowned design group in Charing Cross Road. The Brian Taylor Band had a residency at the Cy Laurie Club. We had Thursday nights and it was 3/- to get in. I also notice that Sunday afternoon sessions are announced as "Trad. musicians sitting in with Bill Brunskill’s Jazzmen”. 2/6 for few hours of heaven! The band had a great following and earned a few five-star write-ups in Melody Maker. I recall that they said our Shout ‘Em, Aunt Tilly was worth the 3/- on its own. Mood Indigo wasn’t bad, either.
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Our thanks to Steve Fletcher for this programme from 1956
We seemed to have quite a lot of jobs in the Finchley area. I don’t know why, for most of the band lived south of the Thames. I remember one party that turned out to be a Bar Mitzvah in a barn complete with a free bar with hay bales as seating and hurricane lamp lighting. The potential for disaster was incredible. It wasn’t long in coming, either. The booze was in full flow and Cyril Keefer ’s solos on clarinet were becoming increasingly shrill in the best klezmer tradition. As the night wore on and after having had requests to play Hava Nagila and Bei Mir Bist Du Schejn over and over again, Cyril was now unstoppable and the band was falling about in hysterics when it happened. One of the whirling, black-hatted and bearded dancers knocked a hurricane lamp flying and the resulting blaze was extinguished by the congregation leaping about and screaming. Cyril played on.A brief summary of the band may be of interest here:
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Harry Sowden, bass, lived an ‘alternative’ life and was a quiet, gentle man. He would get his head down for a kip under the piano during the interval and chew raw garlic cloves whilst awake. I first learned of meditation from Harry. Drummer Ken Pring, an architect, arranged for us to play at the Holloway Road Polytechnic, his place of study as a student. None of that University rubbish in those days, you’ll notice! Ken’s partner in his business had rather a nice yacht on the Crouch which we stayed on once. A pal of Ken’s fell into six feet of water from a gangway whilst carrying an outboard motor. Reluctant to let go of the motor he tried to jump up, holding it above his head so that we could lift it out! It didn’t work. He nearly drowned.
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Cyril Keefer, clarinet. Blind in one eye, he would, from time to time, remove the mouthpiece from his instrument and roll his glass eye down the remaining bit to, “See if it was clean.” His wife, Lilian, played with the Ivy Benson Band – or am I dreaming that? Brian Taylor, trumpet. He eventually formed a travel company which specialized in trekking. An absolute pleasure to play with he also became interested in my hobby of control line model aircraft. Brian had a yacht on the Crouch and I remember fouling somebody’s mooring when we foolishly dropped anchor after a hairy sail in a strong blow in the estuary. Brian had many friends and fans and one of them, Ginger, was most helpful to me when, after my Austin Seven Special shed it’s flywheel somewhere in South London, he fixed it for good. Nobody could beat him when he had a 1-1/4” socket and a five foot scaffold pole in his hands! Jim Shepherd, trombone. I still have visions of Jim under a kitchen table on the Isle of Wight. The band had been booked to entertain at the birthday party of a fan. When we arrived we were asked, “What would you like to drink?” We were amazed when we were each given a bottle of our chosen medicine and a glass. I seem to recall that mine was a bottle of Glenfiddich and a case of ginger wine! We each had a Z-Bed in the ‘band room’ What a party! We missed the ferry home a couple of days later and played on the Yarmouth Pier for half a day. The Kitchen Table? I’m not telling.
Brian Taylor and Jim Shepherd
With the increase of band jobs and my daytime job beginning to involve foreign travel, my marriage began to suffer together with my place of abode. Life went on. All is hazy around this period but I recall waking up one morning to see that my Austin Special wasn’t parked outside. In it’s place was a 1927 Rolls Royce saloon with a cut glass panel dividing driver from passengers; silver flower holders and braided silk hand-holds. I had apparently swapped it for my Austin. It turned out that it was a temporary arrangement and the Austin eventually re-appeared. Did the Rolls belong to Terry Pitts? I think it did.
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Back in the Cy Laurie club the band went from strength to strength. Cyril ‘wrote’ an up-tempo blues he called Red Knicks Blues. It was in the key of C and dedicated, we were told, to a young fan with a flared skirt whose jiving technique involved spinning at a great rate just in front of the band. On a sultry summer's evening at Cy’s we were all a-dream with Mood Indigo. The lights were dim, the atmosphere was relaxed and the dancers had their heads on their partners' shoulders. My current ‘squeeze’ entered the room wearing a tight, white woollen dress. She smiled and gave me a wave. Brian and Jim were harmonising with eyes closed. Cyril, who was near a live microphone, turned to me and, with an Al Capone accent, shouted, “Who’s da mouse? ” The dream was shattered for all those present.
