The 1950s

1950s Fashion

1950s History

Rock and roll evolved in the United States in the late 1940s and early 1950s, and quickly spread to the rest of the world. Its immediate origins lay in a mixing together of various popular musical genres of the time, including rhythm and blues, gospel music, and country and western. In 1951, Cleveland, Ohio disc jockey Alan Freed began playing rhythm and blues music for a multi-racial audience, and is credited with first using the phrase "rock and roll" to describe the music. There is much debate as to what should be considered the first rock & roll record. One leading contender is "Rocket 88" by Jackie Brenston and his Delta Cats (in fact, Ike Turner and his band The Kings of Rhythm), recorded by Sam Phillips for Sun Records in 1951. Four years later, Bill Haley's "Rock Around the Clock" (1955) became the first rock and roll song to top Billboard magazine's main sales and airplay charts, and opened the door worldwide for this new wave of popular culture. Rolling Stone magazine argued in 2004 that "That's All Right (Mama)" (1954), Elvis Presley's first single for Sun Records in Memphis, was the first rock and roll record. But, at the same time, Big Joe Turner's "Shake, Rattle & Roll", later covered by Haley, was already at the top of the Billboard R&B charts. Other artists with early rock and roll hits included Chuck Berry, Bo Diddley, Fats Domino, Little Richard, Jerry Lee Lewis, and Gene Vincent. The 1950s saw the growth in popularity of the electric guitar, and the development of a specifically rock and roll style of playing through such exponents as Berry, Link Wray, and Scotty Moore. It also saw major developments in recording technology such as multitrack recording developed by Les Paul, the electronic treatment of sound by such innovators as Joe Meek, and the Wall of Sound productions of Phil Spector. All these developments were important influences on later rock music. The social effects of rock and roll were worldwide and massive. Far beyond simply a musical style, rock and roll influenced lifestyles, fashion, attitudes, and language. In addition, rock and roll may have helped the cause of the civil rights movement because both African American teens and white American teens enjoyed the music. However, by the early 1960s, much of the initial musical impetus and social radicalism of rock and roll had become dissipated, with the growth of teen idols, an emphasis on dance crazes, and the development of lightweight teenage pop music. The early 60's did see the rise of the Motown sound. From 1961 to 1971, Motown had 110 top 10 hits, and artists such as Stevie Wonder, Marvin Gaye, The Supremes, The Four Tops, and The Jackson 5, were all signed to Motown labels. All five of these Motown artists have been inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. In the United Kingdom, the trad jazz movement brought visiting blues music artists to Britain. Lonnie Donegan's 1955 hit "Rock Island Line" was a major influence, and helped to develop the trend of skiffle music groups throughout the country, including John Lennon's The Quarrymen. Britain developed a major rock and roll scene, without the race barriers which kept "race records" or rhythm and blues separate in the US. Cliff Richard had the first British rock 'n' roll hit with "Move It", effectively ushering in the sound of British rock. At the start of the 1960s, his backing group The Shadows was one of a number of groups having success with instrumentals. While rock 'n' roll was fading into lightweight pop and ballads, British rock groups at clubs and local dances, heavily influenced by blues-rock pioneers like Alexis Korner, were starting to play with an intensity and drive seldom found in white American acts. Louis Armstrong was one of America’s great musical geniuses—equally outstanding and innovative as trumpeter, singer, and entertainer. He was also the leader of fine bands and composed tunes that highlighted his talents and capabilities. Almost single-handedly he transformed jazz from a music born and nourished in African American communities into a stellar art form enjoyed, respected, and performed all over the world. Scholar and music educator David Baker has delineated the following contributions and innovations by Louis Armstrong: • He was the first great jazz soloist–improviser.He established the concept of improvisation as an integral part of a jazz solo. More than anyone else, he is responsible for jazz becoming an individual improviser’s art rather than a collective group improvisation. • He was the first jazz musician to make a continuous impact on both the United States and Europe as jazz’s first popular entertainer. • He was one of the first to popularize “scat” singing. • He extended the role of the soloist by his