Susan May (Part 1 of 2)

Interviewer: Okay. So if we could just start with some real basic background information. So starting right from the beginning, could you just state your name for me and spell your name for me too?

Susan: Susan May. And it’s S-U-S-A-N M-A-Y.

Interviewer: Thank you. And could you tell me your date of birth and where you were born?

Susan: 2nd of the 7th, ’46. I was born in Essex. Chelmsford, Essex.

Interviewer: Okay, so going into music here then: could you tell me a little bit about your background in music, your early background in music and your parents as well?

Susan: My parents really didn’t listen to music very much. I remember I had a wind-up gramophone. I used to like Elvis Presley, Adam Faith. My sister was a Cliff Richard fan, who I hated, couldn’t stand him. But then I got into operatics, I used to be in the operatic society. I started doing a bit of acting until one day I had a breakdown and I couldn’t do all these things and somebody invited me down to a jazz club. And I sneered my nose up [laughs] and said ‘jazz club?! Me? You’re joking!’ And I went down there and I was hooked and that was the start of me going to see jazz. It was great because I used to follow certain musicians around and they all got to know me and they were such a friendly bunch. Everybody was so friendly so I didn’t mind going down on my own - because at that time I was divorced from my husband and everywhere I went I was on my own. But they made me feel so welcome. And then I started managing a band, a local band. They asked me to manage them. And then Jazz Services asked me to start a jazz club and I said ‘oh, I can’t do that. I don’t know anything about it.’ I had no idea where to start. They said ‘we’ll help you with the first two.’ So they did. We started the jazz club and it’s still going 32 years on. I’m still there. All of the other clubs they started have actually gone. I’m the only one that’s surviving. [00:03:00]

So I started the club. I was managing certain people at the time as well…Buddy Tate, we had Buddy Tate in my club in Chelmsford and he was from the Basie band and he turned round and said ‘would you be my agent over here?’ And I said ‘oh no, no, no, no. I can’t do that either. I’ve just got used to running a jazz club so, you know, I can’t be an agent as well.’ And he said ‘oh yes you could, you’ve got what it takes.’ And I said ‘well, I’m sorry, no, I can’t.’ And, you know, I was helping out somebody – actually, I was helping somebody pick up Buddy Tate, again, from the airport and getting his permit and everything and I went up to his flat/apartment and he had this phone call come through from a club and he was absolutely…he didn’t know what to do because he was double booked. He was due to do a gig in Ireland and a gig in New York. Now, you can’t be in Ireland and New York at the same time and he just did not know what to do. He was trying to explain to people in Ireland that he couldn’t do the gig. Somebody had given him the wrong date. Anyway, he said ‘look, I can’t do it,’ and then he said ‘hang on a minute, my agent has just arrived. I’ll put you on to her, she can look after you. She’ll help you.’ So I got in and I spoke to them. I managed to get hold of Danny Moss. He was a great tenor player and he was going to go over to Ireland to do Buddy Tate’s gig and then Buddy could go back to New York and do his gig. And after that, Buddy was a different person. He just turned round to me and said ‘I’m not asking you to be my agent anymore, I’m telling you. You are my agent from now on.’ [00:05:20]

Then I got Humphrey Lyttelton, he came onto me and he said ‘why don’t you bring some of these artists in?’ And I said ‘I don’t know enough. I really am, you know…I don’t know enough about jazz to do it.’ And he said ‘yes, you can. We will help you.’ And all of a sudden the phone kept going; ‘oh, Humphrey Lyttelton told us to phone up.’ [laughs] And he put these people in touch with me and that’s how I started in bringing in the artists as well as running the jazz club. So, you know, it just went on. I mean, I wasn’t married at the time so I was free to do whatever I could. All the other agents over here were male and I was the first female, I think, to get into this business with running clubs and being an agent for American artists as well. A lot of musicians sort of looked at me as much as to say ‘you’ll never make it’ but they all came back and apologised later and said ‘I’m sorry what we said, you have made it.’ It was hard being a woman in virtually a man’s world at that time. There weren’t many female musicians for a start, they were mainly all male. But we had some great times, you know, we had some good laughs and the club got great. I vowed that I would never marry a musician because of all they get up to. So I said I would never ever marry a musician so everybody was safe because I was no way interested. [00:07:24]

And then…oh, my first band I brought in! Talk about learning the hard way. The first one was the Oliver Jackson trio, with Oliver Jackson, Cliff Smalls on piano and Len Gaskin on bass. I didn’t just bring one person, I had to bring three in, a trio in. I got them about two weeks work. I had to go to the airport to meet them because they came with drums. I’d hired a bass down here for him but the drums he brought. I had an estate car at the time and the leader of the band, Oliver Jackson, said ‘oh, is that the size of your car? How are we going to get all our stuff in? I’ll tell you what, I’ll get a cab.’ He said to the cab driver ‘how much would it cost us to go to so-and-so?’ and when he told him he says ‘get lost! We’ll get in this car.’ And the cab driver said to him ‘you’ll never get in that car’ and he said ‘just watch us!’ So they got the drums in, they got all their luggage in. One guy was sitting up front with me, one was sitting on the other side of the back. Oliver Jackson was laying over his bass drum in the back. I won’t tell you what sort of sign he made to the cab driver but we drove off in this one car. I couldn’t believe it. We got there without paying for a cab driver anyway. [00:09:03]

Then we had a gig; all the gigs were going fine and then we had this gig up in Wakefield and I suddenly said ‘we’ve got to go up to Wakefield. I’ll pick you up at so-and-so at the time.’ I suddenly thought ‘oh, we’ve got to take the drums up. We got everyone in before but we’ve got a double bass extra!’ Forgot about the double bass, hadn’t I? So I sat down and thought ‘what am I going to do? I can’t get the double bass in my car as well as all the other stuff and the musicians.’ So I quickly phoned up the guy who was organising and said ‘can you hire a bass for me?’ So what I was earning went on the bass. [laughs] I lost my commission! I had to pay out for the bass because I didn’t dare tell them! We got there, we did the concert. It was a great success and when we woke up the next morning – because we stayed overnight there because we were due to do Cambridge in the evening – and when we woke up it was snowing like mad up in Wakefield. We came down, we came down to London. The sun was out, we all sat outside, had a cup of tea and a coffee. Go to Cambridge – hit floods. So I think we hit every sort of weather on the way back. But it was fun. Then Oliver Jackson said ‘oh, you’ll get lost.’ I said ‘no I won’t get lost, I know where I’m going.’ I didn’t, I didn’t really but I had to make out - because I was a woman - that I knew where I was going. He said ‘no, stop the car. There’s a petrol station over there, I’m going to go and get a map.’ I said ‘I’m not stopping the car, I know exactly where I’m going’ and I prayed, I just prayed I would take the right turnings. And I took the right turnings and I landed up at the right place. And he just looked at me because he was ready to criticise me as soon as I made a mistake but no, I got them there. And that was my first ever tour. You never forget your first tour. And, of course, Cliff Smalls was blind – the piano player. Wonderful piano player. He was blind so you had to consider that you’ve got a blind person as well with you. But it was interesting. The next person, of course, I brought in was Buddy Tate. He said ‘I knew I’d get you!’ [laughs] But some of the stories he used to tell, it was wonderful! It was completely different in those days to now. I mean you could fix up a tour for the guys and you could go virtually right up the west coast, up into Scotland and then come back down the east coast with a gig nearly every night for them. I mean, my husband, I got him 41 gigs in 40 days plus two radio interviews as well. And I kept saying ‘are you sure you want to do it? Are you sure you want to do it?’ ‘Yes, yes. Take everything, take everything.’ You could in those days. There were the clubs, there were so many clubs about. A bit different from today, unfortunately. There’s not the clubs today, but in those days there were a lot of good clubs. All run by volunteers, not by people trying to – there were a few places that made the money - but mainly, in this country, it’s always been by volunteers. [00:12:56]

Interviewer: Was your first…the thing that you were first asked to set up with that club, was that voluntary?

