Jazz Remembered

Tommy Wilson

It was in 2021 that Amanda Brown contacted us, and that the name of drummer Tommy Wilson came up in conversation. Amanda had always known that her late father, trumpeter Ralph Collins, was a musician and of his war service in the RAF: “I used to enjoy hearing all his anecdotes. I was always very amused as a child that Dad had been one of Sid Millward's Nitwits pre-war when Dad was in his teens. I remember Sid arriving out of the blue at our house in Manchester when I was about 6 years old. He showed us an old cine film that involved Dad and some other musicians all dressed in black, jumping out of a van and running down a country lane. It was like something out of Keystone Cops."

"It was only after my mother died in 2020 that the photos came into my possession and I really studied them and decided in 2021, his centenary year, to research his RAF bandmates. I also used other photos and keepsakes to research his civilian musical career too.

Many of the photographs featured a drummer, Tommy Wilson, so Amanda decided to start looking into Tommy’s career and discovered that Tommy had been Snakehips Johnson's drummer at the time of the March 1941 Café de Paris bombing.

Bandleader and dancer Ken 'Snakehips' Johnson was a leading figure in black British music of the 1930s and early 1940s, but on the 8th March, 1941, when fronting his band at London's Café de Paris, a bomb hit the building. Johnson was killed instantly, as was the saxophonist 'Baba' Williams; the cafés manager, Martin Poulsen, was also killed in the blast. Ken Johnson was just 26 years old and more of a dancer - 'snakehips' - than a musician. The band's guitarist Joe Deniz later recounted: "As we started playing there was an awful thud, and all the lights went out. The ceiling fell in and the plaster came pouring down. People were yelling. A stick of bombs went right across Leicester Square, through the Café de Paris and further up to Dean Street. The next thing I remember was being in a small van which had been converted into an ambulance. Then someone came to me and said: "Joe, Ken's dead." It broke me up."

Here is a video interview with Joe Deniz who looks back at Snakehips, the band and that night when the bomb hit. The video contains some great footage of the band. Although the personnel are not named, Tommy Wilson is most probably the drummer referred to by Joe Deniz.

There are a number of other videos available of Snakehips' band and the tragedy at Café de Paris with photographs and footage that set the scene at that time Tommy Wilson is credited on this audio recording and this video looks back at Snakehips' story .

Just before tragedy struck, Johnson’s rhythm section, Yorke de Sousa (piano), Tommy Bromley (bass) and Tommy Wilson (drums), had been in the studio making recordings of jazz standards. These sides were not released commercially but they have fortunately survived as studio acetates. Here is Sweet Georgia Brown from this session. Other tracks include Stompin' At The Savoy and Blue Skies. The album from which those tracks are taken, Black British Swing, contains a number of other tracks from the full Snakehips' band; they are available on YouTube and the album is available here.

Amanda Brown continues: "I recently came across some articles from 1944. My father and his friends played at miltary bases across the UK and when they were near London, they played in clubs there too. My father said he used to pick up work in Archer Street". (Archer street in London's West End was where the Musicians Union was based and where musicians gathereed outside to meet up and find gigs - Ed)

"The articles, from the Montrose Standard and the Brechin Advertiser, report on the Edzell R.A.F. band playing for a dance at Montrose Recreation Hall in aid of the Thistle Foundation for families of men severely disabled in the war. The report reads: ‘Leader of the band and drummer is Cpl. Wilson, a West Indian who was playing in the Café De Paris in London, with the famous ‘Snake Hips’ Johnston, when the latter was killed during an air raid. Others in the band are Syd Hadden, pianist, who used to go on tour with Teddy Joyce; Ralph Collins, trumpet, who was on tour with Syd Millward; Jack Seymour, bass, who played in the Holborn Restaurant with Bram Martin; and Ray Smith, saxophone, who is well known in various London Clubs.' This photo of Tommy Wilson includes two other black musicians," writes Amanda. "In 2021 I posted this photo on Twitter referencing JazzFM's Definitive History of Jazz in Britain to see if anyone could identify the musicians. There's was a great deal of interest and it was seen over 12,000 times but no names have been forthcoming. The National Jazz Archive was also unable to help.

Tommy Wilson with the Edzell RAF Band

“I had just about given up looking when a friend asked me if I'd ever found anything about Tommy," continues Amanda. "This prompted me to have another look. I did my usual search but surprisingly this time it resulted in an obituary from Billboard dated March1955.“

“Using this information, I was able to find out more from family history websites. Tommy was born in 1905 in Newport, Monmouthshire. His father was a Guyanan seaman and his mother was from Kent. This made him a lot older than my father who was born in 1921, and also other musicians in Snakehips' band. They were mainly born around 1914/15."

[2026 - I have been unable to find this obituary. Some items say Tommy came from Birmingham - Ed]

"Tommy Wilson was a corporal who led an RAF dance band in WW2 in which my father played trumpet. Tommy had been the most notable pre-war musician in the band,” says Amanda. “However, when I researched the band members, I couldn't find anything about him after the war. The names also link to the above photo which my dad helpfully labelled at some point. In the photo, Jack Seymour, became the highest-profile musician and has an entry in John Chilton's Who's Who of British Jazz.”

“At some time, Tommy had played at the Samson and Hercules dance hall in Norwich, and I also found another press cutting from the Leicester Evening Mail in 1944 about the RAF band - this time called the RAF Thunderbolts - and it says here that Tommy had also played with Ambrose. “

In respect of the reference to Tommy playing with Bert Ambrose's Orchestra, an internet search shows: "Tommy Wilson: A drummer who played with the Bert Ambrose Blue Lyres in the early 1930s. The Blue Lyres were a subset of members from the main Ambrose Orchestra." There are many Ambrose Blue Lyres recordings on YouTube but I have not yet found one with Tommy credited as the drummer - Ed]

Tt would be great if anyone knows more about Tommy Wilson's career after the war - if anyone can add further details please contact us - Ed.