virtuoso style, and he pioneered a wide range of dramatic effects and devices, including the terminal vibrato. • He extended the octave range of the trumpet and expanded the instrument’s technical possibilities. • By 1950 he was America’s best-known entertainer. Louis Armstrong influenced virtually every player and singer who followed him.He established the jazz tradition of thinking in terms of vocally conceived lines, and he sang just as he played. The renewed interest in 1950s music within the rock culture of the late 1960s pre-dates, and may have helped spur, the 1950s revival that surfaced in American popular culture a few years later, exemplified by Happy Days (premiered 1974) on television, Grease (1972) on the Broadway stage, and American Graffiti (1973) in the movies.3 Although it often idealized and distorted the music and culture of the 1950s, the rock and roll revival that began in the late 1960s was nevertheless a genuine exploration of rock’s history by its creators and fans. The generation of rock musicians who came to prominence in the 1960s and early 1970s began mostly as rock and roll musicians, learning their craft by emulating the sounds they heard  on rock and roll records, before contributing to the development of rock music. For them, the rock and roll revival entailed a return to their earliest musical experiences as both listeners and players. Lennon, in particular, conveyed a strong sense that by playing rock and roll songs, he was digging down to the bedrock of his own artistic identity. On the recording of The Plastic Ono Band’s set at Toronto, Lennon introduces the group by saying ‘‘We’re just gonna do numbers that we know, you know, ’cause we’ve never played together before.’’ The implication is that rock and roll songs like ‘‘Blue Suede Shoes,’’ ‘‘Money,’’ and ‘‘Dizzy Miss Lizzie’’ are so basic to the vocabulary of rock that any randomly assembled group of rock musicians should be able to play them without rehearsal.  On his album Rock ’n’ Roll, a collection of cover versions of well-known songs from the 1950s, recorded in 1973–1974 and released in 1975, Lennon reiterates this point in explicitly autobiographical terms by associating the songs with his own youth and formation as a musician. Among the many credits listed on the album’s back cover is the statement: ‘‘Relived by: JL.’’ The front cover reproduces a photograph of Lennon in Hamburg, Germany, taken when he was 22 years old. Lennon is seen leaning against the side of an arched entryway, looking at passers-by through hooded eyes. He is dressed in the uniform associated with the British working-class subculture of rockers: black leather jacket, black jeans, and leather boots. This photograph evokes the historical moment in the very early 1960s when many British groups, including The Beatles, found work as cover bands, churning out versions of rock and roll songs in the disreputable clubs on Hamburg’s Reeperbahn. The songs John decided to cover on Rock ’n’ Roll were not just any old oldies. They represented his own personal musical history. John sang Buddy Holly’s ‘‘Peggy Sue’’ on Rock ’n’ Roll. The name ‘‘Beatles’’ had been inspired by Buddy Holly’s Crickets and ‘‘That’ll Be the Day’’ was the first song John learned to play on the guitar in 1957. He had sung many other Buddy Holly songs: ‘‘It’s So Easy’’ as Johnny and the Moondogs in his first TV appearance in 1959, and ‘‘Words of Love,’’ which the Beatles recorded in 1964 Sha Na Na also enact personae based on subcultural identities with overtones of class and, in their case, race and ethnicity, but in a spirit very different from Lennon’s. Although Sha Na Na play the music of such African-American rhythm and blues artists as the Coasters, and there was an African-American performer (Denny Greene) in the group’s original line-up, their performances revolve primarily around two stylistic reference points: the rock and roll purveyed by white southerners such as Elvis Presley and Jerry Lee Lewis, and New York doo-wop as practiced largely by working-class Italian-American singers. Although several members of Sha Na Na typically wear gold lame´ suits associated with Elvis onstage, their visual image otherwise does not correspond to that of the earlier performers they emulate. The other main costume Sha Na Na uses is a black leather jacket-jeans-and-T-shirt outfit comparable to British rocker attire but associated in the United States primarily with the greaser. (Sha Na Na emphasizes that association by referring to the ‘‘grease’’ they use to maintain 1950-style hairdos, which they comb continuously during their performances.) Neither the greaser outfit nor the gold lame´ suit has any specific relationship to the doo-wop that makes up the largest part of Sha Na Na’s repertoire, because doo-wop