Sue Robinson

So, Sue, tell me about when Spike came over to the UK, you were telling me earlier, was it late 40's?

 

He first came over in the last 40's and was part of the Club 11 days with Joe Mudell and Ronnie Scott, John Dankworth, because I saw John shortly before he died and he said to me “You’ll never guess what Spike was wearing when I first met him” and I said “Sailor’s uniform?” and he said “You’re right”, because they couldn’t keep him still, they tied him to his music stand, they chained him to his music stand so he wouldn’t disappear and play Jazz; he was terrible, he just wanted to play Jazz and he got very friendly with Jack Parnell as well and him and Jack became very great friends and at that time, the Americans were allowed, if they wanted to, once their service time was up, if it finished in England, they were allowed to stay in England and, of course, Spike’s time was coming up and he could finish in England so him and Jack decided “Right, we can work in Val Parnell's Orchestra during the day and do the Jazz at night”, they got it all planned out between them and then Spike was given an extra 2 years and he had to go to back to America and he went back there and it was all big bands, nothing but big bands and he just didn’t want to do that, so then he got married and had a couple of children, and then there was Brian Davis, do you know Brian Davis, from Hockley?

 

Yes

 

He was in touch with Spike and brought him back over here to do a gig, to do a tour and then Spike approached me to be his agent over here.

 

When was that?

 

Oh now you are talking. It was it 84?

 

Oh ok, so Spike didn’t come back to the UK till then?

 

No, he stayed in America, he was on the space 

 

NASA?

 

Yes, he was down in Florida doing that in the day and playing at night. Dave Grusin and him formed a band, and you know they went out, they even got fined I think by the MU because they were playing for under scale, but no, they had a good little band but Dave Grusin of course has gone on to do a lot of things but he is was still always a good friend of Spike’s and has done a lot for us since.

 

So Spike was brought over to play over here?

 

Yes and he was quite shocked, he didn’t think anybody would remember him but of course, and he was quite impressed with the memories of the people over here, you know, because in America they were slightly different, something goes, it goes, but over here everybody remembered him and he just felt so at home. He loved it here, absolutely loved it here, and I remember on one of his tours, I had 43 gigs in 41 days and I kept saying “Are you sure you want to do it?”, he said “Take the lot, take it, all I want to do is play”. He was just so keen on playing and everybody here wanted to play with him as well.

 

When he came over in the early 80's, did you get together quite soon after he came over?

 

Quite soon, yes and then he approached me to be his agent. Well what had happened was I was running some clubs and looking after some of the other American musicians and I had a meeting with a guy from Spain, a record producer, and he said to me, “You want to come and see this guy who is working at the Pizza Express. He is a fabulous musician” and I said “Well after you I’ve got another meeting and I don’t think I’ll have time” but my next meeting didn’t last as long as I thought, so I thought “I’ll just slip down to the Pizza Express in Dean Street” and I went down there and there was Spike playing and he always said to me, “I saw you walking down the steps and I knew there and then that we were going to be together and I'll marry you”, he said “I know you felt the same”, I said “No I didn’t”, because I am honest, I can’t lie, and but we got on so well together and then he said to me, “Will you be my agent?” and I said “I’ll be your agent, that’s all”. I didn’t want to be a groupie and with the musicians. I had a hard time at first being a female and in those days the musicians were carrying on with, they had so many groupies around and everything and I said “Look, treat me as an agent or don’t speak to me at all” and most of them respected me like that. There were a couple that I had to teach the hard way that I didn’t speak to but the majority of them........ But Spike, I don’t know, he just knocked my wall down a bit, and eventually...... but I think it is also because Spike was taken very ill in Bordeaux with meningitis and I spent a month over there looking after him, in a hospital and then I had to bring him over here where he got TB of the brain and he was two months in a hospital over here and everybody was surprised he lived, but he did and he was just surprised at the people here, the amount of people that went to visit him and just sat there talking to him. He just said “I can’t believe people would do this over here” He just loved the British people. And whenever he went back to the States, if ever he had to do an interview he always spoke so highly of the rhythm sections and that over here, because a lot of Americans at that time used to think the British were a bit, you know, behind. I respected him for doing that and then I thought “Right, I’m bringing all these musicians over here so I’m going to get some over there, and I did. I got a few working in America.

 

Did you?

 

Yes, but he was sort of, I don’t know, people said to me Spike was like, he was playing just to them. He had that sort of way with him and everybody loved him. It didn’t matter what he said, I mean he would play a special tune to a drummer and I thought a drummer would hit him one of those days because he always dedicated How Insensitive to the drummer , but they never did, they always laughed it off with him. He had a magnificent sense of humour. He made an album with Al Cohn, Once In A While, but when he was living here he said they keep using this word 'Whilst', he said I don’t like that word 'While', I think I’ll call this tune Once In A Whilst, he said it sounds better. I went out to America for 3 months to live with him. He said “It is up to you what you do. We can either live over there or live here”. I couldn’t put up with it. After a couple of months, I just said “I can’t, I want to go back home because I like old buildings and things” and they just hadn’t got them. I mean great musicians but I’m too British to move and Spike said afterwards, “I’m pleased”, because by that time I had got him into cricket as well!