Susan: Voluntary 32 years ago and it’s still voluntary. I still do it as a volunteer. It’s a charity actually. It’s got more money in then a lot of other places but I know that if was to go tomorrow that club would last for at least 10 years, 5-10 years. I give musicians a reasonable amount of money but I won’t go stupid because I want to look after the money so that there’s a future; it can carry on, rather than stop because they run out of money. We’ve bought a piano for the club, we raised £4,000 for the club for the piano and we bought that. But some people go in and think we’ll get this big name and that big name in and then they lose all their money. Well, me, I’ve just steadily gone on being very, very careful. It was interesting because on Thursday I had Lee Gibson at one of my clubs and she was talking about somebody wanting to book her and she said ‘I asked the first three questions: who am I working with? Where? And how much?’ And I turned round at the interval and I went up and said ‘she never asked me how much!’ [laughs] And she turned round to the audience and said ‘no musician asks Susan how much they’re going to get because they know that she is so fair.’ I get a certain amount and then if I do well, they get extra. Because I know what it’s like – because I was married to a musician – I know what it’s like on a musician’s wage, I know what it’s like to run a club as well. It’s hard both ways, you’ll never be wealthy running jazz clubs. [00:15:00]

Interviewer: Before your club, was there any other jazz clubs in the area?

Susan: No, this is it - everything had closed down. There used to be quite a lot in Southend. There was Chester’s and there was a lot along the front. There used to be one down here in Margaretting and one at the King’s Head in Chelmsford, which has now gone. But all the jazz in Chelmsford stopped, it just disappeared. And that’s why they asked me to start one up. We started it up with Eggy Ley, who used to live in Southend and he was more of a trad band. And then we had Reg Webb, which was more of a modern band, and we put out surveys and asked people what kind of music they wanted and from that we gained that they wanted middle-of-the-road jazz, middle-of-the-road to trad. But as the years have gone, we’ve put more middle-of-the-road on to bebop now. And then I had to put my first one on - my own - which was Monty Sunshine. And after that concert, we formed a committee. And from then on…We didn’t know what we were doing. Honestly, none of us knew what we were doing. We were really playing at it, you know, trying to work. It was so hard, you know, we’d ask somebody to do something, we’d come to the next meeting: ‘have you done so-and-so?’ ‘No, forgot about it.’ Anyway, eventually some of them dropped off and then others came and eventually we got a really, really good group of people and you knew that if you asked someone to do something, they’d do it. We were using quite a few local people at the time but then we found that people wouldn’t come to see them because they could see them down the road in a local pub for nothing. So why the hell should they pay to come and see a band when they can see them for nothing down the road? Or, not just down the road but in another town, not far. Because people will travel for jazz. So I went out on my own and I said ‘right, I’m going to book the Humphrey Lyttelton band.’ And my whole committee panicked, they absolutely panicked. The looks on their faces! I said ‘I’m booking it. I’m going out, I’m going to book it. We’re going to get this club going.’ And I went out and I booked the Humphrey Lyttelton band and when I told them how much we’ve got to pay, their eyes! ‘We have never paid that! This is triple to what we pay!’ Anyway, it was the first time we made money. So it started going quite well the club, then, for a while and then it’s dropped off again. They said ‘we’re going to close the club’ I said ‘I’m not. We’re not. We’ve got to do something.’ So I went and asked a few musicians to do a charity thing for us and we got packed out again. And we’ve never looked back since then. We’ve booked all the musicians again and paid them well but we’ve not looked back since. And now we have roughly about 100 every month, sometimes it’s 150. That’s the maximum we can have in the club. [00:19:06]

Interviewer: How did they first approach you? Because obviously they asked you to first set it up so those people that first approached you, was there a reason that they asked you in particular? And the people that have come on since, are they people you’ve approached or have they just kind of been a part of it?

Susan: They approached me because of Eggy Ley. Eggy Ley gave my name forward. Because at the time there used to be a magazine in the area called What’s On In Essex, I think it was. And sometimes I’d go down and help him put it together, the magazine, you know, if he needed any help. He was a bit short, him and his wife were doing it on their own so I used to help out there and I used to see him at various places. So he was the main instigator in this area at the time and so Jazz Services approached him and he gave them my name. And that’s how I really got in. And then he left to go to Canada and unfortunately died shortly after. And I’m hoping that one of the guys, Pete Neighbour - who was in his band when they did my club - I’m hoping next year he’s going to be in my club. I’ve had him at my other clubs but I haven’t had him at the Chelmsford club so it will be 33 years then. So he started the club and 33 years later he’s going to be back at the club again….I used to go around asking people to help until we got the right committee. But there again, my committee at the time did not know anything about jazz. They weren’t experts. So what I started doing - and, of course, the people round here that came to my club didn’t know a lot about the musicians I was booking because I wasn’t booking local musicians, I was booking the top names. And so - oh God, I can’t believe I did this – I used to find out information about the name, the person that was coming and I’d have his picture. I’d make these – all by hand this had to be done - and then do a bio underneath on a typewriter, which I’m not…we didn’t have computers and things in those days. And I used to type out all this information so that I could put it on everybody’s table so they knew who was – so this was for the next one – this was who was coming. This was giving them some information on the band. Now…because those days musicians never had CDs or anything, they didn’t have anything. [00:22:00]

I remember one guy, Allan Ganley - have you heard of him? He was a great drummer, he was a great drummer. Well-known drummer in England. And I asked him for a bio. He sent it to me. My husband said ‘we could make that into a postage stamp.’ And we actually did. We converted it all down to a postage stamp and sent it back to him and said ‘is that all you’ve got done?’ I mean he was with Cleo Laine and all these people, John Dankworth and everybody but no, he just wrote this little bit. So I had to broaden it as well. But I used to sit there and I’ve got all these bios. And that’s how people got to know who they were seeing because before it was all local people - except for the people that were on television like Acker Bilk or Humphrey Lyttelton, you know, they knew them. But they didn’t know the people…the first American we ever had was Buddy Tate; they didn’t know who Buddy Tate was. He was in the Basie band; they knew the Basie band but they didn’t know Buddy Tate. So I had to explain to everybody and to the committee at the time. I mean, now my committee, they’re well up on what they’re doing and I think people have got more knowledgeable because there’s computers, because they can find out more about the musicians, but in those days they didn’t. So it was hard, it really was hard starting but we got there, and I’m still there 32 years later. Mind you, we hired…I think we hired the place for £25; it’s now £337 to hire. That’s the thing that’s changed. And I think we instigated that. The Cramphorn Theatre. Because the Cramphorn Theatre when we went there, it was only being used occasionally to show the occasional film. Nobody knew what potential…it was built for the use of smaller acts and things. And then people used to come and see it being used as a jazz club and they said ‘oh, we could use it,’ and now we have to book 18 months ahead for our dates. But at one stage, I mean, it was never ever being used. Occasionally they had a comedy night. [00:24:39]

Interviewer: What do you think has changed that? Is it things like your jazz club making it more known?

Susan: Well, I think that’s it; making them aware of what she could do with the place. Because it was a small theatre, it’s got a stage, no curtains and it was all rows of seats. Well, we got rid of the row of seats and we put tables and chairs. We made it so it was more like a club atmosphere as against a theatre. And now I mean…all the people I worked with when I first started there have gone. So none of them know really what it was like and that we really got that place off the ground. They think it’s always been like it but they don’t know. Everywhere I go, I’ve been the oldest one, you know, all my clubs. As I say, sometimes I had about three or four Americans in, touring them and putting one on the train, picking another one up to take to somewhere, getting them all from A to B. It was hard work sometimes. And then I used to help out with the Hayfield Festival as well because, basically, they had all English people except for whoever I bought in, they used to use all my Americans. I remember them saying ‘we ought to call it the Susan May Festival! Because you’re the one who’s bringing in all the names.’ And one year, I shall never forget one year, we did a tribute to Ellington really, because we had Bill Berry and Buster Cooper. Bill Berry was a trumpet player, Buster Cooper was a trombone player. And then we had Marshall Royal. Well Marshall Royal was really out of the Basie band but a lot of people don’t realise that he started with Ellington. He didn’t record with Ellington but he was in Ellington’s band at one time. And these three, they put on a great show. We used an English rhythm section behind and they put on a great show. And then I also had two singers in from LA. They were…Oh! They’d never been to England before, they didn’t know what it was like in England and how knowledgeable the people in England were. They were petrified and they came on and, oh, they gave them such an applause and they were so loved. [00:27:15]

