We are keeping a diary of the project as we go along so you can get a flavour of what we are up to.
We went along to Jack Honeyborne's 96th birthday celebration at The Spice of Life in Soho where Jack played a couple of great sets with a quintet. We filmed the concert and will be using some of this in the docuemntary film we are making. Thanks to Jack and to all of the musicians.
We managed to get a last interview with the wonderful bass player Dave Green. The team at Ronnie Scott's had suggested him to us and they kindly let us interview him at the club. It was a wonderful interview and Dave also treated us to some great bass playing which we filmed too. Thanks both to Dave for making the time to come and be interviewed and to Sarah Weller at Ronnie Scott's.
The group of volunteers met online to discuss how the interviews went, any issues that came up and also what themes they found came up which stood out to them during the interviews. We discussed which might be good to include in the documentary film part of the project. We will now edit a rough cut of the film and then meet up again for a screening of this and discussion. The volunteers were great and have been brilliant throughout the process. Thanks to everyone for doing such great work on developing the themes to explore through the interviews, and then for their great work interviewing and also recording the interviews.
The final day of interviews included Jennifer Maidman, Richard Bailey, Rowland Sutherland and Skaila Kanga. All of the interviews were conucted at Westminster Archives with the exception of Skaila Kanga's which took place at the Royal Academy of Music. Thanks to the RAM for hosting us for her interview. Thanks to everyone who so generously gave up their time over the past four days to come and be interviewed. The interviews will soon be available to listen to in full on this website and will also be going to the archives at Westminster, Camden and Bishopsgate Institute. We will also be starting to edit the interviews, adding archive footage and photos ready for the launch in Autumn. Watch this space for news on that.
Photos below, in order, Richard Bailey, Jennifer Maidman, Rowland Sutherland and Skaila Kanga.
Yet more great oral history interviews with Jaqui Hicks, Andy Treacy, Elaine Delmar, Jack Honeybourne, Sylvia Addison and Eliza Marshall.
Photos below, in order, Elaine Delmar, Jacqui Hicks and her interview team, Jack Honeybourne and his team.
More great oral history interviews with Kuljit Bhamra, Sandy Lowenthal, Andy Findon, Charlotte Kelly, Tracey Holloway and Alice Spring (pictured below)
We completed five fascinating oral history interviews with musicians with a range of backgrounds and experiences. These were Henry Lowther, Paul Clarvis, Clem Cattini, Alan Barnes and Jonathan Hill (pictured below)
We had two very busy days introducing audio recording, interview techniques and then an intense workshop to develop themes and questions to explore in the project, all to be ready for interviews to begin next week.
We had a fascinating walking tour of Soho and the West End with music historian Chris Firmin. We walked around the neighbourhood and Chris pointed out venues and points connected to the history of live music. We finished up in PizzaExpress Jazz Club Soho where the Music Manager, Ross Dines, gave us a brilliant talk about the history of music there and his role. Thanks to Chris for the excellent walk and the team at PizzaExpress for hosting us.
We had a great team of volunteer trainees come along to Westminster Archives for the first day of training. We had a lovely introduction talking about why we were all there and also remembering concerts we had all attended in the West End. Amanda House, who works at the archives, welcomed us and gave a talk on the roll of the archives and how the interviews and ephemera gathered for this project will be added to their collection. Next we ran a workshop around oral history. In the afternoon we had a reminscence session with several musicinas including Sandy Lowenthal, Eliza Marshall, Clem Cattini and Paul Clarvis who all spoke about their working lives.