 

Oh had you?

 

Oh yes and he did Mike Gatting’s benefit and he did Lords. He is on the Lords video, he has played, playing at Lords and oh the Americans, Mike Gatting did him a wonderful, an American liking Cricket? I mean Campbell Burnapp wrote on one of his CDs, “An American liking Cricket”, usually Americans think it is like watching celery grow watching cricket, but no; I mean one guy, I was up at Lords and he was playing before they started, playing music, and one guy was a bit snooty and he came up and he said what the hell are you playing with this lot for, Spike said “Well (1) I’m enjoying it, (2) I get to see the cricket, (3) I don’t have to pay and (4) they give me the beer as well”, he said you know, and the guy couldn’t answer it. But Spike was quite offended that he said that.

 

So Spike settled into Essex because of moving in with you I guess?

 

Yes

 

And how soon after Spike moving here did you both start running clubs?

 

Well the thing was I was bringing all these musicians in.

 

Were you a sole agent or did you work for a company?

 

No I was a sole agent and I used to bring in a lot of the Basie guys and Ellington guys and, you know, various people, and I suddenly saw that a lot of the clubs were closing and I said to Spike I said it is getting harder and harder to bring these Americans in because suddenly the clubs are closing, so he said “Well let’s see if we can start up a few”. I was already running Chelmsford Jazz Club

 

Oh were you?

 

I was already running that.

 

Was that your first club, the Chelmsford Jazz Club?

 

Yes

 

So tell me about Chelmsford Jazz Club before we go onto Spike?

 

Chelmsford Jazz Club, basically I was, well I got into the Jazz scene and Essex, what is it, Eastern Jazz I think started up and they went to Eggy Ley at the time and said “Do you know anybody that could start a Jazz club?” because there was absolutely nothing, everything had died here. Most of it had died in Southend as well. There was hardly any Jazz going on, so I started the Jazz club, 

 

In '84 was that? You said it was 30 years next year didn’t you?

 

They approached me because I was managing some people as well at the time, so Eggy Ley said “Well I think Susan might be a good person to do it”, so Eastern Jazz came to me and said “With our help, would you run a Jazz club?”. I said “I don’t know anything about running a Jazz club” and they said “Well we’ll help you for the first two” and they did, they helped me for the first two and we put on these Jazz clubs and then I put on a third one, and after the third one we formed the committee and now I have an excellent committee and we are still going. I mean I must admit, at first we were putting on more local people but the trouble was that the only places where there was Jazz was in bars and places and it was free so why should people come and pay to see these musicians when they can see them for free in their local pub or something? So this was a big hoo ha. My committee were very sceptical about it, so in the end they were going to pack it up, after 6 years they were going to pack it up and I said “No, let me do something” and then I went to Digby and Bill Skeat and I put together a whole band and they all did it for nothing to save the club and we put a lot of money into the pot for that. Since then I have booked all the artists again and paid them well for doing that because they were the saviours of it; then I went out and I came back to my committee and said “I’ve just booked the Humphrey Lyttleton Band” and if you could have seen their faces when I told them how much it was, they said “You are joking. How are we going to pay for Humphrey Lyttleton?”, I said “We are going to have him and we are going to see”. Do you know, it is the first time we had a packed house, it was packed, and we made a bit of money and I said “You’ve got to spend money to make money”.

 

That’s right. True.

 

And so that is where it started. We stopped using the more local musicians because, and I realise they had to make a living, but I tried to get one occasionally, in with another band

 

Didn’t you say earlier, it was more Trad earlier on?

 

It was, it was, it was very Trad, it was more Eggy Ley. We tried a Modern band but people didn’t like it. They wanted, on the survey they put that they wanted Trad and big band but I had to educate everybody when they came to my club because I sat for hours upon hours and I found out all about them, and I used to sneak in like Bruce Turner …but I made up a whole sheet about him and told them everything he had done and so I sat making these sheets up so that I could hand out to people so that people would know.

 

Who they are looking at?

 

Yes, and read about it, and this is how I had to educate, and oh I had so many of these. I sat and did these relentlessly every time.

 

Was it weekly in those days or has it always been monthly?

