Original art by Steve Hardstaff
Eric's Club in Mathew St, Liverpool, is looked back on fondly as a punk and new wave club where a New Merseybeat was born in the late 70s. But when Eric's opened in October 1976 punk was still just a gleam in the eye of a bunch of chancers in the capital. Sure the Ramones album had come out in April '76, the Sex Pistols had played in Manchester in June and the Ramones played the Roundhouse on Independence Day but few outside the capital had even heard a punk group. When Eric's opened there were no punk singles, nor any punk John Peel sessions.
Through the rose tinted x-ray spex of hindsight the first run of Eric's gigs looks like a statement of intent - the Stranglers, the Runaways and Sex Pistols on successive Friday nights through October. If you look a bit more closely you might be unkind and say that the Stranglers were an old pub rock band jumping on a bandwagon, the Runaways weren't a punk group at all and, on the night they played Eric's, the Sex Pistols weren't very good.
The next few Fridays saw leading pub rock bands like Count Bishops, Racing Cars, Roogalator and the Flamin' Groovies play. The truth is that Eric's had a ridiculously broad booking policy, all part of Roger Eagle's plan to educate the musical youth of Liverpool.
For the first three months (October - December 1976) all the gigs were on Friday nights; in January 1977 they increased to Fridays and Saturdays. As well as New York punks like Johnny Thunder's Heartbreakers, Cherry Vanilla and Wayne County, and a smattering of bands coming up from London like the Damned and the Vibrators, there was more pub rock - Plummet Airlines, Rockpile and Darts - and old folkies like Bert Jansch and John Martyn.
So that's a bit of background on the early months of Eric's. It wasn't until May 5th 1977 that punk really hit Liverpool, to use Pete Wylie's phrase, galvanising the city into action. That may be a bit of an exaggeration for the 99.9% of the city that wasn't in a cellar in Mathew St the night the Clash played, but it was the start of something.
The following night Wayne County & the Electric Chairs played, the night after it was the turn of Johnny Thunders & the Heartbreakers. Before the month was out the Stranglers, Siouxsie & the Banshees, Ramones, Talking Heads, Generation X, the Damned and the Adverts had all appeared on Eric's 18 inch high stage. Not to mention Alberto Y Los Trios Paranoias and Bert Jansch.
In amongst these gigs were some not mentioned on the Eric's flyers. Although Roger Eagle's championing of reggae and dub is well known, a series of a dozen Jazz concerts during April, May and June 1977, followed by 3 months of weekly jazz jam sessions is much less commented on.
This is surprising when you consider the calibre of artists that Eagle was able to entice to that grotty little cellar, including Bud Freeman and Benny Carter. For 12 weeks during 1977, during the height of Punk, Eric's was Liverpool's pre-eminent Jazz Club. Wednesday night was jazz night, hipsters, tipsters and fingerpoppin’ flipsters.
JAZZ AT ERIC'S
April 13 Chris McGregor
April 20 Henry Cow
April 27 John Steven's Away
May 4 Bud Freeman
May 11 Johnny Griffin
May 18 Zbigniev
May 25 Red Brass
June 1 Barbra Thompson's Paraphanalia
June 8 Elton Dean
June 15 Harry Miller's Isipingo
June 22 Bobby Bradford Quartet
June 29 Benny Carter
July 6 Liverpool Jam
July 20 Liverpool Jam
July 27 Liverpool Jam
August 4 Liverpool Jam
August 6 Stanley Clarke (Saturday)
August 11 Liverpool Jam
August 18 Liverpool Jam
August 25 Liverpool Jam
September 1 Liverpool Jam
September 8 Pacific Eardrum
September 15 Liverpool Jam
September 21 Liverpool Jam
September 28 Liverpool Jam
November 2 Liverpool Jam
November 9 -no more Jam-
November 16 Colosseum
1978
Sunday January 15 Gary Boyle
1980 (Monday evenings)
February 4 Inside Out
February 11 Inside Out
February 18 Inside Out live recording
February 25 tba
March 10 Jazz Fusion
March 14 Eric's closed
March 24th Pyramid (scheduled)
February 11 Inside Out
February 18 Inside Out live recording
February 25 tba
March 10 Jazz Fusion
March 14 Eric's closed
March 24th Pyramid (scheduled)
[biographies from Wikipedia and artist's websites]
The Blue Notes were a South African jazz sextet, whose definitive line-up featured Chris McGregor on piano, Mongezi Feza on trumpet, Dudu Pukwana on alto saxophone, Nikele Moyake on tenor saxophone, Johnny Dyani on bass, and Louis Moholo-Moholo on drums. After moving away from their home country in 1964, they established themselves on the European jazz circuit, where they continued to play and record through the 1970s. They are now considered one of the great free jazz bands of their era, whose music was given a unique flavour by their integration of African styles such as Kwela into the progressive jazz ideas of the time.