singers, both black and white, generally wore evening wear when performing. Unlike Lennon’s rocker image, Sha Na Na’s greaser look refers neither to the performance practices associated with the music they perform nor to the typical appearance of its audiences but, rather, to a stereotypical ‘‘Italian-Americanicity’’ that has no basis in lived experience. A very important innovation that took place in the mid 1950’s that changed the sound and feel of the drum was the advent of the synthetic drum head. All recordings made before 1957 feature the sound of drums with calfskin heads. After Remo Beli invented the plastic head, most drummers switched due to the difficulty in keeping calf in tune. On a hot, humid day, the tuning of the drum would be lower because of the moist air affecting the heads. During the winter when it was dry, the heads would become very tight forcing the player to wet the heads in order to play on them. Calf tends to respond with a slower rebound with a stick and can feel softer and less abrasive than plastic. With calf, if the temperature and humidity are just right, you can get a thud sound from the bass drum that is unrivaled. Brushes also sound great when played on calf heads. The sounds of the wire as they sweep across the head feel different than plastic. The heads, if cared for, tend to last longer too. The 1950’s also saw new developments and improvements in hardware design. In 1959, Rogers Drum Company developed a tom holder with a ball and socket design called the Swiv-O-Matic permitting a player greater flexibility when positioning mounted toms on the bass drum. The nylon tip drum stick was also invented in the late 1950’s by Joe Calato. This advance helped a player increase their stick definition producing an articulate sound on a thinner, low pitched cymbal. Like plastic drum heads, some drummers switched to nylon tip sticks while others continued using wood on calf skin heads. Buddy Rich for example loved the sound and consistency of plastic heads but preferred the sound of wood tip sticks. Mel Lewis loved calf skin heads and used them on his snare drum and bass drum but favored nylon tip sticks on his thin K Zildjian Cymbals Between the 1930s and 1950s the music of Hollywood musicals was popular culture; its stars were the idols and dreamboats of audiences; its  annerisms were the art of the people. Today, musicals can look like so much fluff and silliness. They can seem absurdly dated next to the codes of irony and cynicism that dominate contemporary movies and current pop culture. If this is so, however, the loss is ours. As out of date as some musicals may seem, there is still something wonderful in the pure joy and spectacle of movies like The Wizard of Oz (Victor Fleming, 1939), Meet Me in St. Louis (Vincente Minnelli, 1944), An American in Paris (Vincente Minnelli, 1951), or Singin’ in the Rain (Stanley Donen and Gene Kelly, 1952). In many ways, it’s good that classic Hollywood musicals aren’t made anymore. A big, bright, and unrelentingly joyful new musical would look naïve today. This said, if we stand back from our own time just long enough to re-enter the world of song and dance, spectacle and excitement, brought to life in the classic Hollywood musical, there is much pleasure to behold. Aside from the western, the musical may be the most characteristically American genre in the history of film. Other national cinemas have made  contributions to the genre, but none have rivalled Hollywood for invention, wit, and audience appeal. For many, the musical began with the coming of sound to motion pictures. The Jazz Singer (1927), the first fully synchronized sound picture, was essentially a musical masked as a dialogue picture. And yet, while it had ten songs, The Jazz Singer was not a musical in the true sense of the term. Critics may argue the point, but the first all-talking, all-singing, all-dancing, fully formed musical was MGM’s The Broadway Melody (1929), a film which also established the “backstage” musical, the kind of movie where the lives and loves of stage performers provide the perfect pretext for having actors launch into production numbers. That MGM would produce the first musical is appropriate given that the studio was responsible for producing some of the most accomplished and successful pictures in the history of the genre In the latter half of the 1950s, concerns that Australia’s teenagers, and especially working-class teenagers, were becoming delinquent reached a crescendo. Law-abiding citizens observed with concern bodgies and widgies congregating in milk bars and on street corners. Violence and sexual license were their hallmarks, they believed, with alarmist and sensationalist media reports having established and fuelled these understandings. Without recourse to reliable