And then on the last night, we had one gig and then Barney Kessel was on last. And what they decided was that The Cunninghams, the duo, they were going to come and join the other three on The A Train and a couple of other numbers. Wow! I thought the roof was going to come off. The noise, it was so loud. People were just unbelievable, just loving it. Because it was something unexpected: you’ve got this six piece band and then suddenly two singers, a male and a female, come out up front. And it was great. And then Barney Kessel trio had to follow it. Well, Barney Kessel came out and he started playing and of course everybody was still on a high. And everybody kept saying to me ‘we should have ended it there! That should be the end of it!’ Barney Kessel started to play and he suddenly stopped and he said ‘look, I cannot play when you’re making so much noise. I can’t.’ And he had to wait for them to calm down. I mean, he was a great player, don’t go me wrong, Barney Kessel’s a wonderful guitarist. But to follow virtually an eight piece band, a trio to follow an eight piece band, is very hard. But that was a terrific night, I shall never forget that night. It was wonderful. All the musicians felt good about it as well. They’d done a BBC broadcast as well and they were, oh, they thought it was wonderful here in England and how knowledgeable the people in England were. They’re far more knowledgeable over here than what they are in America, the audiences. And they love the audiences here because the audiences come to listen, not chat. They’re actually there because they want to be. [00:29:14]

And so that’s, you know, basically how I got into it. It just went…it just went on. Except that then the clubs started to close a bit. And I got married. I married a musician, which I said I’d never do but he got through my brick wall. I think it was because he was very ill in Bordeaux, where I’d got him on tour. But anyway, we got through that. And so, when he got better, I mean a lot of the clubs had closed. And so he said ‘why don’t we start opening up more clubs?’ So I opened one up in Basildon. I remember the first night, we had 11 people turn up. Oh, God. It’s still going, 24 years later. It’s still going. And we get some great people. There was an article in, I think, Jazz Journal this week actually, this month. It said, you know, there was another club that closed and suddenly we found Spike’s Place and we saw everybody there, everybody from every corner of The Concorde: was there, you know, it was great. Because, you know, we moved from Basildon then to Brentwood and it used to be packed. Spike said ‘let’s make it: Tuesday night is jazz night!’ And, oh, it used to be packed out some nights. We had to turn people away. It was a great feeling. And then, of course, we went…my husband, he did a thing up at Saffron Walden, a library there. He had to give a talk with John Critchinson. And a little note came through to me and it said ‘if you’re not doing anything afterwards, we’re doing a charity function’ - to save the church or something, the church spire or something – ‘Would you be interested in coming and playing a couple of numbers?’ So we went there, we went round afterwards and did that and people said ‘oh, we’ve got no jazz like this here. Can’t you start up a jazz club here?’ So a couple of weeks later, there was me looking round and I’ve been there 20 years now. At the same place, still at the Saffron Hotel. It’s changed management so many times but I’m still there. [00:31:55]

Interviewer: What was it before you did that?

Susan: It’s just a room, it was a room in a hotel. And I just went up and said ‘could we have your room for a jazz club?’ And they looked at me…Anyway, she said ‘it’s going to cost you quite a bit,’ and I said ‘well, we’d really like it for free, really, until we get going.’ She said ‘oh alright, I’ll give it to you for free.’ 20 years later, I’ve still got it. Because sometimes my place is the only people they have in there. We used to get people coming in and having their meals and then going into the jazz and it was great fun until they got a new manager and he suddenly decided to shut the restaurant whenever he wanted and so people didn’t know whether the restaurant was going to be open or not so they stopped eating there. And there was all those problems. We used to get people coming down from Lincoln and different places, and they used to stay at the hotel and listen to the jazz. But then…the whole place just suddenly shut. Suddenly shut, closed. Didn’t even tell me. I got a message from one of my people who said ‘the place is closed.’ I said ‘oh, they could have told me.’ So anyway, I phoned up another place and they said ‘you can do it here.’ Well, the guy was thrilled to bits. He said ‘you know, I’ve never met any of these people before. You’ve brought me all these new customers in.’ And I said ‘oh, that’s fine.’ So we were there for a couple of months and then all of a sudden the phone rings: I’d got the Saffron Hotel back. ‘Please come back, we need you back there.’ So we returned back to them, the Saffron. Now there’s a new manager there, a new owner, just taken over. He got rid of a lot of people, a lot of clubs that used the hall but he didn’t get rid of me. He said ‘we’re keeping you on.’ Because they know, really, I’m not in it to make money. I want to just keep the music live, keep the jazz live and keep it going. If I make money, I give it to the musicians. I don’t need the money now. I don’t go out much, I don’t do much else. And that’s my form of entertainment. I got out to work and I get a lot of pleasure. I get to meet a lot of people that have helped me through. When my husband died, the jazz people were wonderful to me. Absolutely wonderful. And without them, I don’t know whether I’d have survived or not. So I repay them by, you know, bringing the best jazz I can to them. [00:35:02]

Of course, then there was another guy, a drummer, Bobby Worth. He said to me ‘why don’t you do one over in Beckenham?’ And I said ‘oh, I can’t do Beckenham as well.’ He said ‘yes you can! I’ve found just the place for you.’ So we started up in Beckenham. Another club. Then I get another phone call at Hadleigh; ‘why don’t you start one down here?’ So we started one in Hadleigh. Hadleigh one is not so frequent now, it’s gone off a bit. But the other four are going strong. Hadleigh I do occasionally. But some are weekly, some are monthly. I never know where I’m going, I get in that car and think ‘now, which way have I got to go today?’ Because Saffron is monthly. Beckenham is every Thursday, except for the time I do Saffron. Every Tuesday is Brentwood. Then…Sunday is Chelmsford, and that’s once a month. Then I have the odd one at Hadleigh. But now I’ve got…I’ve got my workshop now which I sponsor. Marc Cecil does that and it’s just great seeing these youngsters come through. They started up and the first year they had all local teachers teaching the youngsters and I just said ‘this not good enough. If I’m putting my money in here I want the best. I want the top students – the top teachers, sorry, to teach these youngsters. So we got Derek Nash from Jools Holland Band and I got all the top people in. Honestly, what a difference! What a difference, the band. Because on the Thursday night they come to my club at Brentwood and they come and play to their mums and dads. Oh, and it’s just unbelievable! Some of the talent of some of these youngsters. Because they’re the ones that are going to continue the jazz. Without them, there won’t be any jazz. We’ve got one little guy – Seb, they call him, Sebastian – wonderful drummer. He’s, what, 13 now. Unbelievable. I mean he was 10 when he started coming I think. But he’s the star of the show. He comes up to me and says ‘can I do your other club at Beckenham?’ So they come over to Beckenham and do a little show for them over there and they all treat them like they’re stars and things. It’s just great. It’s great to give youngsters a helping hand. [00:38:05]

My husband, my late husband, used to help musicians. I mean he took on Derek Nash and now he’s with Jools Holland and all that but at first he sort of…Everybody would come and see my husband but they’d then see Derek, see? So he signed with him and then he got Mark Crooks. He used to help youngers and we used to have Leon Greening on piano and nobody had heard of him and my husband kept saying to me ‘we’ve got to bring this Leon Greening up, he’s fantastic. We’ve got to get people to see him.’ Now, he’s so popular, he’s so well-known. And so it was help like that and now I’m doing this. There’s a local drummer and I stuck him in my club with all the top guys. I said ‘you won’t get anywhere working with local people because you’re all the same level. You’ve got to go better.’ So I put him in with John Bunch, who unfortunately, is dead now, but he worked with Mel Tormé for years. A piano player. And I put him in with him. And I put him with Alan Barnes. And Alan Barnes says ‘this guy listens, doesn’t he? He follows round the corner with you.’ And he’s now just recorded with Derek Nash and they’re doing very well. I’ve got a singer at the moment that I’m looking after. He’s more in the restaurant work at the moment but I’m getting him into the jazz world. He sings like a Billy Eckstine type. He sang four songs at my club at Brentwood and the audience went mad over him! One of them said ‘is this another one of your up-and-coming jazz people?’ I said ‘yes, watch out!’ Jamie Cullum started at my club. He came along and said ‘can I sit in?’ I used to look after him and do things. Anita Wardell, she used to come to all my clubs and one day she didn’t realise it was a record producer in the audience and signed her up. She’s been all round the world since. You never know who’s in the audience and what’s happening. [00:40:20]