 

No it has always been monthly, but I also had to do it for Spike’s place as well so I was doing these bios but then sometimes, like Alan Ganley I remember once, I said to Alan “Oh please could you send me a bio?” Well we had to laugh when it came through, Spike said to me, “We could put that on a postage stamp” so what I did, I shrunk it all down and put his bio on a postage stamp and sent it back to him and said “Thanks Alan, this is all you sent me. It fits on a postage stamp” and he had to laugh about that, but I mean Alan had done everything but all he could think of was a couple of lines. I had read books and checked it all out and everything so I had to go and do all that because musicians in those days weren’t much help, they never had bios, not like they do today, and they’ve all got websites and everything. It is much easier. In those days musicians didn’t have a bio, they never phoned for a gig, you had to phone them. It was a completely different world, the musicians were different, so different, in those days.

 

People have to hustle a lot more now don’t they for the work?

 

They do, yes and I always used to say you could always tell an older musician by the questions they asked because my older musicians would say “Oh where are we playing then and who am I playing with?” and then sometimes, now always, they would say “How much is it?” but the younger ones, the first question is “How much am I going to get?” and then “Who am I playing with and where is it?” It was completely different, but most of the musicians that come to me don’t even ask how much they are getting, they trust me and I have never, ever not paid a musician. They have always been paid, some people have said “Look I’ll take it back, you’ve lost a lot of money tonight” or something and I’ve said “No, can’t, can’t, you take it. I said I am going to pay you this and this is what you are going to get”. But Chelmsford has just grown from strength to strength and now whatever we put on people trust us. We are getting a few younger people in now but it does change when who we have got on, you know, there are some people that are still very, “Don’t like vocalists on” or they are very opinionated and they won’t just come out to anything; some of them, the older ones, whereas some of the younger ones will try anything. 

 

So has Chelmsford Jazz Club always been at the Cramphorn Theatre?

 

It has always been at the Cramphorn, right from the word go. I think it was about £25 to hire then, it is now £200. I try and keep my prices down if I can to help people out as I would rather have more people coming in. The first American we ever brought to Chelmsford was Buddy Tate, and I think a lot of the Americans have been to Chelmsford Jazz Club since, if they are on tour. It is a good club, they like coming, get paid well, reasonably well there now, and most people want to do Chelmsford Jazz Club. It has got the solid name and, as you say, it has got a good reputation because we have always paid and paid well, and we have everything from big band to, we still put on, like Keith Nichols. We try to help please everybody and we like to have a vocalist in there, and we try everything out. We don’t go too way out, not too really, really modern, but we go to Be Bop and we might go a bit, you know, a bit of....... I mean we have had Sax Appeal there but I think people know where our boundaries are there. I had somebody come up to me once and she said the one good thing about your club is that if we have guests we know we can always bring them along to listen as well because I don’t go, and it is always entertaining as well because I think you haven’t got to be just a good player these days, you have got to entertain as well, which unfortunately this is what some of the youngsters are lacking; and I have told Trinity as well, because I have worked with Trinity with Spike’s scholarship and they agreed with me. I said “They’ve got to learn to talk to the audience because the audiences come to be entertained as well as hear good music”. They come out for an evening and ok, sometimes I have to act the fool, because if the band is very serious, then I do stupid things.

 

To lighten the mood.

 

Yes, well it comes naturally, because I want people going out thinking “Well we’ve had a good laugh as well as heard some good music”, I want people to be completely satisfied with what they have got and ok, I do the stupidest things sometimes. I think that is what they need, they need to be entertained these days

 

So you started with Chelmsford Jazz Club and was your first club with Spike, was that Spike’s place at the Hermit?

 

It wasn’t called Spike’s Place, and it wasn’t at the Hermit.

 

Oh wasn’t it?

 

No

 

Because Monkeys was there before wasn’t it?

 

Yes, that was on a Sunday night; no, I started at The Belvedere.

 

Belvedere, where, in Brentwood?

 

Yes, that’s where we started the club. I had Spike and John Critchinson, Bobby Worth............

 

Was that weekly or monthly?

 

Weekly and I know it was the 14th May, it was about 20 years ago. I think it was '92, but the trouble was, all the staff, every time we went there, the staff were different, it was different people, some of them were quite rude to my people and I didn’t like that because I think that people, when they come in, they want to be treated nicely and they don’t want to have people snapping at them behind the bar and they were always changing. Then some guy came up to me and said “Look, I’ve got some guy that is after you, wants you to go to put Jazz on. Would you move the club to Pipps Hill?”, so I went to have a look at the place and the guy was so keen, so we moved to Pipps Hill and that’s also, was in, it was on the borders of Basildon and Billericay. Anyway we put it on there.hen

 

Pipps Hill Country Club isn’t it?

 

Yes. Then one day we turned up and the club had gone, it had disappeared. It had been knocked down!

 

Oh really?

 

Yes

 

That was monthly though was it?

 

No, weekly

 

Oh weekly? And you turned up one week and it was pulled down?