Tony Haynes, of Red Brass: I was a jazz pianist, made part of my living out of playing it. But I was a theatre musician, providing live music for theatrical productions from the late 1960s on: I was MD at Nottingham Playhouse, and worked at the two Leicester theatres, Liverpool Everyman. I worked with John Arden’s plays, with the 7:84 company for a while [political theatre] writing original scores. When we formed Belts ‘n’ Braces it was as an independent, cross media company, which went three ways after a while. One of these was Red Brass, in the 1970s, a political musical project.
Wednesday 29 June 1977
Wednesday 6 July - 2 November 1977
And that was it for regular jazz bookings, but Roger didn't give up. The following week, until November, he instigated the weekly Liverpool Jam for local jazz musicians and guests - a chance for local musicians to meet and drink. There were a few more touring jazz artists including Stanley Clarke and a couple of the Jam evenings were given over to bands - Pacific Eardrum and Colosseum.
In 1971 he was briefly with a group called Caparius before he joined Matching Mole, where he remained until 1972. In March 1973 he recorded for the Labyrinth album with Ian Carr's group Nucleus. Concurrently he played in Elton Dean's band Just Us. He played in WMWM and Giles Farnaby's Dream Band in 1973 and did session work for Back Door in 1974, but left Nucleus around this time to concentrate on his own project called Pacific Eardrum, which he led with his wife Joy Yates until 1979. He continued working with Canterbury musicians such as Robert Wyatt, Mike Gibbs, and Richard Sinclair through the 1970s.
1978
Sunday 15 January Gary Boyle
1980 (Monday evenings)
Wednesday 13 April 1977
Chris McGregor's Blue Notes+ Kenny Shaw+ Will Gaines
On 21 September 2007, President Thabo Mbeki gave official recognition to the contribution of the Blue Notes to South African music by awarding the group the national Order of Ikhamanga in Silver. The citation for the award stated, in part: "Blue Notes goes back to a golden age in South Africa's musical history. The multiracial band's eclectic and uniquely South African rendition of jazz made them a noteworthy jazz band in the international halls of fame. They were once one of the most popular jazz bands in the country, often defying the tyrannical race laws of the country in order to perform."
Wikipedia
The Kenny Shaw Band, a thrilling unit playing original material, with Ron Parry, then Dave Tyas, on drums and Barry Rickerby, bass.
Probably the only tap dancer booked at Eric's Will Gaines also did some busking in Williamson Square that day. This is from his obituary in the Guardian, 2014: After the UK became his home in the 60s, Gaines worked with jazz artists as varied as the mainstream bandleader Humphrey Lyttelton, the saxophonist Ronnie Scott and the free-improv guitarist Derek Bailey; regularly played the London Palladium; performed for Princess Margaret; and was a popular visitor to the Edinburgh festival, where he would improvise steps to any aural stimulation going, from jazz to readings of modern poetry. Following his death on 2014 his close friend and manager, Chris Parry, observed that formal teaching was not Gaines's strong suit because he was a totally intuitive improviser who "didn't know what his feet did". Neither did the rest of us, but marvelling at the mystery was one of left-field contemporary music's most unexpectedly diverting pleasures.
Wednesday 20 April 1977
Henry Cow
Henry Cow were an English experimental rock group, founded at Cambridge University in 1968 by multi-instrumentalists Fred Frith and Tim Hodgkinson. Henry Cow's personnel fluctuated over their decade together, but drummer Chris Cutler, bassist John Greaves, and bassoonist/oboist Lindsay Cooper were important long-term members alongside Frith and Hodgkinson.
An inherent anti-commercial attitude kept them at arm's length from the mainstream music business, enabling them to experiment at will. Critic Myles Boisen writes, "[their sound] was so mercurial and daring that they had few imitators, even though they inspired many on both sides of the Atlantic with a blend of spontaneity, intricate structures, philosophy, and humor that has endured and transcended the 'progressive' tag.”