But I do like to help people, you know, I like to help musicians get on because I know what it’s like getting into jazz clubs. I know what it’s like, you know, when I used to manage the first band I managed. I was in a different level then. I was right down the bottom! I was trying to get into the top level people and it’s hard. The refusals you get. The refusals – unbelievable! And then suddenly somebody will say ‘yes, I’ve booked them’ and you’ll think ‘my God, I’ve won! I’ve got somewhere! I’ve got somewhere!’ And it was great. I remember with my husband…there were a couple of places he wanted to play in the States and he could not get in. He tried and tried and they wouldn’t have him. So he said ‘there’s a task for you – see if you can get me in those two.’ One was in San Diego in La Jolla and the other club was Kimball in San Francisco. Anyway, I phoned them up from England and I got him in both clubs. [laughs] He couldn’t believe it. He said ‘how’d you do it?’ I said ‘well, I just told them the truth about you and they’ve given me a week’s work in both clubs.’ It was great. And then, of course, in the one in La Jolla, Benny Carter was coming in next – have you heard of that name? Benny Carter? Yes. Well he was coming in next so we said ‘can we stay for a couple of extra days?’ They said ‘yes, keep the room. We’ll put Benny in the other en-suite room.’ So Benny was one side and we were the other side. I mean, because Benny was a great friend of my husband, my husband was…I’ve got a lot to thank for my husband really because he knew so many people. He never told anybody who he knew, he was very quiet about everything. His first band was with Dave Grusin. Now, I never met Dave Grusin until I met my husband but I got to know him quite well. I never met Johnny Mandel until I met my husband because he was friendly with him. I think myself lucky because I’ve met some great people, great musicians. I used to bring in one musician, which was Red Mitchell – great bass player. We were talking on the phone one night - he’d just finished a tour with me – and he said ‘do you know, I’ve had such a great time. I’d really like to do that again. Can we arrange some dates?’ So I said ‘yes, certainly.’ We were chatting away and he said ‘I’ve just been to my doctor’s. I’ve had a check-up. I’ve been given the all clear and everything’s fine now. I’d love to come over.’ And that was the last time I spoke to him. He died that week. After he’d been given the all clear. But he was just such a great musician. But, you know, when you work in the States with Americans it’s very hard because sometimes you get phone calls. I remember once I got a phone call, two or three o’clock in the morning. Piano player. He phoned me up and said ‘oh, I thought I better let you know, Sammy Davis Jr’s just died.’ And they’ve got no consideration of time, nothing. Didn’t matter if it was two, three o’clock – I had to be alert and be on the ball because some of the musicians would phone me then. And that’s when I did a lot of work at night because of the time difference with them. [00:44:25]

But, oh, I have had some fun and I met some wonderful musicians. They’re different today. Musicians are different. Most of the musicians I knew drank and they had fun. Now they’re more…a lot of them don’t drink. They’re not so entertaining. There are a few – Alan Barnes, Derek Nash – there’s a few of them that are entertaining. But some of them haven’t got what the American had there. And the Americans, they’re the same – what the old guys had. Because, I think, when I married my husband for instance, I knew that his first love would always be music and I would take second place and I accepted that. But now, I don’t know whether it’s good enough. I mean my husband, if we wanted to go on holiday, I’d have to find him work. Then we could go on holiday to wherever I’d got him work. I mean, I got him Spain three times a year, we went to the States twice a year, I’d get him to Vienna once a year and places…Germany twice a year we’d do. But that was the only way I could get away because my husband…all he wanted to do was play. And I think that’s a difference now with a lot of the musicians. All the older guys just wanted to play and the younger ones – they want to play, but they’ve got other interests and of course there’s not the clubs going so much now. And there’s not so many dinners where they can make up their money and weddings – well, you know, there’s weddings but…You know, a work’s dinner, they used to make up their money going to play with them. But of course there’s not that these days for the musicians so it’s much harder for a musician and that’s why another thing is I only book professional musicians. I don’t book semi-professional because I’m not going to take work out of a professional’s life because it’s hard enough for them without me booking semi-professional musicians. [00:47:12]

Interviewer: You’ve done a real range of activities and it sounds like there have been quite difficult periods and then up times: what has motivated you? Has it changed over time? What’s motivated you to invest in these different areas of jazz, different parts of it?

Susan: My husband. My husband, I think. When I married him. And now I do it to keep my husband’s name alive, to keep Spike’s name alive. I renamed all the clubs Spike’s Place. The workshop is under Spike’s name. It was his love of jazz – I mean, I enjoyed it, I enjoyed the music, I enjoyed meeting people and all the musicians and having fun. Oh, I’ve met so many people, I’ve been so lucky. I mean, the musicians today, I had one youngster come up who I was helping – he’s now quite a big name – but he came up to me and he said ‘there’s only one problem: I was born too late.’ He said ‘I miss all the people I wanted to see, all the great names.’ Because it was on television a lot: you don’t get it on television these days, you don’t get the jazz nights on television, you know, like you used to get the Basie band and you used to get, oh, all different things. Zoot Sims and Dizzy Gillespie – I’ve met him, always a character. I had to carry his watermelons for him. [laughter] I sat down and played Backgammon. Now, that is a game that is…I do not get it. Do not get it! And he wanted to teach me how to play Backgammon and I said ‘no way! I’ll play Draughts but I’m not playing Backgammon.’ Couldn’t understand it. And then he had to go down, he was on his way out and he said ‘can you carry my watermelons?’ And there’s me trying to get downstairs with all these watermelons under my arm. Oh dear! I’ve got a great photo of us together that he sent us. My friend, Bill Berry’s wife and myself, we were with Dizzy…he phoned me and said ‘we’re in England. Do you want to come down and see the show?’ And I said ‘actually, I’m off to Nice tomorrow, to the Nice Festival.’ He said ‘I shall be there!’ I said ‘I won’t be going that day!’ [laughs] He said ‘what are you doing tonight then? I said ‘nothing, at the moment. Just getting things packed.’ He said ‘well, come down to the party we’re having’. That’s when I ended up carrying his watermelons. But we had some really good times, I mean, he was just a great person. They were characters, they were really characters. [00:50:19]

Jay McShann: I got so embarrassed once. We were doing the Edinburgh Festival. He came up and sat next to me and he said ‘you look one of the nicest people here. You’re one of the prettiest people.’ [laughs] And I was so embarrassed because I was younger, a lot younger and got embarrassed. But he came and sat next to me, said ‘I’m going to come and sit next to you and make you feel good.’ But that’s how the older ones worked. They just chatted up people. But they all knew, they all knew that I was in the business as a business person. I wasn’t a groupie. I made sure of that. I didn’t want any, you know, trouble. I had a few. I dropped one guy off in the car I said ‘get out.’ Told him to get out. I said ‘if you’re going to treat me that way then…’ He said ‘well how am I going to get there?’ I said ‘walk.’ [laughs] So I made him walk there, it was just up in Edinburgh. I was up at the Edinburgh Festival once and they had this habit of putting different people with different artists and I was talking to George Chisholm. Now I don’t know if you know that name: he was a comedian but he did a lot of acting as well, some acting, and a trombone player. Great character. We had a lot of fun with him. But I was chatting away to him and I said ‘oh, by the way, can you believe it? They’ve put Red Rodney tonight with Art Hodes.’ Now Red Rodney is a real modernist and Art Hodes is leaning the other way, more to the trad way. He said ‘God, I wish I was a fly on the wall! I’d love to see those two together.’ I said ‘well don’t worry George: you’re going to.’ So he said ‘why?’ So I said ‘because you’re on it as well!’ [laughs] He said ‘no!’ They never knew where they were. We lost a guitar player once, we couldn’t find him. He sent me out to search for him, it was, oh…No, we used to have some fun. [00:52:51]

Interviewer: You’ve mentioned a few times that you were obviously one of the few women working in the industry at one time: what do you think enabled you to keep going and make a success at that time when it was quite difficult? And have you seen more women coming through over the years?