statistics, many people embraced the opinion that a substantial proportion of the country’s teenagers were uncontrollable. Some advocated punishments such as sending ‘bodgies to the Nullarbor to work on a rail gang’ (Perth Daily News, 7 October, 1957), sending them ‘to sea under a tough [navy] skipper’ (Perth Daily News, 16 November, 1957) and inflicting harsh corporal punishment upon them. Others, however, were more concerned about the adoption of preventative measures. Parental alcohol consumption and gambling, lack of discipline, high wages and youthful access to unsuitable comics, horror picture shows, and after 1956, rock and roll music were among the factors that generated delinquency, they suggested. Their views, popularized by sensational press reports, contributed to a ‘moral panic’ throughout the Australian community. Australian newspaper editors have consistently promoted juvenile delinquency as a subject of concern. In the mid and late 1950s however, this concern reached a fever-pitch of irrationality. In 1954 New York psychiatrist Fredric Wertham identified horror comics as an undesirable influence upon the social adjustment of youth. His book, Seduction of the Innocent was widely read. Like many of the ‘so-called’ causes of juvenile delinquency, the concern was not entirely without foundation. As Mark Finnane related, in Australia, ‘at their worst, comics were pornographic, displayed excessive violence against women and ‘coloured races’ and interfered with the healthy psychosexual development of their readers’. (Finnane, 1998: 49-53). By 1955, all states except Western Australia had passed laws that effectively limited the availability of comics with an ‘undue emphasis on sex, violence, horror or crime’, (Openshaw and Shuker, 1987: 9-10; Brown,1995:189) however in the years following, concerned adults believed that many of the non-offending comics that children bought encouraged juvenile delinquency. During the early 1950s, the popularity of rhythm and blues music spread. It became very popular among young white people. They listened to this music on radio stations that broadcast across the country late at night. Some teenagers began buying rhythm and blues records as a form of rebellion. This music was very different from the music that was popular with most of their parents. The music was exciting, and it had a very strong rhythm and beat. Some of the songs had words which suggested sexual themes. In other cases, the singers made sexually suggestive gestures or movements while they were singing. Some adults strongly objected to rhythm and blues music. They did not think young people should listen to it. Alan Freed had a radio show in Cleveland, Ohio in the early 1950s. He is said to be the first person to use the expression "rock and roll" to describe rhythm and blues music. Alan Freed was one of the first to play rock and roll music on his radio show, and he organized the first rock and roll concert in Cleveland in 1952. Songs by black performers like Fats Domino and Little Richard soon became popular with teenagers. These singers recorded their records in the southern city of New Orleans, Louisiana. Some early rock and roll music was created in the southern United States city of Memphis, Tennessee. In Memphis, a white record producer called Sam Phillips produced records by local black musicians. One day, an eighteen-year-old truck driver came to his studio to record a song for his mother. The young man was Elvis Presley. Phillips produced Presley's first real record in 1954, a song called "That's All Right." Bill Haley and his Comets recorded "Rock Around the Clock" in 1954. It was not popular at first. Then it was used in a movie about rebellious teenagers, called "The Blackboard Jungle". The movie caused a lot of debate on the origin of rock and roll. It also made the song a huge hit. "Rock Around the Clock" became a song of teenage rebellion. The song was recorded in April, Elvis' that's all right was recorded in July. However, Cecil's Gant's 'We're Gonna Rock' recorded in mid 1950 is a song that many people have forgotten that was an early influence on rock n roll. Its lyrics and music were like those that would be in later songs. The drums and bass guitar would be similar to rock and roll songs that would be made later. Many other rock and roll singers became popular in the 1950s. They included Buddy Holly, Jerry Lee Lewis, Chuck Berry and Bo Diddley. Each performer created his own kind of rock and roll. Chuck Berry's music was a mixture of country and rhythm and blues. In 1955, his song "Maybellene" was one of the most popular songs in the country. Before Bill Haley, Hank Williams Sr recorded "Move It On Over" in 1947, however similar version of the song was recorded by blues artist Jim Jackson called "Kansas City