 

Yes and we went there once and I remember once, I had Scott Hamilton there and we had 158 people there in the audience and I said to people “Look, I’ve got a great British sax player coming next week, please support him like you’ve supported Scott”. You know, Vic Ash? He’s a great player, 25 people turned up, I was disgusted with the audience because I thought they’ve all turned out to see Scott Hamilton, but one of our own people they haven’t bothered with so much, and that used to infuriate me sometimes you know because they wouldn’t turn out to the British people and I would get so cross. I didn’t tell them that, but I did get cross because they would all support the Americans over here but never the British guys, and I thought the British guys deserved the respect. 

I mean, once we actually stopped a tour. We had a particular musician over here on tour and he was so rude on stage to the musicians who were British and I just said “You can’t act that way to British musicians, that’s not fair. I’m sorry but I am cancelling your tour”, he said “You can’t do that”, I said I can and I phoned up all the venues and cancelled them and sent him home, I said “Sorry”, and then a couple of days later he phoned me up to apologise and I said “It’s not me you’ve got to apologise to, it is the musicians you’ve got to apologise to”, he said “Oh I’ll do that”, so I’ve always supported the musicians and like Spike, Spike always loved to help young musicians and I think I’ve sort of carried that on, like when Jamie Cullum first started, he started at the club. I’ve always got a young musician under my thumb trying to help him get established, but as I say, we went to Pipps Hill and then one day it just suddenly disappeared again and so my friend and I, because I was running it with a friend at the time, Liz. And I suddenly said to her “The Hermit might be a good place”, she said “Oh I don’t know about that”, so I said “Well let’s go down and have a look”; well she couldn’t, so I went down and had a look at it and I thought it was quite a nice venue and the Monkeys had stopped then and John who was in charge then said “You can have it on a Tuesday night”. That was fine, and so we had it there and Spike said “Come on, we are going to make Tuesday night Jazz night. We are really going to work hard” and we worked so hard and we got it in all the advertising, people in the States used to phone us up and say “Who have you got at the club? We are coming over”, people used to come in from France to the club..... It was packed, every week it was packed, until Lord Hanningfield got it into his head that all the musicians were too old and they wanted the venue for the young people, and I fought for a year to keep that club going and they had me in tears several times because they used to lock all the chairs away so I couldn’t have any chairs and then they would lock the car park so I couldn’t get in, until in the end I had to give up but I mean that club, if only Essex had realised what they had really, and that’s when we named it, because Spike had died then.

 

Oh so up until then what did you call it? Just the Hermit Jazz Club?

 

No, it was called Manhattan Jazz Club and then Spike died and John said “We’ve got to put a stained glass window up for Spike there” and we said “Well right, ok, we’ll rename the club Spike’s Place” and that’s what we did because we had his funeral there. They gave it to us and it was packed, absolutely packed, music going unbelievable.

 

That was 12 years ago you say?

 

Yes 2001, and we had a great time. Spike used to love the club, and as I say, it was packed every week but then we had all this problem. I had all the newspapers behind me, I had, Digby came down to help try and save it, I had councillors behind me, I was writing up to Westminster. Some times I would phone up and as soon as I said my name they would say “Oh I know who you are”, I got myself a reputation. I wrote to all the people that like Jazz, all the councillors that like Jazz, I wrote to them trying to save the club. I’ve got a folder upstairs, it is just packed solid, and I’ve got letters from everybody, and I had all my....... I sent out an email to everybody on my email list to write to Lord Hanningfield to try to save the club but it didn’t work.

 

Did he own half of Brentwood then or something?

 

Well now, he was in charge of the Council, head of the Council and of course since then, I mean everybody has a way of getting back at things, well you know, he’s been put inside since for fraud and all that sort of thing, and when I told my club they all cheered because we felt he was the one that had spoilt the club. Luckily we had a place down in Hadleigh and they said we could have their place, but it never really took off down there, it didn’t, and I tried several other places. It was hard to get an atmosphere in the one in Hadleigh purely because those big desk things that everyone had to sit behind were almost like........... 

 

I know what you mean. I’m born and bred in Hadleigh. I know the hall very well.

 

My piano is still down there.

 

Is it?

 

Yes, it was hard. When I first went there, they were going to do so many things to that place, unbelievable things and it never came off. They were going to get me a stage and everything, but it just didn’t work. Then I went to another place in Brentwood, which I hated, right by the station. What was it called? It’s got a club by the side of the pub, I can’t think at the moment. I hated it there, perhaps that’s why I can’t remember; and the woman that worked there, she kept saying “You ought to go down to my local club, you know. You’ll like it much more there” and eventually I went down to where I am, The Bardswell. I went there and saw their room and I knew instantly what she meant. They’ve got a nice stage, a nice atmosphere, it was great. I mean they wanted us there whereas the other place really hated Jazz and they let me know they didn’t like the Jazz. They made things so funny. I mean they were weird people, but here, they’ve always made us feel welcome; my attendances have come up again now, all my older people coming back and it is great to see people I haven’t seen for years and years, and the club is growing now thanks to it being there.