Susan: Well, what made me…because if anybody tells me I can’t do anything, then I’ve got to prove them wrong. That was what made me continue. But now there are more women coming through. There are a lot more women running clubs now. I mean, I had an Italian piano player come, well, quite a few years ago now, and he was so impressed. He said ‘I can’t believe it: a woman running a jazz club. I can’t believe it.’ And then he needed some bits and pieces, some wiring and I said ‘oh, don’t worry, I’ve got that.’ He said ‘you’ve got everything as well. I’m so impressed.’ Because I don’t think over there they have women doing the jazz clubs. In the States they don’t have them. They all try…it’s only places that are going to make money out of it. You know like here, the Pizza Express: they’ve got to make money. Everything’s run by accountants sort of thing. Whereas my accountant turns round to me and I say ‘don’t start. I’m not in it to make money. You know I’m not in it to make money.’ He said ‘I can see that by what you do. There’s no good telling you because I know what you’ll do: you’ll just carry on.’ I said ‘I want to keep the jazz alive.’ And that’s what the musicians know and the musicians respect me because I do that. The only problem I have is that I tell them what I…I can’t lie. I find it very, very hard to lie so I always speak the truth. And I went up to one guy and I said ‘God, you played well tonight. It was a really, really good night. I mean that.’ He said ‘oh I know you do because last time you told me I played too many notes!’ [laughs] I said ‘oh, I’m sorry! Did I upset you?’ But sometimes they’ll get frightened when they come in the first time, especially if it’s a guitarist because I’m not very keen on guitarists, really. It’s not an instrument that I like so much. I prefer a piano. And I just…some of them are a bit petrified of me. I’ve heard that a lot of the youngsters are petrified of me at first but once they get to know me…Because I was always told ‘do not be a soft touch. Put on this act because otherwise musicians will eat you alive.’ This is from when I first started and they would. They would have done. You’ve got to put on this hard face, which I’m not; I’m as soft as anything. But I don’t let them know it. You can’t. Because they will…There was one guy I knew quite well and he was always money conscious. They come down and do my clubs at a set price. And I said ‘we’ve done well tonight, I’ve put a bit extra in for you.’ And I phoned him to do it again and I said ‘you know the agreement.’ He said ‘no, I’ll only come down for the money I got last time.’ I said ‘in that case, you don’t come then, because I did that because we did well.’ I’m not going to….I like to treat all the musicians the same and if musicians bring in a large audience then they deserve the money and they get it. You know, a lot of the musicians say ‘are you sure you can afford to?’ I say ‘yes, take it while I’ve got it because I don’t want it.’ You know, it’s their…But a lot of people are out to…Chelmsford, I’m out because it’s a committee and I want there to be a club. When I pack up, four clubs go. But Chelmsford will still be there for a while as long as they don’t lose too much money. As long as they, you know, are very, very, very careful with the money. [00:57:20]

Interviewer: I mean, in terms of how that’s organised and co-ordinated, how do you organise that kind of - because you’ve got a lot of things going on at once – how do you manage the co-ordination of everything?

Susan: Don’t know. I just get on and do it really. Sometimes the committee have to remind me that I haven’t done this and I haven’t done that. Because I do all the booking for the Chelmsford and then I have to send on the invoices to the treasurer sometimes I forget to do that and he has to remind me because I’ve got the musicians booked. And like today, I’ve had a phone call. I’ve got somebody booked Sunday week and she’s just phoned me. She’s coming still but the person she was coming with, Martin Shaw, can’t make it so we’ve got Robert Fowler coming instead. I love his playing, great player. So I’ve now got, when you go, I’ve got to go upstairs and email them, the committee, to say there’s a change. Then I’ve got to email out to my club - because I email out to all my clubs every week; I say ‘don’t forget! Come along, come and keep me company. I don’t want to sit there alone.’ Or I make up be some joke. I always like to joke about, because I think people come to a club to come out to listen to good music and to be entertained. Now, I basically know the musicians that can entertain. And if they can’t, then I’m the fool; I don’t care what they say at me and do at me. Now, if I tell them not to clap too hard for somebody, they will go overboard. They will clap as loud as they can, they whistle and stamp their feet and everything. If I tell them not to do something, they…And I know all this, and everything they do it’s just to...Once, once I had a banjo player and I did not know. And he got a standing ovation purely to get at me. And another thing I had, not so long ago, I had an electric bass player. He got such a great applause just because they knew I didn’t like…I wouldn’t use the word ‘electric’, I just said ‘bass.’ And they kept saying ‘come on, say it! Say it!’ And I said ‘no, I’m not saying it.’ In the end I said ‘right, I’ll say it once and that’s all you’re going to hear me say it! Electric bass. And that’s it.’ [01:00:02]

But, I don’t know…I have set rules. I make myself go to work at a certain time. So at three o’clock, usually, every day – sometimes two o’clock, two to three o’clock – I got to work. I work upstairs and I’ll do all my advertising and posters - because I have to do all my own posters as well – and leaflets and flyers, all that sort of thing. So those have all got to be done. So I have set days to do set things. Then I have to go to the clubs. The only thing I can’t do now is I can’t lift very much. So at Brentwood I’ve got somebody that I pick up on the way and he puts all my PA up. Because I’ve got a PA at the different clubs because there’s no way I’m going to carry - I’ve got one portable one, which I carry around - but otherwise I’ve got PA at the clubs. But then one day, I was going to Brentwood and I was driving along thinking ‘hmm, I’ve forgotten something.’ I couldn’t think what it was. I’m thinking ‘what have I forgotten?’ I suddenly thought ‘I forgot to pick the guy up that helps me!’ [laughs] So now every time I go along, I think ‘pick up Alan, pick up Alan’ until I get to his place! [laughs] Because I’ve got so much on my mind, sometimes, you know, I’m thinking about this and that. I’ve got a big band coming off at the end of the month. I’ve been doing tickets for the big band. I’ve got the Syd Lawrence band coming to Beckenham and so I have so many ticket things to do. I’ve got to do all the tickets and then the phone rings or the emails start coming in for ordering tickets and things. There’s all that. There’s emails - I might get, what, seventy a day. I just think ‘uh!’ I haven’t looked at them today yet. But, no, I make myself. Then I work until 7 o’clock and then I have something to eat and then about eight o’clock I go up again and I work until midnight if I’m not going to a club. So I work virtually to midnight every night. I’m better then, I’m better at working at night. [01:02:25]

Interviewer: Is that how you’ve always kind of done it or has it changed? Has the organisation of these things changed over time?

Susan: It’s changed a bit because of me. I can’t sleep at night now. My husband died in my bed and since he died – that’s 15 years this year – I have not been able to sleep at night. I can’t sleep until it gets to daylight so things have gone more into the night now. So I start later. Those days I used to get up at ten o’clock and everything was go from the word go. My mind is wanting me to do so many things but my body now is starting to slow me down a bit. But apart from that, everything’s just the same, really. Except, we’ve got computers now, which we didn’t have. We’ve got all these things. I mean, I used to have to paper piece all my posters and things. Oh God, I used to sit there for hours paper piecing posters. And now, I design them all on the computer. Because I did go to art college so I’ve got a bit of artistic talent in me. And it’s like my clubs; my clubs all have to have the PA, all have to have lighting – so I bought lighting for all my clubs. I have to have tablecloths! [laughs] Except for Brentwood, now I don’t. They have to have tablecloths on the tables and I have little pots of crisps or peanuts on the tables. I have to do that every week. And then someone’ll say ‘well, I haven’t got any crisps this week – what’s happened?’ And I say ‘do you know how many clubs do this for you?’ Or ‘the crisps you bought last week were much better than these ones!’ [laughs] And I said ‘Nobody! Nobody else does this for you! You come here, you moan. If my lights go out “oh, we can’t have that!” There’s no other club that has lights. You know, it’s just that you’re spoilt you lot!’ [laughs] I wind them up and they wind me up. And somebody wrote me a lovely verse and he’s framed it all - it’s all upstairs. I can’t remember what it is now but I know it finishes and I say ‘oh, bloody hell! It’s you!’ [laughs] Excuse my language. But I wind them all up and they all wind me up, the clubs, because they’ve got to come out and enjoy themselves and if it’s at my expense, then fine. As long as they’ve enjoyed themselves, had a bit of fun and listened to some good music, then I’m happy. [01:05:16]

Interviewer: You mentioned as well that you have the workshops as well now: when did that start? And are you quite involved in the organisation of that as well?