Blues". The melody is similar to both "Move It On" and "Rock Around Clock", but latter has different tonal subtleties, chords key progressions. “For some of us, it began late at night: huddled under bedroom covers with our ears glued to a radio pulling in black voices charged with intense emotion and propelled by a wildly kinetic rhythm through the after-midnight static. Growing up in the white-bread America of the Fifties, we had never heard anything like it, but we reacted, or remember reacting, instantaneously and were converted. We were believers before we knew what it was that had so spectacularly ripped the dull, familiar fabric of our lives. We asked our friends, maybe an older brother or sister. We found out that they called it rock & roll. It was so much more vital and alive than any music we had ever heard before that it needed a new category: Rock & roll was much more than new music for us. It was an obsession and a way of life.” Robert Palmer “Rock and roll is the most brutal, ugly desperate, vicious form of expression it has been my misfortune to hear. it is written and sung for the most part by cretinous goons [and] by means of its imbecilic reiterations and sly – lewd – in fact plain dirty – lyrics … it manages to be the martial music for every sideburned delinquent on the face of the earth.” Frank Sinatra “It used to be called boogie-woogie, it used to be called blues, used to be called rhythm and blues … It’s called rock now.” Chuck Berry “Rock ‘n’ roll, man, it changed my life. It was like the Voice of America, the real America, coming to your home.” Bruce Springsteen It’s only rock ‘n’ roll but I like it – so the song goes. But is it only rock ‘n’ roll? Clearly rock music has been a continuing thread in the fabric of post-World War II American culture. Rock ‘n’ roll has not merely mirrored the enormous social and cultural upheavals of the mid- to late-20th century, it has shaped them as well. “Race music” – the music that shocked many white Americans in the ‘50s – yielded to provocative sounds that provided the musical soundtrack for “the sixties,” fueling the civil rights, anti-war, and other social protest movements of the turbulent era. Wilson, Keppel and Betty? It is a complicated story, and like many of the tales of the stars of music hall and variety, shrouded in contradictions and myth, but I think I have untangled a basic story. Jack Wilson was born in Liverpool on January 29th, 1894. At a young age he emigrated to the United States where he made his stage debut as a high kicking dancer in 1909 in Bristol, Connecticut, before he journeyed to Australia and joined Colleano’s Circus. He served in the Royal Navy during the First World War. Joe Keppel was a year younger, and was born on May 10th 1895 in County Cork, Ireland. As with Wilson, he emigrated to the United States at an early age, and made his stage debut in 1910 as a tap dancer with the Van Arnheim Minstrels in Albany. During the First World War he was with the RAF. How the duo met is uncertain, and it may have been in Australia before the war, but what is certain is that they teamed up with Colleano’s Circus in Australia after being demobbed, and that they then travelled to the United States via Japan before launching their full stage career together in New York in March 1919, as a comedy acrobatic and tap dancing act. In Wilson’s words, they were ‘“hoofers” of the “Wooden Shoe” era, playing everything from a medicine show to curtain raiser to Jewish drama’. Through hard work, diligence and skill they eventually made their way up the theatrical ladder to ‘big time Vaudeville’ in the late 1920s. In 1928 they teamed up with a dancer from Kansas. Her name was Betty Knox, and she had formerly been a stage partner of Jack Benny. They first appeared as a trio in Des Moines, Iowa, and began to develop what was to become their famous ‘Cleopatra’s Nightmare’ sand dance routine, using Luigini’s celebrated ‘Ballet Egyptien’ ballet music, originally arranged for them by Hoagy Carmichael. They used the band parts for three decades. Quite how and why they came up with such an act we do not know, but there was a tradition of sand dancing in the music halls, and the discovery of Tutankhamen’s tomb in 1922 had created a fashionable interest in all things Egyptian. They played at America’s top vaudeville venue, the Palace New York, in May 1932, where they were spotted by Harry Foster, who booked them for four weeks at the London Palladium, where they first appeared on August 2nd 1932, third top act to Layton & Johnstone and Roy Fox and His Band. They were a sensation, British audiences instantly recognising the unique comedy of their po-faces, the mixture of elegance and  stylee in their dancing, and the slightly risqué routines. So popular were they that they decided to settle in England, and became an established feature of British variety shows for three decades. They were chosen for the Royal Variety Performance in 1934, and were to be invited back again in 1945 and 1947. 