Wikipedia
Wednesday 27 April 1977
John Steven's Away
In the mid-1960s John Stevens began to play in London jazz groups with Tubby Hayes and Ronnie Scott, and in 1965 he led a septet. He moved away from mainstream jazz when he heard free jazz from the U.S. by musicians like Ornette Coleman and Albert Ayler. In 1966, he formed the Spontaneous Music Ensemble (SME) with Watts and Rutherford. The band moved into the Little Theatre Club at Garrick Yard, St Martin's Lane, London. In 1967 their first album, Challenge, was released. Stevens then became interested in the music of Anton Webern, and the SME began to play quiet music. Stevens also became interested in non-Western music.
Stevens also devised a number of basic starting points for improvisation. These were not "compositions" as such, but rather a means of getting improvisational activity started, which could then go off in any direction. One of these was the so-called "Click Piece" which essentially asked for each player to repeatedly play a note as short as possible.
Stevens ran or helped to organise groups that were more jazz or jazz-rock based, such as Splinters, the John Stevens Dance Orchestra, John Stevens’ Away, Freebop, Folkus, Fast Colour, PRS, and the John Stevens Quintet and Quartet. He contributed to Trevor Watts's group Amalgam, Frode Gjerstad's Detail, and collaborated with Bobby Bradford on several occasions.
Wednesday 4 May 1977
Bud Freeman
Lawrence "Bud" Freeman (April 13, 1906 – March 15, 1991) was an American jazz musician, bandleader, and composer, known mainly for playing the tenor saxophone, but also able at the clarinet. He had a smooth and full tenor sax style with a heavy robust swing. He was one of the most influential and important jazz tenor saxophonists of the big band era.
In 1927, he moved to New York, where he worked as a session musician and band member with Red Nichols, Roger Wolfe Kahn, Ben Pollack, Joe Venuti, among others. One of his most notable performances was a solo on Eddie Condon's 1933 recording, The Eel, which then became Freeman's nickname (for his long snake-like improvisations). Freeman played with Tommy Dorsey's Orchestra (1936–1938) as well as for a short time Benny Goodman's band in 1938 before forming his own band, the Summa Cum Laude Orchestra (1939–1940).
In 1974, he moved to England where he made numerous recordings and performances, as he did also in Europe. Later in the decade Freeman spent some time on the Isle of Man
Wednesday 11 May 1977Johnny Griffin+ Carmell Jones+ Joe Palin Trio
John Arnold Griffin III (April 24, 1928 – July 25, 2008) was an American jazz tenor saxophonist. Nicknamed "the Little Giant" for his short stature and forceful playing, Griffin's career began in the early 1940s and continued until the month of his death. At eighty, he felt no need to stop. He did not complain. He had a hard life, but often said, “as long as God has given me the gift to blow, I owe it to God to keep on blowing.” A pioneering figure in hard bop, Griffin recorded prolifically as a bandleader in addition to stints with pianist Thelonious Monk, drummer Art Blakey, in partnership with fellow tenor Eddie "Lockjaw" Davis and as a member of the Kenny Clarke/Francy Boland Big Band after he moved to Europe in the 1960s. In 1995, Griffin was awarded an Honorary Doctorate of Music from Berklee College of Music.
Carmell Jones (July 19, 1936 – November 7, 1996) was an American jazz trumpet player.Jones was born in Kansas City, Kansas. He started piano lessons at age five, and trumpet lessons at age seven. His first professional work was with Kansas City greats Nathan Davis, Cleanhead Vinson and Frank Smith. He moved to California in 1960 and worked as a studio musician for several years, including in the orchestras for two movie soundtracks, 'The Seven Days In May' and 'The Manchurian Candidate', the latter starring Frank Sinatra.[1] He released two albums as a leader for Pacific Jazz at this time, while recording as a sideman with Bud Shank, Onzy Matthews, Curtis Amy, Harold Land, and Gerald Wilson.[2] He toured with Horace Silver in 1964-65, and was on Silver's seminal 1965 Blue Note album Song for My Father. In 1965 he moved to Germany where he lived for 15 years, working with Paul Kuhn and the SFB Big Band (Sender Freies Berlin) from 1968 to 1980. There he worked with musicians such as Milo Pavlovic, Herb Geller, Leo Wright, Rudi Wilfer and Eugen Cicero. Jones returned to the US in 1980, working as a teacher and appearing at local clubs in Kansas City. He released one additional album as a leader in 1982 entitled “Carmell Jones Returns,” on the Revelation label.[3] Jones died on November 7, 1996 in Kansas City at the age of 60.