Susan: I pay the money in and I have a certain say in the matter. Like I’ll say who I think should be on them. Marc Cecil and Tony Sandeman do the main workings of that but I’ll say to Marc ‘look, I’m not happy.’ Well, Marc is a drummer and I said to Marc ‘look, I don’t mean to be nasty about this but you teach there. You can’t do it every time.’ Most of the musicians, like Derek Nash, do two years; then we have another person. You know, I’ve got people queuing up. I’ve got Americans who want to do this course now as well, who want to do the teaching on it because it’s well-structured. And I said to him ‘you know, just because you’re organising it, doesn’t mean to say you’ve got to be on it.’ So we took him off of it last year and he said ‘well, who can I put on?’ So I said ‘what about Winston Clifford?’ I don’t know if you know him – great drummer. Brilliant drummer. Bought him in – oh, he was a hit! Real hit. All the youngsters were after Winston because he was great. And so this year, Tony’s taking the time out and we’re bringing in Nigel Price on guitar. So we’ve got Jason Rebello on piano, we’ve got – who else have we got? We had Steve Waterman last year on trumpet. I can’t think who we’ve got this year. Mind’s going. But it’s all top people. And if I say ‘I don’t really like that person, I don’t really think that person’s good,’ they won’t book them. But, you know, that’s as far as I go. Then I go down there one afternoon and I walk round the workshops and meet all the youngsters and everybody and see the groups working and everything. And then, on the Tuesday night I usually have a session for all teachers so the students can come and hear the teachers actually play. And then on the Thursday night all the students come. [01:07:43]

And this year, I actually got…because I kept saying to the guy ‘why don’t you get hold of the press? Tell the press about what’s going on.’ ‘Oh, yeah, yeah. Okay, okay.’ Never got them. So I thought ‘right, the only way to get to the press is if I do it.’ So I got involved with all the press part. We got a great big whole page. It was great: about the jazz and who’s come and what’s happening and everything. So it was great and we got a lot of enthusiasm from the press about it. Because, you know, it’s teaching a lot of people in the Brentwood area but it’s also people coming down from Manchester, from Kent, from different places. It’s getting known that we have top calibre. And the way they do it, the way they teach: what they do, in the morning, they – whatever instrument you play – you’re put with for the morning session. So you’re put with…well, this year it’s going to be Vasilis Xenopoulos on saxophone. So if you play saxophone you’ll be with Vasilis. In the afternoon, Tony writes out some music which they’re going to play on the Thursday night. So in the afternoon, they’re put into groups according to their grades. So they’re put into different groups and then they stay still in that room and the tutors move round every hour and have a go with each different group. So it’s so nice, because last year Winston, when we invited him, said ‘I really didn’t want to do this because I’ve taught so many times. I’ve taught so much in the past and people really are not interested. I got a bit fed up with it. I was in two minds whether to do it or not but I’m so glad. I’m so glad I have because the enthusiasm was fantastic.’ And, you know, it is. The youngsters all come up, they all know me now there and they come along. Now, if they come along to the club, they’re let in for a reasonable, you know, a really knock-down price - less than half [price] just so they can come along and see their idols or people. So, yeah, it’s great. And the kids, they’re great. I’ve worked with children all my life; I worked for the National Children’s Home for years, I’ve worked for the YMCA, I’ve always done a lot of…I used to foster children, I’ve always been involved with children. It doesn’t matter what country you go to; you may not be able to speak the language but the music doesn’t change. Music…you don’t have to know the language. And that’s what’s so good about the whole world: you can go anywhere and still listen to music. It matters what you like but music is still the same, whereas they start talking and you can’t understand a word they say. But they play an instrument and you can understand it. And that’s what I think is so good, it’s such a great communication with everybody, with the world. [01:11:13]

Interviewer: For the kids, how do they first get involved in jazz? Is that their first real…those workshops?

Susan: No, sometimes it’s…we send out letters to people that teach and to students and we put out feels and say, you know, ‘look, if you know of anybody that’s interested…’ They’ve got to be a grade five or above…And it’s great because Brentwood School give us their room; I don’t know if you know Brentwood School, Boys’ School, but they have a section that’s just a music school and so every room has a piano in! [laughs] It’s one of those wonderful places. They’ve got about – oh, how many is it? – six, seven rooms. So it’s great, you’ve got all these rooms that they can all be partitioned off into. And the head of music there, I’ve got to know her as well. She comes down to the club sometimes. She thinks it’s great, what we’re doing. And so they’re good enough to give us their premises. We have it at Easter when they’re closed: we either have it the week before Easter or the week after Easter. But, you know, it’s great. There’s so many people can’t afford this, and that’s where I come in. Perhaps they haven’t got the money to go on these courses, because the courses, really, are quite cheap but what I say is cheap isn’t cheap to some people. Not everybody’s got that sort of money to give their child to go on a four day course – well, it’s now going to be four and a half days. They’re trying to get five days, the students want five days. We’ve gone up from four days to four and a half days but they keep wanting more and more. They keep saying ‘it’s not long enough.’ It’s nine to five but it’s still not long enough for them. They want more. Some of them said ‘we’ve learnt so much.’ We even had the teacher, one of the music teachers at Brentwood School: he’s classically trained, doesn’t know much about jazz so he came along on the course. He paid to come on the course and he learnt a lot. See, so it doesn’t matter what age you are, you can always learn. [01:13:42]

But I’m there to help. You know, the guys come up and say ‘thanks so much. Without you we wouldn’t have been here.’ You know, it’s just so nice to see these youngsters enjoying themselves. And plus they get to meet other people that like, you know, the same instrument and like jazz as well. Piano, bass and drums don’t often get to meet other people. I mean, the other day at my club, we had Derek Nash, I had Dave Newton, who’s one of the top piano players, Alec Dankworth – John Dankworth’s son – I had Winston Clifford on drums. Then we asked this singer to come up and do a couple of numbers. And then we asked Winston, because he can sing as well: so Winston got up off his drums to sing and he called one of his students over to get on the drums. [laughs] And it was great! The rest of them, Dave and them: ‘who’s this?’ He just got in straight there and was there. It was great. You know…because he knows now who he can…because some of the drummers were there because of Winston so he knew which ones could cope. But it’s just so nice that they can do this now. We often get, you know, saxophone players. Derek will say ‘come up.’ And the other day, one of the singers she came up to me and she said ‘guess what happened to me! I went down to see Georgina Jackson at Southend and she asked me if I wanted to come up and sing on stage. I said “yeah!” but she went and left me all on my own! I had to sing all on my own!’ I said ‘how’d you get on?’ She said ‘I was nervous at first but, oh, it was great.’ She was thrilled to bits. And it’s just so nice, she comes up to me every time she comes to the club. She’s just having a ball, she said ‘I’m coming next year. I’m coming.’ [01:15:49]

Interviewer: How do you, I mean, you sort of said the organisation…you have some things where people do bits and bobs but you do a lot – with the clubs at least – you do a lot of it yourself as well--

Susan: --All of it! Except for the PA! [laughter] Except for putting up PA, I’ve stopped doing that now, I can’t.

Interviewer: I’m just wondering are there any other structures at all to support you at all? Anything – informal, formal? Or is it literally just pretty much you?

Susan: Me. I do all the advertising. I get no support. Except for Chelmsford jazz club is different. But for the other clubs, it’s purely me. I do everything. I get no financial support. I used to, a long time ago, used to get a little bit from Musicians’ Union. But now it’s my own money. If I lose, I lose my own money. And I lose a lot of money. I mean, how to make a million running a jazz club: you start off with two. That’s the only way you can make it. And because of the way I work, because I give the musicians extra money and things. I do the advertising, I make all the flyers, the posters. [01:17:12]

Interviewer: Is that how you mainly communicate the information about the activities? Is it still mainly posters, flyers or do you use other means as well?