1950s hits .... .A-Razz-A-Ma-Tazz" - Georgia Gibbs • "All My Love (Bolero)" - Patti Page • "Are You Lonesome Tonight?" - Al Jolson • "Ballin' The Jack", recorded by o Georgia Gibbs o Danny Kaye • "Be My Love" - Mario Lanza • "Bewitched" - Doris Day • "Black Lace" - Frankie Laine • "Boo-Hoo" - Guy Lombardo • "A Bushel And A Peck" - Perry Como & Betty Hutton • "Can Anyone Explain? (No, No, No!)" - The Ames Brothers • "Chattanoogie Shoe Shine Boy" - Red Foley • "Cry Of The Wild Goose" - Frankie Laine • "Daddy's Little Girl" - The Mills Brothers • "Dear, Dear, Dear" - Frankie Laine • "Dream a Little Dream of Me" - Frankie Laine • "A Dreamer's Holiday" – Buddy Clark • "Enjoy Yourself" - Guy Lombardo (Kenny Gardner) • "Goodnight, Irene" - The Weavers sell four million copies • "Harbor Lights" - Sammy Kaye • "Here Comes Santa Claus" - Andrews Sisters • "L'Hymne à L'Amour (Hymn To Love)" - Édith Piaf • "I Can Dream, Can't I?" – The Andrews Sisters • "I Love You For That" - Patti Page & Frankie Laine • "I Wanna Be Loved" - The Andrews Sisters • "If I Knew You Were Comin' I'd've Baked a Cake" - Eileen Barton • "I'm Movin' On" - Hank Snow • "It Isn't Fair" - Sammy Kaye (Don Cornell vocal) • "Let's Go West Again" - Al Jolson • "A Man Gets Awfully Lonesome" - Frankie Laine • "Mona Lisa" - Nat King Cole • "Music, Maestro, Please" - Frankie Laine • "Music! Music! Music!" – Teresa Brewer • "My Foolish Heart, recorded by o Billy Eckstine o Gordon Jenkins During a period of about ten years between the tail end of the 1960s and that of the 1970s, youth culture had been hit by a wave of nostalgia. From the Beatles with their faux-Victorian  bandleader costumes on the cover of the Sgt Pepper LP, to the 1930s stylings of groups like Fox and Sailor, to the fifties pastichery and revival, which can be seen in rock groups as diverse as Roxy Music and Mud. The revival of interest in the 1950s was particularly interesting, as not only was it the only one that revived a period of youth culture, but it also ushered in a (mostly brief) revival in the careers of many fifties stars. This period also brought about the return of the Teddy Boys in the UK, who had been a peculiarly British cult, although other countries had similarly rebellious youth cults, such as Les Blousons Noirs in France. The cult of the Teddy Boy had actually preceeded Rock’n’Roll in Britain by several years, and had started when a Saville Row tailor had decided to do a line in ‘Edwardian’ style suits for young, well-heeled gentlemen. The style was, however, hijacked by young working class men instead, which, like many cults since, had the blame for many of society’s ills laid squarely at its feet. The cult of the Teddy boy had all but died out at the turn of the sixties, being replaced by the Rocker, ostensibly a less image conscious version, but with the same hoodlum qualities, perceived or otherwise. By this time, Rock’n’Roll music was in decline, with many of its artists unable or unwilling to produce material due to all sorts of factors-from the religious conversion of Little Richard and the blackballing of Jerry Lee Lewis due to his child bride (who was also his cousin), to the tragic deaths of many of the leading figures, principally Buddy Holly and Eddie Cochran among other lesser names. By 1960, rock and roll was a pale shadow of itself, with such lightweight idols such as Fabian and Pat Boone hitting it big. And by 1963, the Beatles and their antecedents were seen as confirmation that the old wave of Rock’n’roll was all but dead, despite the fact that many of these acts were heavily influenced by the fifties groups. Music has always been a significant part of history, including local history. Recent media coverage of the 50th Anniversary of Buddy Holly’s untimely death in an airplane crash in 1959 has certainly brought back vivid memories of that era for many of us. The various musical groups, the individual performers, the songs all tend to stir up thoughts and recollections of the past. The memories music might invoke could include friends from the past, our family and childhood, clothing styles, major events, and more of what took place at that time in history, including in our personal lives. Poodle skirts, pony tails, slicked back hair, and black leather jackets were all part of the fun spirit of the fifties music of Buddy Holly and Elvis Presley. By the late 1950’s Rock & Roll began to fizzle out in America. This was due primarily to a congressional committee review of the payola scandal that swept the nation at that time. But in spite of its many detractors here in