Jazz at the Colherne ( and start of Carnival )

[brixtonscot]

Some info on jazz/calypso/steel pan sessions on Sunday afternoons at Colherne pub in Earls Court , and beginnings of Notting Hill Carnival.
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In 1966 the community worker Rhaune Laslett invited Henderson to bring a three-piece steel band to play for the first Notting Hill fayre and pageant, an event she had organised in conjunction with the London Free School and the photographer, writer and activist John “Hoppy” Hopkins. The small steel band arrived at Portobello Green accompanied by a crowd of regulars from the Coleherne pub, and after having played for some time in a standing position, Henderson suggested everyone should embark on a road march. The procession, joined by the public, was repeated the following day, and became the first manifestation of what has since grown into an international event attended by more than one million revellers each year.
Russ Henderson obituary

 

[brixtonscot]

1960s Indoors Carnival
After Claudia Jones’s death, Victor Crichlow (brother of Frank, of El Rio and Mangrove fame), Scrubbs and Bynoe took up from where she left off with steel band dances, at such venues as the Lyceum on the Strand and Porchester Halls in Bayswater. There was even ‘a tentative alliance with the gay movement’, as Darcus Howe put it, at the Coleherne pub in Earl’s Court where Russell Henderson, Sterling Betancourt, Vernon Fellows and Nickidee played lunchtime jazz sets.
Talking Pictures

 

[brixtonscot]

21.00 BBC 2 Feb 3 1973
Full House
Going to Sunday School
A filmed visit to 'The Coleherne' - a pub in Earls Court which every Sunday lunchtime turns Caribbean. West Indians from all over London come to meet socially and listen to the Kaiso (Calypso) music of Russell Henderson and his band and other musicians who drop in
https://genome.ch.bbc.co.uk/bcd361e060214bffba3faf3efbc11a95

 

[brixtonscot]

Coleherne Jazz and Keskidee Blues (1972) - Horace Ove​

Coleherne Jazz and Keskidee Blues (1972)​

 

[brixtonscot]

The following is from Mama Said There’d Be Days Like This by Val Wilmer
Does anybody remember these music sessions at the Colherne in Earls Court ?
- Publishers and the like who enjoyed having a few Black faces along, and sometimes we went to 'blues' (Westindian houseparties) in the Grove. I got into the habit of staying overnight at their flat. Next morning we'd go to The Coleherne in Earls Court, now better known as a male 'leather' pub, but for a brief period on Sundays the rhythmic hub of the new breed of libertarian swingers who cut boldly across barriers of class, race and sexual orientation.

Trinidadian Russ Henderson played piano there accompanied by drummer Stirling Betancourt and bassist Clyde Davis. The rest was open house; anyone who could play was welcome. The hard core of percussionists trundling their conga drums into the back room had to make sure to arrive early because it rapidly became impossible to push through the crowd. The musicians who jammed occasionally included respected names such as saxophonist Joe Harriot , trumpeter Shake Keane, and trombonist Eric Allandale, later with the Foundations, but at this time leading his own Trad band the Jazz Knights, an unusual choice of situation for a Black player.

As the tempo hotted up, the audience would seize bottles and play on them with openers, keys or whatever came to hand. The crowd was dominated by the legendary George, a tall man who always wore a hat and a red carnation in his buttonhole and before whom all gave way in respect. Dancing was not permitted but when the band broke into the home-stretch with their polyrhythmic version of 'Peanut Vendor', wild horses could not have kept those people still.

Even in the early 1960s, The Coleherne was a predominantly gay pub, its main bars filled with leather menace. A good deal of beer was drunk in those days and although a lot of sexual hustling went on, it lesbians and gay men would make their way. It was a good place for never got really oppressive in the back room where a number of people to socialise who were unsure of how to define their sexuality, for an anything goes' attitude was part of The Coleherne's attraction.

Roland and I discussed our ambivalent sexuality. I told him I was often attracted to women but didn't know how to go about things. later, talked about 'butch' and 'femme' - the role-playing that was then He told me about 'butch' and 'bitch' - male terms; lesbians, I learned de rigueur in gay and lesbian circles. I had experimented a couple of times, as many women had, but now 'lesbian' seemed like a label, and labels had serious implications. Everything I had read or seen about homosexuality - the Dirk Bogarde film Victim, books like The Well of Loneliness and Against the Law, journalist Peter Wildeblood's story of his trial and imprisonment - was negative.

 

[brixtonscot]

Val Wilmer talks about the Colherne at end of this radio interview with Robert Elms https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/p060x54f...

 

[brixtonscot]

Calypso at the Coleherne :
It was the best jam session of the '60s- and it lasted for 25 years.
Val Wilmer revisits the cruising haunt that doubled as London's calypso capital.