Susan: I have got Facebook and I have got a website on Myspace but I don’t do them. I’ve got people that do it for me because I don’t understand all that. I can do my artwork on them on the computer, and that’s it. Don’t ask me…I won’t do banking on it because I’m one of these people that’ll press buttons that I shouldn’t or, you know, the phone’s going and I’m trying to do something and I’m not looking properly what I’m doing. But if it’s in my artwork, then it’s just my artwork. I’m not transferring some of my money into somebody else’s bank or something like that. [laughter] …I mean, my husband kept on at me and everybody kept on ‘you’ve got to be on a computer, you’ve got to be on a computer, you’ve got to be able to work.’ I can’t do that. So in the end I went down for lessons and I used to go twice a week. It was so funny because I said ‘I don’t want to do all this’ because she was teaching me how to do Word and Excel. I said ‘I don’t want to do this. I just want to do art things on it.’ And she’d say ‘look, press that button there’ and she’d let me do a bit of artwork and she’d say ‘that’s enough. Now you’ve got to learn this before you can go back on to that.’ And they made me learn Word and then I had to go to somebody else and learn Excel and then eventually I was allowed just to do my artwork. And then sometimes when I’d go back, I used to walk in, just see them and I’d have to go round. She’d say ‘can you help that girl out? Can you help that person out?’ I was sort of teaching them how to do it but I’m not…My husband never touched it because he said everything he touches electrical goes wrong. [01:19:14]

Interviewer: With the actual flyers though, who do you distribute them to? Or do you just put them up in the places you give them to?

Susan: They’re in my clubs. I put them up in my clubs. Beckenham, I have got a few people who distribute them for me, put them up in libraries and places. Here, Brentwood’s harder, much harder. Essex is harder. If somebody comes down from the archives, from the Southend archives, they’ll take my flyers and put them in. Otherwise, I go to the newspapers, The Network and the – what’s the other one? There’s another one in Brentwood – and I send to them and they always put it in the papers. And evidentially I got a good spread for Saffron Walden the other day in the local newspaper. But you can’t always guarantee it. The tourist information at Saffron Walden are very good. They know what I do and they know I’m not in it to make money so they help me out an awful lot. Sometimes they actually come down¸ the people that run it - well, the guy that helps. But I’ve got to know them for so long because I’ve been doing it for so long there. But Brentwood is difficult, the people are different. It’s different every place you go. Beckenham, I’ve got so many people saying ‘I’ll help you. If you want any help, I’ll help you. I’ll help you clear up. I’ll help you pack this. Let me carry this for you. Let me take this for you.’ Brentwood, no: you’ve got to ask somebody for it. That’s what’s different about them. And like…when I have the scholarship, that month – so it’s usually in April/March, whatever month it is – that is my month for mainly raising money for the scholarship. And so I make cards. And I’m making them up to three o’clock in the morning sometimes. Making cards so I can sell them. Because I make them for Save the Heroes as well, and other charities. But I make them purely for this and this year I raised in three weeks £1,300. But I was also given some donations. Not from Brentwood, where you’d think. From Beckenham. And I’ve actually got another £60 odd in my purse to give my treasurer again. I’ve just got some more money from them. But it was basically cards and I was doing raffles and things like that and trying to raise…So within three weeks. I had three weeks. One week was with the scholarship and then the other three I was just raising money for the scholarship to help. People don’t fundraise so much these days. [01:22:26]

Interviewer: Are there any other big obstacles to your activities that you’ve had over the years other than obviously trying to get people to help? Is there anything else you can think of?

Susan: Well, getting venues. I mean sometimes a venue just shuts. I mean, I started at Basildon. They didn’t shut but the management, oh, and the staff were terrible. They were so rude to my people and I just thought ‘I can’t take more of this.’ And so we were asked to go to another club and we went to this other club and then one day they suddenly knocked it down. Didn’t even tell us it was going! [laughs] Wasn’t even there! Not there! So that’s when I went to Brentwood to The Hermit. And then we had a big dispute at The Hermit because they suddenly wanted to triple my money, my hire money and they wanted us out. Basically, they wanted us out. Because they wanted to use it for young people. Now the youngsters used to hang around outside waiting to meet whoever I got. As I say, Jamie Cullum started there and all these names. I mean, I had councillors come down because Jamie Cullum was there and things. And she said ‘he’s going to be big’ and she used to send me all the information about him. And all the Americans, the youngsters used to love it, chatting to them. But they said ‘no, we want to use it for youngsters.’ And so in the end they got rid of me. Well, they had me in tears in the end because I had a big name there who was sold out but they went and locked most of the chairs in a room so there were no chairs, and they locked the car park so they couldn’t park their cars there. And I was in tears, I just didn’t know what to do. I just thought ‘this is just ridiculous.’ This was Lord Hanningfield and his group. I had people from all over the world writing to him because they wanted to save this club at Brentwood because it was on the books. It was like Ronnie Scott’s in London. People used to come from France, from the States. They always had to pop into Spike’s Place at The Hermit. And we were packed out every night. Every Tuesday was packed. But no, it wasn’t good enough for them. [01:25:04]

They had to get rid of us so they did and a guy came up and said ‘look, you can use our hall down in Hadleigh.’ It never did work there. And then somebody said ‘why don’t you come back to Brentwood?’ And we have. It’s not bad, but it’s nothing like what we used to have. It was a great…you know, sometimes I have to say to them ‘look, I’m going to have to close the club, you know, if you don’t support it.’ And yet, I’ve got people at Saffron Walden: ‘why can’t we have a membership club?’ See, I’ve got membership at two of the clubs – three of the clubs. No membership at Saffron Walden and they say ‘why can’t we be part of the membership?’ You know, it’s…But the one thing that I do stick to when there is membership is it starts in January and ends in December. Because otherwise, if they all start at different times of the year, oh, I couldn’t cope with that. I’m bad enough already. They all wait for the new programme to come out and there’s a couple of guys and they come up and grab their programmes and they read it and try to find my mistakes! [laughs] I say ‘I’ve put one in there especially for you!’ I haven’t really but it’s just that I’ve got so much to do sometimes, you know, with typing out a bit about each group. Now, I’ve got a new guy who’s doing the posters at Chelmsford. And he does a great job, the posters are great. But he doesn’t put anything about the band and it’s not good. Because people don’t know what they’re coming to. They’ve got to have an idea of what sort of music they’re coming to hear. Now I write down a bit about everybody because they don’t know everybody. [01:27:03]

I’m forevermore finding somebody new, bringing somebody new in. You know, I’ve just brought in a new singer…Oh, there was one girl, she came from Philadelphia and she lives half the time in France and her agent contacted me and I listened to this girl. She was good, she was good. I said ‘I’ll have her at all my clubs.’ She was at all of them. And, you know, when I met them she said ‘I sent out the same email to about 50 different clubs and you’re the only one that got back to me.’ I said ‘because I know good music.’ She was just like a Sarah Vaughan. She’s got this voice and they loved her at the clubs. She then had a falling out with her manager so she wanted me to bring her in and I said ‘look, I haven’t got the license now to do it. I can’t do it. But don’t worry, I’ll find somebody. I’ll find someone to do it for you.’ Well I asked one guy and he said he couldn’t do it but then I asked another person and he said ‘umm, I don’t know her.’ I said ‘you don’t have to know her. She’s fun, you’ll love it, you’ll love working with her. She’s a character.’ Anyway, he can’t thank me enough now. He said ‘she’s fantastic!’ I said ‘I know she’s fantastic, that’s why I asked you to do it. I wouldn’t have asked if she was rubbish.’ She’s coming actually in October again. She’s already been in once this year so she’s coming in twice a year now. She hasn’t been seen up north yet, they haven’t seen her. But at the moment I’m working on her with this new guy that I’ve found, a Billy Eckstein. Billy Eckstein and Sarah Vaughan, they did a great show. I love putting different people together and I think they’d make a great show. I mean I put Jo Fooks and Al Nicholls together about six years ago: they’re still working together, the whole group. They got on so well the group that I put together that they’ve been touring ever since. So I often put groups together. It’s a way of…how can I explain it? Jazz is like different circles: you’ve got your top circle, then you’ve got another circle just below and another one just below that and there’s all these little circles of musicians. You’ve got your top people, then you’ve got your jump jive lot as well but they never meet. They never mix. They all keep in their little…now, it’s up to me and that’s what I did: I took one out of the jump jive and one out of the top and put them together and that’s when it went so well. Because I see all these different circles. And that’s why I can judge different people and put them together. I wouldn’t put two opposites together but ones that I think will work together quite nicely. I can see that. And I’m trying to work with the big band, with the Syd Lawrence orchestra at the moment. I’m trying to get them to do something…he’s keen to do it. I’ve got him on my side. Every time he comes to me I pay him more money. He says ‘I wish more clubs were like you!’ I said ‘well, if I make the money, you get it. Don’t say “I’m going to get this every time” because one of the times it might drop down.’ He said ‘oh, it’s great: I’m getting more and more money in my pocket.’ [laughs] [01:31:09]

Interviewer: If we sort of start looking at different sorts…you’ve talked about bits and bobs of lots of different artists now but just to expand a bit on your association just to begin with with British jazz or American jazz.