the United States, Rock & Roll began to thrive in Great Britain. Born from the ashes of this early form of American Rock & Roll of the 1950’s came a new music, a music that soon became known as the “British Invasion.” Dozens of British music groups exploded on the American musical landscape. Paul McCartney, one of the Beatles, was the driving force behind this resurgence. The Beatles appearance on the Ed Sullivan Show in February of 1964 changed the American youth culture forever. For Ronnie Scott and Pete King, the dream finally came true on Friday October 30th, 1959. That was the day they opened their jazz club in basement premises at 39 Gerrard Street, in London's Soho. The dream had started taking shape some 12 years earlier when Ronnie, then 20, a highly promising tenor saxophonist, blew his savings on a trip to New York to see for himself what the jazz scene there was all about. For a young jazzman from London, particularly in those early post-war years, it was like reaching Mecca. Because of Musicians' Union restrictions, British jazz addicts in the late 1940s and 1950s had virtually no chance of hearing American jazzmen in person. And to hear them even on record meant paying out vast sums for imported 78 rpm performances of Dizzy Gillespie, Charlie Parker and the others. For Ronnie Scott, it was "a fantastic experience." He'd never really heard an American group as such in a proper club atmosphere. The nearest experience had been some informal London sessions featuring musicians from the Glenn Miller and Sam Donahue bands during the later war years. Scott took in most of the New York clubs during his two-week stay. When it was finally time to return to London, the seeds of ambition were well and truly sown within his mind. He was high on American music and basked in the tremendous impression that the Three Deuces and the other clubs had made on him. There were other trips across the Atlantic, with the inevitable visits to the local jazz clubs. There was one especially memorable night when Ronnie Scott heard the great Charlie Parker Quintet with Miles Davis at the Three Deuces. Playing next door was the Dizzy Gillespie Big Band and, late into the night, Davis sat in and blew with Gillespie. The atmosphere was electric and Ronnie Scott carried on dreaming his dreams of setting up a similar kind of club in London. Scott hit his 32nd birthday early in 1959 and he and fellow tenor saxophonist and personal friend, Pete King, started looking round for suitable premises to establish a club and came up with 39 Gerrard Street, Soho. For a while it had been used as a kind of rest room for taxi drivers, and had occasionally, as a tea-bar, also been a haunt for local musicians. To begin with, the plan was simply to provide a place where British jazz musicians could jam. A loan of £1,000 from Ronnie Scott's stepfather helped Scott and King meet the immediate commitments once the lease was signed. They took out a small advertisement in Melody Maker to announce the grand opening performance: "Tubby Hayes Quartet; the trio with Eddie Thompson, Stan Roberts, Spike Heatley. A young alto saxophonist, Peter King, and an old tenor saxophonist, Ronnie Scott. The first appearance in a jazz club since the relief of Mafeking by Jack Parnell". The long-time Scott policy of mixing jazz ideals with light comedy relief was already showing through   In the summer of 1965 Scott and King found the ideal place, at 47 Frith Street, only a short walk from the "old place". Where £1,000 had covered the bulk of the expense of setting up the original premises, they were now faced with having to find around £35.000 to convert and decorate the new hall.. Then some of the light went out of British Jazz on December 23rd 1996. Ronnie Scott at age 69 unexpectedly died. A long-time heavy smoker, Scott suffered from considerable ill health during his last two years. A thrombosis and two operations on his legs, before he suffered teeth problems. For a saxophone player teeth troubles can be a disaster. He was advised to have teeth implants, a painful and time-consuming course of treatment, which if successful can be very effective. Scott expected to be out of action for about a year but there were unforeseen complications, which extended the time he was unable to blow and practice. The final straw was when they came to put the top teeth in and the bone structure wasn't large enough to take them. He started to drink Brandy coupled with the ultra strong sleeping tablets prescribed by his dentist, although most of his life he had been teetotal. This dangerous combination was eventually to cause his untimely death. Despite the speculation in the press at the time, due to the fact that Ronnie did sometimes suffer from depression, the coroner's verdict was Death by misadventure