GEORGE WAS THE MAN, BIG GEORGE Patterson. When he made his appearance, with a red carnation to show off his tailoring, you could almost set your watch by him. At the Coleherne in Earl's Court on Sundays, the sight of Big George, cigar and grin in place as he made his way across the room to the conga drummers massed around Russ Henderson's piano, was a sign that the lunchtime proceedings were reaching an end.
k
When Henderson got the lunchtime gig in 1962 he stayed for 25 years. Henderson-Schol' to his peers-led a top trio in Trinidad before moving to Britain. He night clubs and parties for debs, cut calypsos with Lord Kitchener, and doubled on steel drum.
At the Coleherne he played jazzy piano, accompanied by double-bass or Clyde Davies's electric version, with Sterling Bettancourt on timbales. The rest was open house; anyone who could play was welcome. As a few hardy souls grabbed an early table, the even harder core of percussionists arrived. A self-satisfied, smug bunch of men, there was 'Sexy', with his lazy eyes and lazier beat, and Bobby Stignac and a group of their acolytes who were occasionally permitted to take over the skins.

The Coleherne cut across barriers of race, class and sexual orientation.
Sessions there provided the ideal antidote for a heavy Saturday night, and there was always the Troubadour next door to go on to after last orders. It was there I once saw a rather pale Eric Burdon propping up a wall, and Mick Jagger and other rockers visited.
The Caribbean regulars made room for English and Indian musicians as well as the occasional Jamaican star, such as reclusive saxophonist Joe Harriott, Eric Allandale, the Dominica-born trombonist later to lead The Foundations but then fronting a trad band, was a regular, and sometimes Shake Keane, the lyrical trumpeter from St Vincent, would play with a liquorice-paper roll-up jammed between his fingers.
CA, Jeremy Fletcher/Redfems, Popperfoto, Pictorial, Hulton Getty
Exhilaration and regret combined in that moment - with some relief for those weary drinkers unable to move in the tightly-packed location of West London's most legendary jam.
It seems amazing now that these sessions took place between noon and 2pm on a Sunday, while church-goers were still wending their way home.

And at the Coleherne of all places, those people still. famous then as now as a centre for gay leather cruising. But the pub had a jazz history too
As the clock ticked around, calypso reasserted itself and a sense of relief swept the room. Now the beer bottles started up, beaten with keys or whatever came to hand, the air dense with rhythm. Then it was George's time. This was a man with dance on his mind. Not that dancing was allowed. As George reached his spot, only his outstretched arms and a slight sway indicated his feet were moving. The band always ended with a Caribbean-carnivalised 'Peanut Vendor' that had the room in uproar.
Dancing banned ?
Nothing could have kept those people still

 

[friendofdorothy]

Fascinating stuff. Sorry I didn't see this thread earlier.

The overlap between black and queer culture has rarely been explored , no doubt because of racism in the white gay community and homophobia in black communities it remained unspoken and hidden.

When I speak to young black lgbtqi+ people they are hungry to hear of these stories.

 

[brixtonscot]

This is from interview with Ted Brown -
“ One of the very first GLF marches,” says Brown, “was held in Notting Hill Gate, and run by people from the Mangrove”
– the Caribbean restaurant on All Saints Road“
Ted Brown: the man who held a mass kiss-in and made history

 

[brixtonscot]

Coleherne Jazz and Keskidee Blues (1972) - Horace Ove​

Coleherne Jazz and Keskidee Blues (1972)​

Does anybody have any ideas how to see this film ?

 

[Lurdan]

Does anybody have any ideas how to see this film ?

It was made for the BBC as a short film and shown as part of an episode of 'Full House' in February 1973. "Coleherne Jazz and Keskidee Blues" is presumably Ové's title. The BBC listing called it "Going to Sunday School". That episode of Full House was repeated at least once in the 1980s. It was shown under the "Coleherne Jazz" title at an event in 2018 but that's the only listing I can find. It doesn't seem to be circulating in the parts of the online 'sharing community' accessible to me.

The BFI don't hold a copy of the film but they DO have a VHS of that edition of Full House. Listing page is here and it says " Viewing - Videotape can be requested for access". You'd need to contact them about that. No idea what using the Mediatheque service is like now.

 

[brixtonscot]

It was made for the BBC as a short film and shown as part of an episode of 'Full House' in February 1973. "Coleherne Jazz and Keskidee Blues" is presumably Ové's title. The BBC listing called it "Going to Sunday School". That episode of Full House was repeated at least once in the 1980s. It was shown under the "Coleherne Jazz" title at an event in 2018 but that's the only listing I can find. It doesn't seem to be circulating in the parts of the online 'sharing community' accessible to me.

The BFI don't hold a copy of the film but they DO have a VHS of that edition of Full House. Listing page is here and it says " Viewing - Videotape can be requested for access". You'd need to contact them about that. No idea what using the Mediatheque service is like now.

Thanks Lurdan