Joe Palin was the best bebop pianist to come out of Manchester, though adept in every style, and a backbone of the the city's jazz scene.
Born in Manchester to a non-musical family - his father was managing director of a timber company - Palin attended Chorlton grammar school, where he developed a passion for boogie woogie. National service called in 1953, and Palin joined the band of the 16th Lancers, where he was given a French horn, a suitable marching instrument, to learn in double quick time.
Demobbed in 1956, he became the house pianist of Club 43, playing with various London artists, among them Tubby Hayes, Ronnie Scott and Don Rendell and later with a veritable Who's Who of American stars, including Sonny Stitt, Johnny Griffin, Art Farmer, Al Cohn and Zoot Sims.
Palin's duties as (a sometimes absent) director of the family business, and his own disinclination to travel, meant that his reputation was mainly confined to the north-west.
Wednesday 18 May 1977
Zbigniev Namyslowski Band
Zbigniew Jacek Namysłowski (born September 9, 1939) is a Polish jazz alto saxophonist, flautist, cellist, trombonist, pianist and composer born in Warsaw, perhaps best known for appearing on the Krzysztof Komeda album Astigmatic.
He has collaborated in the past with such artists as Janusz Muniak, Leszek Możdżer, Michał Urbaniak and Andrzej Trzaskowski.
Wednesday 25 May 1977Red Brass
Can't find any Red Brass so enjoy this by another Tony Haynes project, Grand Union
Tony Haynes, of Red Brass: I was a jazz pianist, made part of my living out of playing it. But I was a theatre musician, providing live music for theatrical productions from the late 1960s on: I was MD at Nottingham Playhouse, and worked at the two Leicester theatres, Liverpool Everyman. I worked with John Arden’s plays, with the 7:84 company for a while [political theatre] writing original scores. When we formed Belts ‘n’ Braces it was as an independent, cross media company, which went three ways after a while. One of these was Red Brass, in the 1970s, a political musical project.
1 June 1977Barbara Thompson's Paraphanalia
Barbara Gracey Thompson MBE (born 27 July 1944) is an English jazz saxophonist. She studied saxophone and classical composition at the Royal College of Music, but the music of Duke Ellington and John Coltrane made her shift her interests to jazz and saxophone. She was married to drummer Jon Hiseman of Colosseum from 1967 until his death in 2018.
Barbara Thompson's Paraphernalia, with Peter Lemer (p), Billy Thompson (v), Dave Ball (b) and the late Jon Hiseman on drums.
She was awarded the MBE in 1996 for services to music. Due to Parkinson's disease, which was diagnosed in 1997, she retired as an active saxophonist in 2001 with a farewell tour. After a period of working as a composer exclusively, she returned to the stage in 2003.[8]
Thompson has worked closely with Andrew Lloyd Webber on musicals[5] such as Cats and Starlight Express, his Requiem, and Lloyd Webber's 1978 classical-fusion album Variations. She has written several classical compositions, music for film and television, a musical of her own and songs for the United Jazz and Rock Ensemble, Barbara Thompson's Paraphernalia and her big band Moving Parts.
She played the incidental music in the ITV police series A Touch of Frost starring David Jason. She also played flute on Jeff Wayne's Musical Version of The War of the Worlds.
Wednesday 8 June 1977Elton Dean QuartetElton Dean, Keith Tippett, Joe Gallivan and Hugh Hopper
From 1966 to 1967, Elton Dean was a member of the band Bluesology, led by Long John Baldry. The band's pianist, Reginald Dwight, afterward combined Dean's and Baldry's first names for his own stage name, Elton John. Dean established his reputation as a member of the Keith Tippett Sextet from 1968 to 1970, and in the band Soft Machine from 1969 to 1972. From 1975 to 1978 he led a nine-piece band called Ninesense, performing at the Bracknell Jazz Festival and similar events.
Following this, his own groups were usually quartets or quintets, and most often worked in the free jazz mode, with little or no pre-composed material, such as Soft Heap with Mark Hewins. However, he also continued to work with other groups that were very composition-based, such as guitarist Phil Miller's In Cahoots, drummer Pip Pyle's Equipe Out, and various projects with former Soft Machine bassist Hugh Hopper.