 

Is that weekly or monthly?

 

Weekly, except for the last Tuesday in the month and then another group have it but I am there nearly every Tuesday and we’ve had some great acts. I found a leaflet with who I had had at the club, a guy who lived down Southend way, he used to write who I had at the club each week and he gave me a copy of it before he died, unbelievable names: the Scott Hamiltons, the Bucky Pizzarellies, the Harry Allens, all the top names we could wish for. I remember once at the Hermit Club I had Harry Allen, Spike, and Ricky Woodard on stage, three Americans on stage, another time I had Spike and Derek Nash, then there was a couple coming over to do some dance thing at the Barbican, was it the Barbican or Festival Hall? Festival Hall. They were going to do something, it was something to do with some dance and they were coming up and they came up and we got a piece of wood on stage so they could do their dance bit on stage, the Jiving Lindy Hoppers turned up as well and they came in and joined in and it was....... nobody knew what to expect. I mean it was fantastic, we used to have people turning up and it was brilliant. I mean, my other club at Saffron Walden, I tell you, there’s a young guy, twice he has appeared at the club, he is only 15, he is going to be big, he is going to be a big name, what is his name, Green, Harry Green.

 

Harry Green, what does he play?

 

Saxophone, 15 years old. He came on with Simon Bates and the first time he was there he was with Derek Nash and blew them away. I mean, he will keep up with them the whole time. That’s a name to watch out for, and it is great to see these youngsters come up.

 

So you started to spread out more Spike’s Places rather than it just being at one venue? 

 

Yes, so I’ve got a Spike’s Place in Brentwood, which is the main one, that’s the main one; then I started the one in Saffron Walden, and we started one there because Spike went and gave a talk with John Critchinson at the library, and then we had a little letter, a little note saying “We have a charity thing on at the church. If you would like to give your time we would love to hear you play”, so after the talk they went down to the church and they played and everybody came up and said “Ah we don’t get Jazz like this down here, we only have Trad Jazz here”, so we went down to Saffron Walden, we had a look around and looked at the Saffron Hotel and we decided we would start a Jazz club there, and it is a different Jazz club from all the rest. Evidently I’ve gone down in the history books in Saffron Walden as having the longest running Jazz club there, but I brought all the names there, and the owner, he was the Mayor last year. I mean he is so proud of the Jazz club because the hotel closed at one point when his wife had cancer and we moved to somewhere else and this guy then bought the place back and he phoned me up and said “Would you come back? Please come back, we need you”, and so I went back there, but it is so different because two thirds are women in the audience, which is very unusual, and I think what happens is men will go out for a drink in a pub or somewhere like that, but the women don’t like to do that so we’ll get like a party of 9 women altogether and they’ll come out to listen to the Jazz, and then we’ll get another party of 6 so it, but it packs out every month.

 

When did you start it?

 

I started that about 94/95, started that one and that took off and then I had a phone call from Bobby Worth, the drummer, and he said “I’ve found a great place in Beckenham. I think you’ll like it. Can you start a Jazz club up down here?” so I said “I’ll come and have a look at the place”, so I went down to Beckenham and I saw this place and Spike and I both liked it, and we thought Right, we’ll start a Jazz club” and we got a thriving Jazz club going. Unfortunately that building then got taken over, it has now disappeared altogether, but in the meantime, one of my … he knew somebody at a sports club who had a room and they said I could have a room there, and I’ve been there ever since. They can’t do enough for me down there, I mean they said “We wouldn’t have the calibre of musicianship that we have here”, I mean for instance I’ve got Elaine Delmar going down there next month and at Brentwood and people are saying “How did you manage to get Elaine Delmar?” Well Elaine is a friend and a lot of the people, because I have been in the Jazz world so long they come and do it for me. They are so nice really, even though I give them a hard time, well I haven’t got Spike to give a hard time to now so I have to take it out on the musicians, you know (laughs) but I mean, because Spike and I were always sort of full of tricks, we used to wind people up a lot, do different things. It was great fun. 

 

So you started all these nights while Spike was still alive?

 

No, yes, yes and then I promised the people at Hadleigh that I would go back, so the Conservative Club there asked me if I would put on Jazz there on a Monday night. Well I only do it once a month but it hasn’t been going very well down there. I am hit hard by places where there is free Jazz. Ok you put money in a kitty but the people say “Well they don’t have the calibre of musicianship that you have” and I say “I know, but do people who go and listen.......... some people are very knowledgeable and they know the calibre of musicianship that I have but not everybody does, some people think yes, it is 'music', and that’s it; I mean I have been fortunate, I’ve had a lot of help from a lot of good people. I mean one of the first people to help me get started was Humphrey Lyttleton. He said “I will give you all the help I can dear” and he and his manager were so good to me, they helped me and Alan Ellesdon and his wife, they gave me a lot of help at the beginning. I phone up and say “I’ve got a problem, how do I do this?”, but there was always people there to help me. I did get a lot of abuse at first when I went into the music world from some of the musicians, they said, “ A woman, doing this work? You’ll never make it”, I said “Well we shall see”, and that makes me even more determined then, and I must admit that they have all come back and apologised since.

