EARL'S COURT REVISITED

When I ran into fellow drummer Sebastian De Krom at the Herts Jazz Festival in the Autumn, he told me about the jazz he was putting on at the Troubadour café in Earl's Court.

Apart from generously offering me a gig there whenever I wanted, Sebastian immediately sent me off on a trip down memory lane.

Apparently the café - as well as the area - is very smart these days and has expanded to include the property next door. The interior has been elevated into a restaurant and the music venue is now  the ground floor amid the diners.

Flashback to over fifty years ago - the mid 1960s - since when I haven't been there. In that era, the Troubadour was a small coffee house providing counter food including an apple crumble with a special recipe to die for. Mein host was Mike Van Bloemen, who had been running things ever since he founded the café back in 1954.

For the music (folk, jazz, other), you had to go down to the basement which was a kind of cellar. The musicians set up at the opposite end to the staircase in front of an alcove which had obviously once been a coal hole under the pavement above. This inner sanctum served as a retreat between sets where spliffs could be discreetly rolled.

In my most active time there (1965-1968), jazz was provided on Sunday afternoons by a group centred around LIONEL GRIGSON, which either followed or preceded a set by the Colin Bates trio (an Australian pianist and member of Bruce Turner's Jump Band).

Colin's trio included Barry Dillon or Alan James on bass and John Webb (inevitably called "Chick") on drums. I am still in touch with Chick, who lives in East Kent.

Lionel's group was loosely structured (the personnel, not the arrangements which were often of intricate Horace Silver tunes).

There was an introverted Chet Baker-styled trumpeter called CHRIS BATESON, JOHN MUMFORD (who had also been in Bruce Turner's Jump Band) on trombone, PAUL ZEC and/or PETE BURDEN on alto, sometimes New Zealander BRIAN SMITH on tenor, JOHN HART or DAVID "HAPPY" WILLIAMS (of later Cedar Walton fame) on bass and myself or a lovely West Indian called JOE OLIVER on drums.

PETE BURDEN. life long friend, much missed

There were also distinguished guests - notably drummer PHILLY JOE JONES and trumpeter FREDDIE HUBBARD. Freddie was wowing them nightly at Ronnie Scott's with his explosive, extrovert style. It was quite surreal to witness the passive/aggressive Chris Bateson not yielding the floor to Freddie but insisting on swapping "fours" with him!

One afternoon, Tubby Hayes came down the basement stairs with his horn.

I had just joined Tubby's quartet and was chuffed that he'd taken the time and trouble to check out this venue. Unfortunately Lionel had a perverse streak which he displayed in this occasion. He ignored Tubby sitting in the audience and instead embarrassingly chose to harangue everybody (Tubby included) on the totally irrelevant merits of a black West Coast tenorist called Harold Land. Oh well…………….

My fondest memory is of the utterly delightful FREDDIE REDD, the real deal in terms of authentic black New York be-bop piano. He is most famous for the music he wrote and performed (with Jackie McLean) for Jack Gelber's play and film THE CONNECTION.

While he was staying in London, Freddie lived "on" (as he put it in the American idiom) Flood Street in Chelsea and he was respectfully adopted into Lionel's band, Lionel switching from piano to trumpet. Apart from the Troubadour, I remember other venues where Freddie played with us, including a rather hairy concert at Pentonville prison. The inmates looked threatening (the screws even more so) but, although I'm sure ours wasn't their taste in music, they received it very politely.

The Troubadour is on the Old Brompton Road, in the short block between Finborough Road and Redcliffe Gardens where Paul Zec had a top floor flat to which we would usually repair after the gig. This meant rounding the corner on which stood the venerable Colherne pub which was one of the earliest landmarks for the gay community to assemble in public. We passed through serried ranks of men in their black leathers, including the peaked cap.

I loved my time at the Troubadour. I made lifelong friends there, especially Paul Zec and Pete Burden.

And I was on a steep learning curve as a drummer. Lionel's group was invaluable preparation for what was to come.