Jazzing up the archives: introducing John Berry
Posted on by Fay Whitfield.
By Mary Milton, Rights Clearance and Cataloguing Mentor, Sounds of the South West Project
Sounds of the South West (SotSW) is a National Lottery Heritage funded project, run by Archives South West at Bristol Archives. The project is digitising, cataloguing and clearing rights for thousands of archive audio recordings, to preserve them for the future.
At the end of our development year, the project has digitised around 1,000 recordings from all over the region. Some of my favourite items so far are the interviews conducted by jazz musician and academic John Berry as part of his PhD between 1988 to 2000. Some of this research was later published in a book, Gigging, Busking and Bending the Dots: How people learn to be Jazz musicians.
John Berry – photo Bristol Culture
John deposited the recordings at Bristol archives in 2016. They include interviews with jazz musicians who were popular at the time and some up-and-coming names.
John wanted to find out more about how musicians learn to play jazz. His gentle interviewing style provides a record of the Bristol jazz scene over many decades. Some of the interviewees were experienced musicians who learned in the 1930s and played in bands during World War II. Several played for the Entertainments National Service Association (ENSA), a group formed to entertain service personnel.
Sidney Sager – image by kind permission of Dan Sager
Between them they present a colourful picture of being a musician and the jazz scene during the twentieth century.
The majority of interviews are with musicians who spent much of their careers in Bristol, playing in the local clubs and pubs. Some began their musicianship in Bristol and went on to other things. One of the many gems of the collection is a short interview with Sidney Sager, a trombonist, composer and conductor who led the BBC West of England Light Orchestra in the 1950s. He is best known for his work as a television composer which included the chilling title music to the 1977 children’s drama ‘Children of the Stones’. In his interview Sidney recounts playing in a band with Acker Bilk:
From Bristol Archives 4567/3/18, the audio in this clip has been enhanced for charity © John Berry & estate of Sidney Sager.
The collection also includes an account from Jeff Smith describes the punishment he received for playing a jazz record at school in 1938. Attitudes changed in 1966, when the school introduced a jazz society.
All the recordings from the collection are available to listen to in the search room at Bristol Archives. We want to make the audio clips accessible online too but need to locate all the people from the recordings.
This short clip is from a recording that has been difficult to gather information about.
We know this is a saxophone player called Annie who was playing in Bristol during the late 1980s, but we don’t know her full name. She’s the only woman interviewed in the collection so we would love to contact her. If you know who this woman is, please get in touch by emailing: [email protected]
We would also me interested in hearing from the following musicians, or their relatives: Jack Fear (Saxes), Jeff Smith (drummer, clip above), Eddie Jackman (saxes), Frank Evans (Guitar), Jack Aston (Saxes), Alan Hurley (Keyboards), Dave Salt (Saxes), Arthur Parkman (Piano), Ronald Caines (Saxes) and Mike Cooper (Trombone).
About The National Lottery Heritage Fund
Using money raised by National Lottery players, The National Lottery Heritage Fund supports projects that connect people and communities with the UK’s heritage. Sounds of the South West is made possible with The National Lottery Heritage Fund. Thanks to National Lottery players, we have been able to support this creative project to preserve and create new access to our shared audio heritage
5 comments on “Jazzing up the archives: introducing John Berry”
Frank Evans died on 6 February 2007. I went to his funeral at Canford. There is a FB page in his memory: https://www.facebook.com/p/Frank-Evans-Jazz-Guitarist-Memory-Page-and-Music-100080080398853/. If you want copyright clearance, I would think his son Colin would be the person to go to.
Hi Jenny,
Thank you for taking the time to leave this really useful comment. We will follow up on the information you have provided.
Mike Cooper died a few years ago. He was a big character -physically huge and also someone you would not forget. You might find some of your answers, and more information, in Dave Hibberd’s book, ‘My Kind of Town”. Have you contacted the Bristol Jazz Society? One of our longstanding old jazzers is Henry Davies, who still plays occasionally at the Chelsea Inn in Easton on a Tuesday night. You should also contact Andy Leggett who still plays regularly at The Old Duke.
I have quite a few old recordings made at The Old Duke, and by musicians who played there regularly.
Maureen Armstrong.
Hi Maureen,
Thank you very much for taking the time to comment and for sharing such helpful information.
We’ve already spoken to some of the people you mentioned, but not all of them. We’d really appreciate it if you could contact us at [email protected], mentioning the project in your email, so we can follow up.
Hi, my name is Gaynor Lawrence and I am the daughter of Alan Hurley, pianist, who sadly passed away back in 2000.