 

It is incredible. I can’t imagine that there is anyone, anywhere that is running so many Jazz nights. I mean you’ve got 5 on the go?

 

Yes

 

That’s incredible.

 

I mean, the thing was when I used to go to the States I used to have to say to Spike “Don’t say my surname ” because when we used to go over there, if they knew who I was, if they said my surname, they would know I was an agent and I would get pounced on the whole time from musicians, people wanting to come over to England to tour. 

 

Thinking you were the golden goose.

 

Well, they knew I brought over some great, Ken Perplowski, Buddy Clayton, Mundell Lowe, Bill Berry, Buster Cooper, Anita O’Day - I used to bring her over, so I brought over some good people and of course they got to know him....... Marshall Royal, I brought him over, it was the only time he came over and he was quite a character. We sat outside a restaurant once in London and this girl arrived in this sort of like turquoise Cadillac convertible and he turned round to me and he said “Girl, that’s what you should be driving”, and he actually got up and he went up to the woman and he said “Do you want to sell it?” That was Marshall Royal for you, he was such a sweetie, he was lovely but some of these old players, they did like to be mothered, they all had to be mothered but I used to drive them all over the place. I remember once we had a gig, because they used to run some local Jazz in Hertfordshire, and I had to pick up this musician in London and I was a bit late, Bill Berry it was, and he said “We’ll never make it in time”, anyway we got there, we got there in time and he turned round to me afterwards and said “I should enter you for the Indie 500. I never thought you would make it in time”, that was before there was too many speed cameras. Once I had to, I mean I was quite naïve at the beginning, I brought in a trio, the Oliver Jackson Trio, I landed up at the airport in my estate car and thinking “Well I can put them all in”, forgot there would be all the luggage and all the drum kit as well, and then Oliver said “I’ll find out how much a cab is and we can have your car and a cab” and I think the cab driver wanted £50 or something. He said “Forget it, get lost” he said, “We’ll all get in her car, don’t worry”. The cab driver said “You’ll never, ever all get in there with your luggage”. Oliver said “Just watch us” and I tell you we got everything in the car. In the end Oliver was laying over his drum kit and we all got in there and all drove off and I won’t tell you the sign that he made to the cab driver, but then of course a couple of days later I suddenly said “Oh we’ve got to go Wakefield and thought I'll just drive you up there”, but forgot I then had the double bass, didn’t think of that, so panic stations. I can get the drums in but I couldn’t get 3 musicians and myself and the double bass as well so I had to phone up Wakefield and ask them to hire a bass for me. These were all things but it was a learning experience for me but I had to learn the hard way, oh dear.

 

Do you supply the PA's as well in these venues?

 

Yes, I have a permanent. I keep one at Brentwood, I keep another one at Beckenham, Chelmsford have one now and I have a portable one which can go round to the other two clubs. so I don’t understand the PA system really. I didn’t really go into this business to work a PA; a musician will say to me “Can I have a bit more of this or a bit more of that?” and I go and twiddle a few knobs and he says “Oh that’s fine”. I have no idea what I’ve done, I don’t understand it, I don’t. It is bad enough having to sit here and do all the advertising and the posters and the bookings without having to worry about PA, and I have lighting at all my clubs as well.

 

 I put two youngsters through Trinity College through Spike’s scholarship, and paid their MU fees as well because I think that’s important that they are a member; I’ve had the Birmingham Big Band down here because I think I’ve got a lot of time for John Ruddock who does the Birmingham Big Band, and I’ve had them all down here, brought down by coach through Spike’s scholarship so that they get seen. So I still try to help the youngsters out and we’ve got a scholarship and hopefully, we are hoping to have a Spike’s scholarship. We are going to get Derek Nash and people like that involved and get them to help the youngsters out, but I have said that I want it also to benefit people that can’t afford it, I don’t want it just to go to the rich that can afford it. I need it to go to people that also, perhaps there might be a very talented youngster that can’t afford the lessons or can’t afford the instrument or something, those are the people we need to help as well, so I shall be bringing in a few people and paying for them to go for the weekend so we are hoping to do that, well we were hoping to do it this last Easter but it didn’t come off so Mark is helping me, Mark Cecil is helping me with that, so it will be Spike’s scholarship doing it.

 

I am surprised you have time to do anything else outside of running all your Jazz clubs, running 5 clubs.