Dancing to the Brian Taylor Band
Drummer Ken Pring played with Don Coe in the Brian Taylor Band and later joined Wally Fawkes Troglodytes and the Crouch End All Stars Ken recalls a certain Christmas and the Angels of Oxford Street:
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"I remember in the early 1960’s when Oxford Street’s Christmas lights and decorations were threatened with imminent disaster. Don Coe and I worked for Beverley Pick Associates who had designed the flying trumpet playing angels which faced each other across the whole length of the street. Someone had telephoned us to tell us that the angel’s stomachs were swelling - pregnant angels? The problem was that the backs of the angels were open and faced the sky; torrential rain had gathered in their stomach regions – and with further rain threatened we were in danger of fallen angels! Or, of them splitting open.
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The angels were made of plastic with a certain amount of elasticity but there were limits to them being able to expand and contain the accumulating rainwater. Don came up with an idea which solved the problem. He asked the City Display Organisation – who had erected the angels, to supply some 20 ft long poles with razor blades embedded in one end. They were to be delivered to 100 Oxford Street at midnight. The next step was to recruit personnel.
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Don telephoned all the jazz bands playing in, or near, Oxford Street to meet at the 100 Club where they were provided with the razor bladed poles and asked to make a small incision in the stomach of each angel with them.
Luckily, there was little traffic that night and the ‘operation’ was carried out discretely and effectively: the angels returned to their original virginal shape and did not end up on the tarmac where ‘angels fear to tread'. The press never got hold of the story thanks to the discretion of the jazz musicians".
Don remembers the incident well "The year in question was 1960 and it was Regent Street. My boss, Beverley Pick, had gone into Regent Street with a 410 shotgun when I told him of the phone calls to the office telling of the rainwater impregnating our angels. Beverley and I were well known to the police at that time of year, we both had permission to park our cars anywhere in Regent Street and me in Oxford Street as No1 In Charge and No 2 In Charge of Christmas decorations respectively. Beverley parked his DB2 Aston Martin on the steps of the Eros monument Piccadilly Circus - you could in those days - and let loose at the nearest angel. He missed. A passing police car politely asked what the **** was he doing and advised he left the scene forthwith to consider alternative arrangements! The rest of the story runs broadly along the lines related by Ken!"
The Angels of Oxford Street
The Brian Taylor Band slowly folded, as did my marriage, and my job sent me to the U.S. to supervise the installation of the exhibition in the Sudanese Pavilion at the 1964 New York World Fair. The band work thinned somewhat until 1967. It was now time for a change / midlife crisis? I had a new job, a partnership with a colleague designing pub interiors, a new partner in life who was to become my present wife and a new band. I joined - Mole Benn’s Dixieland Jazz Band.
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In the Seventies there was a rash of discos in pubs and whenever I could, I would install a stage into the pub we were currently involved with and also booked the band in for a season or two! We had a residency in the ‘Headstone’ at Harrow and had regular sessions at the ‘Bull’ at Sheen, the Bridge’ at Barnes, the ‘North Star’, Finchley … and many others! Mole Benn played trumpet, double horn – (a weird instrument; He called it a Duo-Chesnacor. It had two horns and a key that when pressed changed the base key from B flat to F. He could also choose which horn the noise came out of! A sort of surround sound of its time) - and sousaphone. He was joined in the front line by Joe Smith, clarinet and Mac Duncan, trombone. Arthur Fryatt played drums, Malcolm Saunders was on bass and I had my Parslow banjo.
This was to be the last band I ever played with when a 'real job' took over. I was appointed Boat Show architect. Two years later I went fully self-employed to earn a living as an Illustrator. It was now in the 1980’s. My wife and I took up fencing! In 1983 I was elected Chairman of the Society of Architectural Illustrators, the SAI. We moved to East Sussex in ’83. It is now 2025. I am 94 this year, the President of the SAI, after having stepped down from the High Chair in ’22 and coach Epee at my local fencing club at Tunbridge Wells. My model making hobbies are building RC scale aircraft and horse drawn vehicles!
My banjo turned out to be quite a star instrument. It was entered into the 'Register of Surviving Banjos' built by James Parslow of Kingston-upon-Thames. The register is compiled and executed by Ed M Parslow (unrelated), a copy of which was sent to me by Ed. The instrument is now in the care of my son Steven, Godson of Bill Brunskill!
© Sandy Brown Jazz 2025.8