© 2007-
In the 1940’s the idea of dancing to anything other than a live band would have been
laughed at. Club and Dance Hall owners needed live music to keep the punters on the
dance floors. On Saturdays, when the night spots were packed, eighteen piece Big
Bands played covers of the latest Glen Miller, Duke Ellington or Benny Goodman tunes
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Smaller bands provided music on weekdays. These were often black musicians who could be hired for less. Many of these black Americans had migrated from the rural south to the industrial northern cities to find work. Their background was the blues but the venues were large dance halls and with just a handful of players, they were still expected to make the “joint jump”. Musicians like Wynonie Harris and Big Joe Turner filled the venues with high energy, blues based, swing music, inspiring equally high energy dances like the Lindy Hop.
The most successful Jump Blues artist, Louis Jordan, was an influence on subsequent
musicians as diverse as Ray Charles, BB King, Joe Jackson and Jamaican ska bands,
and Wynonie Harris’ singing style was a strong influence on Elvis Presley. In 1953
Louis Jordan was dropped by his record company in favour of Bill Hailey and the Comets
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Jump Blues is the ancestor of everything that has follow. And if you play those scratchy recordings from the 40s or early 50s you still can’t help but tap your feet.
Grahame Poole 2007
King Size Papas came about as the result of a conversation with Chris Farnham. We were at the Wymondham Festival Jazz Picnic when the band started playing “Is You Is Or Is You Ain’t My Baby”. I made the comment to Chris that Louis Jordan was one of my all time favourite artists. “Great, let’s form a band,” Chris replied.
I was a little startled as I had never met anyone who even knew who Louis Jordan was, let alone wanted to start a band. “What, just the two of us?” I asked bemused. “No we’ll find some others” came the reply.
Louis Jordan had always been a kind of secret pleasure. I had listened to his recordings for the last twenty years, but blank looks were the invariable response from anybody I mentioned him to. Were there really hoards of other musicians listening to Louis? I expressed my doubts but Chris was undaunted. “Come round and we’ll work out what we want to play.”
We spent a drunken evening listening to both mine and Chris’ collection of 1940’s
and 1950’s Jump Blues and R&B records introducing each other to similar artists of
that period -
No further progress was made as Chris had harvest to attend to. I was still very sceptical that Norfolk was a hot bed of closet Louis Jordan fans. Then in September, Chris announced we had a guitarist. Stew could play guitar, piano and sing. We gave him our list of 84 songs and asked him to trim it down. After a week he returned with six additional songs and a tenor sax player called Kev. Rehearsals were scheduled.
Then Stew broke his ribs and another month went by. Work pressures delayed all attempts at rehearsals until November 2006.
The first rehearsal was chaotic but the sound was there. Kev’s sax honked, my trumpet squawked, Chris’ double bass rocked and Stew’s guitar backed everything with great rhythmic chords.
By the second rehearsal, Kev was so confident that he had already booked us a gig. I knew I would never be ready in time so I stepped down, allowing a more experienced trumpet player, Sam, to take my place. My work was done. Callum was the final member to join the band, adding drums to drive the music along.
King Size Papas play rocking music from the 1940s and early 1950s which is every
bit as exciting as it was sixty years ago. Go and see them live -
Grahame Poole 2007.