 

Well I design cards too. I sell them at the clubs because it helps and the money goes into the clubs and it keeps the clubs going, because sometimes if you have a bad day sometimes I sell more cards and it helps the clubs as well so, I do different things to try to raise money. People love different things, if you have got food or something like that and I do all the cooking. At Christmas time we had a big buffet, real big buffet at Spike’s Place at the main one, well I do it at that one and at Beckenham, but when I first started doing it of course I had Spike’s help, I had my daughter’s help, I had my Mother’s help and my Aunt’s help so everybody used to do a bit and help me, now it is just me and I do the whole lot on my own which sometimes can be very hard. Then you see it all laid out, the whole table, great big table laid out and then suddenly they all descend and next time you look the table is empty virtually, you know. I have a turkey there and I have ham and make different quiches and vol au vents and things like that

 

And running the night as well.

 

S: Oh yes and doing the raffle, do the lot, yes; but in all honesty, I don’t think...... I know I am under the doctor a lot now from the loss of Spike, but I don’t think I would have got through it as well without the people at Jazz clubs, I mean they have been fantastic to me

 

It is like a big family.

 

It is and this is what we wanted. People have got to know other people, they go to various things together now so they have found other people that have got the same interests and then they go off to another club together which, if I wasn’t running the club, they wouldn’t have got to know those people and plus a lot of musicians, the ones that make it, the bigger names, if it wasn’t for the smaller clubs, these musicians would have nowhere to play and plus there would be no need for festivals because they wouldn’t have a Jazz audience. I don’t think there is anywhere in the world like it, like in England, because the majority of places like in the States, I have tried to do it, I did start up a club in the States but as I don’t go back there now so much, it has just folded but people don’t do things for nothing, they’ve got to make money out of it whereas here in England people do it to keep the music alive. In the States it is all, they’ve got to make profit, it is all run by accountants, if they don’t make any money then “out”, but here it is different; I mean if I listen to my accountant I wouldn’t be running Jazz clubs, I mean he tells me off the whole time but because I know my own mind, I know what I want to do, I just go ahead but the majority of people have to listen to their accountants and they just look at it on paper, they don’t see what else it is doing, how it is helping people get to meet other people, how it is, what it is doing that way. I think it is just a...... and music, there is no barrier with music really, I mean you’ve got problems with different languages but with music there is no barrier at all and it goes across every country and I think it is important to keep people happy and listening to the right kind, unfortunately there is not enough on television except for the ads. If you listen to the ads, the majority of them have a Jazz theme. I was watching something a little while ago, it was a film or something, and there was Jazz going on in the background and why is it that television uses it more than any other kind of music and yet they don’t put on that much?

 

That’s right, yes.

 

I mean back in my old days, there were all the old programmes, black and white programmes we used to get, they did one on the Club Eleven. Did you see that?

 

No I didn’t, no.

 

I’ve got a copy of that, Club Eleven days, Spike couldn’t make it, they had to interview him separately but they interviewed all the people from the Club Eleven days. They’ve got a picture of Spike chained up to his music stand

 

Where was he from, Spike?

 

Originally he came from Conosia, Wisconsin, and then he worked in Florida for a while and then settled mainly in Boulder, Colorado. When we went back, after he had died, Dave Grusin put on a big show back in the States for him and the BBC were at the funeral and the BBC allowed them to have a copy of the funeral and so when I went back to do this memorial concert for Spike, the theatre only held 2000 people, they had 2,500 people in there, they were all standing round the edges, and it started with, they brought this big film down and then there was a slide of the funeral which was very, very moving so they saw the funeral and then that went back up and then these two massive photos of Spike, life size photos came down, one of him in the chains as a navy boy and another one of him older, and those two came down and stood at the back and then Dave Grusin came on and did all his things. They brought in different people from all different walks of life that Spike had worked with and I was fortunate enough to meet, and they said “Right, we want two British musicians to go over there to represent” so I thought “Right, I’ll pick one younger and one older”, so I had John Barnes in the older section and I had Derek Nash from the younger and they went over to play with all these........ I shall never forget the day that Derek got his first phone call from Dave Grusin, I was talking to him on the phone and suddenly there were these screams of delight and I said “What’s going on?”, he said “I’ve got an email from Dave Grusin, THE Dave Grusin” and then of course he got to meet and got to know him quite well. It was great to see him, he was like a little kid. Of course Spike helped Derek an awful lot get on and do things and with his playing, and now I watch Derek doing the same with some of the younger people, it is interesting.

And that’s what’s so good about Sax Appeal anyway, as a group, isn’t it, because you do get such a huge amount of musicians go through there because it is, you know, to have to find six saxophonists or whatever is is tough. When I was younger, before Sax Appeal, I always thought that if anyone went through Tommy Chase’s band....... do you remember Tommy Chase?