Susan: Well, of course I started with British. I didn’t know that many. Then I started touring all the Americans so my knowledge was more on the American side. I knew all the American musicians that were about at that time. And I came back and somebody would say to me ‘can you book an English band?’ and I couldn’t because I hadn’t got the knowledge of the English people so much. But then, when I stopped doing that, bringing the Americans…I mean, I had a lot of knowledge of rhythm sections because I had to pick up rhythm sections all the time and, you know, running the club, I still had to find the odd person. But now my knowledge is more in England because there’s not so many Americans coming over these days. It’s harder for them to come over. They’re not touring so much. I mean, there was one, two, three – there were four of us. Four main agents bringing in Americans. And you always knew: if an American was in, it was one of four. There was Ernie Garside, Brian Peerless - what was his name? Can’t think of his name down south – and myself. But then I think Ernie Garside stopped. Then the other one did. And then Brian just brings in the occasional person now, just Scott Hamilton but apart from that…And then eventually I stopped. Because when we started you had to find somebody to go over: it was an exchange thing. Then they suddenly stopped that and they gave you a sheet, which you had to fill in. It was one A5 sheet, double-sided, and you had to fill that in for work permit. Within a few years, it got to 16 pages to fill in, plus you had to pay £200. And then they suddenly did away with that and then you had to apply…I mean, I was very lucky because I used to get my permits very quickly and when I used to phone them up they’d say ‘well we know yours, we all grab yours because yours are easy. You’ve filled it all in correctly and there’s no hard work but some of them are so difficult to do.’ [01:34:18]

But then they changed this way where you had to pay and be an agent again like you used to have to be. I think it was £200 when I first started to be an agent and now I think it’s about £400, I don’t know what it is. You had to pay to be able to apply for a work permit. So they’ve checked your background and made sure that you’re honest and the right person to bring people in. And I couldn’t go through all that. I just thought ‘I can’t. I’ve got four, five clubs. I can’t do that as well.’ And I knew I wouldn’t be able to do a good job because as you get older you can’t. You can’t do it. I mean, the clubs are just about taking it out of me now. I do one club and then the next day I’m at…because I put so much into it because I want to make everybody enjoy themselves and be happy and enjoy the music. And I know most of the people there, I remember all their names and I go round. If they’ve been away I say ‘how was your holiday?’ and they say ‘oh, you remembered.’ They like all this because you remember things so I have a lot to remember. And then if somebody is ill I make a card, I get everybody to sign it - and the band - and send it to them. And people are always thrilled to bits with that, you know, that means so much and makes them want to come back to the club as well. So I usually do that when somebody’s ill that’s a regular at the club. I just try and look after the people but it is, as I say, mainly British people. There’s a few Europeans. I mean, there’s one guy there Andrea Pozza, who’s a piano player: Italian guy, absolutely brilliant. He was coming in backing all these different people and I said to him ‘why don’t you come in as a trio? Christ, I’ll give you three gigs straight away.’ And he did and he had a great time and everybody loved his playing and I virtually got all his gigs for him. Like this Denise; I mean I got someone to bring her in but I got all her gigs for her. But I don’t know the places now like I used to. I used to go with the musicians because I always felt you had to go to the club to find out what kind of club it was, what kind of atmosphere, you’d know who was best in there – rather than just send somebody up that’s not right for them, not the right place. So I went to most clubs at one stage or another. So I’d know where I was sending the musicians. And that was a lot of effort and my husband used to say ‘you mother them too much. You’re always mothering them.’ I said ‘well, that’s me, isn’t it? I like everything to be correct.’ [01:37:29]

Interviewer: Nowadays, do you think British jazz is taking off more or is it struggling because of the clubs not being around so much?

Susan: I think it’s struggling because there’s nothing on television. There’s nothing on the media. I mean, if you get anything on the media, it’s all the old bands on the Arts channel, it’s all the old people. The youngsters now don’t get a chance. They haven’t got it on the radio. We used to have it on several stations, you know, there used to be the jazz channels. Oh, what was his name? He had it for years. I can’t think of his name now. Because he used to phone up every time before he went on air and say ‘how’s your husband now? Is he alright?’ when he was ill so he could give a report over the radio. People used to tune in regularly to his shows because it was the jazz one. There’s just not the shows like there used to be. And there’s not the television media. It’s the media that’s letting us down. I think the clubs are just having to give up because there’s no media coverage, there’s no…How do you get across to them that we have a club? I mean even my club in Chelmsford’s been going 32 years: I bet you there’s a lot of people in Chelmsford that don’t know it’s still there. We advertise in the local paper every week, every month. But they say ‘we don’t get that. No, we don’t get that.’ Well, I don’t get it either so I wouldn’t know. And we used to get two free papers: we don’t get those now. [01:39:20]

It’s not as easy today in some respects. The only way to advertise is like me: email, Facebook, Myspace. That’s the only way now. You didn’t have those when I started, you know, everything was done…I mean, I had a mail out with my husband. I said ‘do you know, we’ve got to get people to the clubs and there’s only one way.’ I was fed up of hearing people say and phoning us and saying ‘oh, when are you coming to so-and-so?’ I said ‘well I was there last week.’ ‘Well we didn’t know!’ And I was so fed up with hearing that, so I said to my husband ‘I’m going to start a mailing list for you.’ And I started a mailing list and honestly, it grew so much. And I used to send out monthly and my husband and I, we’d sit here folding all these pieces of paper. Then we had to buy all the stamps, stick the stamps on - it took us ages and ages - and send the mail out to get people to the clubs. I mean this was before computers. Well, computers were about but I didn’t know what to do with them. We had ways around things. It was harder in those days but on the other hand it was a bit easier because of the media coverage. You don’t get it now. You’ve got one show but he’s a bit…if you don’t advertise his programme, he won’t advertise you. And it’s hard to advertise. There’s not the magazines now there used to be. Jazz in Essex – gone. Jazz in London – gone. There’s not these magazines going about. So yes, it’s much harder now to run a jazz club. And it’s harder for the musicians because that’s how they live: by playing. I just say to them ‘I wish I could give you so much more because you deserve it.’ And I feel guilty when I pay them sometimes. I mean, okay, they’re getting what they’ve said but if I can’t give them extra I feel really guilty. Because I want to give them a lot more. But it is hard. I mean, some are doing very well, there are certain ones. But, you know, you’ve got to do your own publicity. For instance - I know I keep saying his name - Derek Nash. You always get a good crowd with Derek Nash because he’s on with Jools Holland. People see him on there. And he does a wonderful job at the mail out. He mails out. He’s got such a large mailing list and he mails out every gig he does. So besides him mailing out, I’m mailing out to my people as well. Because if I don’t…you know, I give them a monthly brochure about what’s on this month and they’ve got it, but unless I email them, they don’t come. Now, one week I was really ill and I couldn’t even go and switch the computer on I was so ill. I had to get hold of the guy who was playing that night and said ‘can you get someone to do the door?’ I gave him all the information and I couldn’t email out. He got hardly anybody there. See, people expect it now.