Wednesday 15 June 1977 Harry Miller's Isipingo
When bassist Harry Miller died in 1983, the UK jazz scene lost one of its most vibrant and dynamic talents. While the South African born bassist was best known for his membership of the Brotherhood of Breath,his work with Mike Westbrook and the leading lights of the European improv scene was equally seminal.
Isipingo recorded one album in their lifetime, but this German radio recording catches the original line-up in full flight.Mongezi Feza's trumpet is agile, focussed and without frills; Mike Osborne's urgent, astringent alto and Nick Evan's sumptuously fat trombone complete the front line. Keith Tippett's piano veers from delicate arpeggios to punchy dissonance, while Miller and drummer Louis Moholo lay down fat, ragged, propulsive grooves that lie somewhere between Mingus and SA township jive.
Wednesday 22 June 1977
Bobby Bradford Quartet with Trevor Watts
Born in Cleveland, Mississippi in 1934 and raised between Dallas and Los Angeles, trumpeter Bobby Bradford began playing with Ornette Coleman in Los Angeles in the 1950s, and replaced Don Cherry in an unrecorded Coleman quartet during the early 1960s. However, the most significant partnership in Bradford's musical life was with the clarinetist and composer John Carter (1928-1991), with whom he worked and recorded from 1969 into the 1980s a very different brand of free-bop. Now a professor at Pomona College, Bradford continues to lead his Mo'Tet and is being celebrated at the 2009 Festival of the New Trumpet in New York.
Says Bobby about that period:“In Europe, we played places that seated two or three hundred people, as well as pub gigs. Later on, I went to Portugal and Italy with other groups—anyway, I loved it but there was no money”
Wednesday 29 June 1977
Benny Carter
Benny Carter - Body & Soul - Montreux - 13th July 1977
Bennett Lester Carter (August 8, 1907 – July 12, 2003) was an American jazz saxophonist, clarinetist, trumpeter, composer, arranger, and bandleader. With Johnny Hodges, he was a pioneer on the alto saxophone. From the beginning of his career in the 1920s he was a popular arranger, having written charts for Fletcher Henderson's big band that shaped the swing style. He had an unusually long career that lasted into the 1990s. During the 1980s and '90s, he was nominated for eight Grammy Awards, which included receiving a Lifetime Achievement Award.
Wednesday 6 July - 2 November 1977
Liverpool Jam
And that was it for regular jazz bookings, but Roger didn't give up. The following week, until November, he instigated the weekly Liverpool Jam for local jazz musicians and guests - a chance for local musicians to meet and drink. There were a few more touring jazz artists including Stanley Clarke and a couple of the Jam evenings were given over to bands - Pacific Eardrum and Colosseum.
Saturday 6 August 1977Stanley Clarke
Stanley Clarke is an American bassist, film composer and founding member of Return to Forever, one of the first jazz fusion bands. Clarke gave the bass guitar a prominence it lacked in jazz-related music. He is the first jazz-fusion bassist to headline tours, sell out shows worldwide and have recordings reach gold status.
Clarke is a 5-time Grammy winner, with 15 nominations, 3 as a solo artist, 1 with the Stanley Clarke Band, and 1 with Return to Forever. A Stanley Clarke electric bass is permanently on display at The Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture in Washington, D.C.
Wednesday 8 September 1977Pacific Eardrum
Dave MacRae is a keyboardist from New Zealand, noted for his contributions in jazz and jazz rock, and his collaborations with musicians from the Canterbury scene. MacRae studied at the New South Wales Conservatorium of Music and then worked in Australia in the 1960s as an arranger for Festival Records. He moved to the United States in 1969, playing with experimental groups in Los Angeles before joining Buddy Rich's ensemble in 1970. He relocated to London in 1971, working that year with jazz musicians Clark Terry, Chet Baker, Jon Hendricks and Gil Evans.
Wednesday 16 November 1977Colosseum
Colosseum were a pioneering English progressive jazz-rock band, mixing blues, rock and jazz-based improvisation. Technically, the band that appeared at Eric’s was Colosseum II, formed in 1975, with a stronger orientation towards jazz-fusion rock, which featured guitarist Gary Moore and Don Airey on keyboards. They released three albums before disbanding in 1978.
Sunday 15 January Gary Boyle
1980 (Monday evenings)
From Jimi Wright on Facebook
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