 

I do, yes. I know Tommy, yes.

 

….....It was like going through the army, he had Richard Busiakiewicz, he had Enrico......

 

Alan Barnes.

 

Alan Barnes, all the great people, and I can remember Tommy came up to me, he said “Come and listen to my new player” and I had to go and listen to his latest player and he would find the most brilliant players and I don’t think he has ever had one duff one, they have all gone on to make names for themselves.

 

John Wallace, Martin Klute on bass, yes.......

 

It was all good and he was a stickler for time and for everything and it was, it was like going through the army for musicians and I thought anybody that has been in Tommy Chase’s band will be good because sometimes, I tell you, I say nowhere in the world would you get a job like this, running a Jazz club; they play for you, and then they sit down and all have a pint and they are all chatting away and then someone will go off and have a cig, go and do something or other and there’s me now trying to chase them up because they are due back on stage. Where else would you have a job like this?

 

That’s right.

 

I said “I’m not supposed to chase after you lot, you should be back there”, but they never are.

 

Mind you Tommy Chase I suppose was at his height more in the 80's wasn’t he but I didn’t know you were promoting in the 80's, I thought it was a bit later than that you started. 

 

No, no I was there in the 80's. I met Spike in '84 so I was in it before then, way before then, so no, Tommy Chase was........ I liked Tommy Chase, I had a lot of respect for him and he used to phone me up and he spent hours on the phone and I thought “What did he phone me for?”

 

Yes, he can talk alright.

 

But he was great, he was a great character and he always surrounded himself with youngsters and always found talent and he always spoke highly of his musicians. He gave them a hard time, but he was good for the music business. You need people like that. I remember Spike and I were walking through Chelmsford one night and Spike heard this sound, he heard this music, he said “My God, he’s a good player”, we went upstairs, it was in Pizza Express, and it was Matt Waites. He said “He sounds like a 'Paul Desmond' to me. That guy is brilliant” and Matt Waites reminds me of my husband a lot, so laid back. But of course he is so laid back he doesn’t push himself at all, my husband, he always wanted to work in a place like Ilarios, which was a club in San Diego, and he wanted to work in a place called Kimbles in San Francisco

 

Yes, I know Kimbles.

 

And he could never get in there. So anyway, one day I decided I was going to phone them up and see if I could get him in there so I phoned up Ilarios and they said “You are phoning from England and you are trying to book an American into here?”, they said “Right we’ll give you a date.” They were so impressed that an English person was taking the trouble to phone up America and I got him into Ilarios and into Kimbles and he played at both those places; it was an achievement. I loved people putting things in my way and saying “You can’t do this” or “Can you do this” and if somebody says “You can’t do this”, I think “Right, I am going to do it no matter what”, but I think I have been so lucky: I got to know the Lionel Hampton's and the Dizzy Gillespie's and all the great players. I personally knew them and I just think it was wonderful, I mean I used to look after Buddy Tate when he was here, drive him around and everything and the first time I went to New York Buddy said, “Right, you have done enough for me. This time I am going to take you, I am going to pick you up, I am going to take you to your hotel and I will take you back to the airport and will take you around to various places” and he did all the driving, he picked me up and took me round and it was to say “thank you” for what I had done for him over here, and that was quite nice.

 

Amazing, yes.

 

then I was at the Nice Festival and a friend of mine, who is a judge in Detroit, he was there and I was talking to him and then Lionel Hampton came up and he came and said “Are you going up to the Festival?”, I said “Yes, I am going up on the bus with the musicians”, “You are not going up on the bus with all those musicians, my God” he said, “You come with us!”. He had got his girlfriend and his manager and so I drove up to the Festival with Lionel Hampton and all the way up there he read the Bible and then at the end he said “You are going to meet us at the end and we’ll drive you back” and they had to actually pull the plug on him in the end because they couldn’t get him to stop playing because he was going on too long, and on the way back he suddenly said to the driver, “Stop the car”, and he hit all the gambling casinos on the way back. He said to the driver “Make sure you get her home safely” but it is great; I’ve got some great......... I mean Benny Carter is another wonderful person. We met him at Ilarios, well Spike knew him very well, I mean I was fortunate that Spike knew a lot of people and because of Spike I got to know a lot of people as well. He and his wife, they were lovely people, and one day we were at a festival and Benny hated his photo being taken and he went up to a friend of mine and he said, “Hey, I want my photo taken with these girls here. Quickly do it before anyone sees” and we had our photo taken with him, but he was sitting outside Ilarios because we stayed on at Ilarios one night and he came up to Spike and said “What can I play?” and Spike mentioned a tune and he said “I don’t think I know that” and Spike said “Yes you do” and Spike started to hum it and he said “Oh I remember it”. Spike said “You should do, you wrote it!” and he went on and played it that night.