Cafe de Paris Band

Having seen the Ben Clatworthy quartet before Christmas and had his appetite for jazz whetted, HOT’s Sean O’Shea  returns to the FILO to hear Cafe de Paris Band and talks to the group’s founder, Adrian Underhill, about hot jazz, his journey in music and his work in education.

I had a couple of Dublin friends to visit for a few days and wanted to show off what Hastings had to offer musically, so I invited them to listen to the Cafe de Paris Band at the FILO. The line up comprised Adrian Underhill and Frank Moon, guitars; Steve le Squeeze, accordion and Chris Hinman, bass. I took the opportunity of talking with the group’s founder, Adrian Underhill and found him to be a mine of musical information, and especially enlightening about aspects of the history of jazz.

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You were born in Cambridge and lived abroad for many years. What brought you to Hastings?

I was living in Ealing in the early 70’s – and to buy a small terraced house there was £25,000. I had friends in Hastings and liked its bohemian sub-culture, especially the music scene. So I moved here in 1972 and got a large old semi for £7,500. I wanted the one at £9,000, but could not afford it! After I’d been here a few months, I saw an ad in the local paper for a rhythm guitarist in the Dave Holt Swingtet, which played that kind of Django music, now known as Gypsy Jazz. I went along to see him and started playing with his band the next day, downstairs at The Continental in Bexhill, a Sunday lunchtime residency. I owe Dave a lot. I went to his funeral a few weeks ago, which as funerals go was a very lovely occasion.

What have been some of your main musical influences and inspirations?

I like practically every kind of music: Indian, Japanese, Chinese, Jazz ancient and modern, Bach, Baroque and Russian Orthodox choirs and Irish music.  As a teenager, I picked up the guitar for the usual teenage reasons and started playing Scottish and American folk tunes, the guitar tunes of John Renbourn and American blues players, Dylan and The Kinston Trio. Someone said to me, ‘Why don’t you go and play in the folk club?’ And I asked, ‘What do you mean?’ And he said, ‘Go down to The Dolphin in South Street on Thursday evening… and go in by the side door.’ So I did and I thought I had just walked into heaven. I still have this vivid picture, low lights and a blues singer guitar and harmonica, just acoustic stuff, and people taking it in turns to play. I was amazed, I was hooked and I’ve played in pubs ever since.

You have been described as ‘an incisive guitarist’ who has developed his instrumental work through folk, jazz, improvisation, poetry and storytelling. Could you elaborate a bit on this development?

The folk and blues came first, then the discovery of Django Rheinhart. He was the ultimate guitarist’s guitarist. Then I got into free and unplanned music and we played each week at the Royal Albion. Roger Carey was part of that. After that, I learned to play the Cretan lyra, the Indian sitar and the Turkish ney (forerunner of the flute). All at a very basic level. I wasn’t good at any of them, but they had such physicality, especially the ney, where the haunting and breathy woody notes vibrate your whole body. I like playing alongside story tellers and also telling stories and playing at the same time. Incisive? I wouldn’t say that. A bit messy if anything.

What is ‘hot jazz’?

It refers to the early jazz that came out of New Orleans in the early 1900’s. That jazz emerged out of blues, a bit of ragtime, perhaps the experience of church music and of course, brass marching bands (there were a lot of ex military brass instruments around in the decades after the civil war). The brass bands would play straight on the way to a funeral, and then heat it up on the way back. Hot refers both to the tempo and to the improvisations.

What of the rest of your musical journey leading up to the Hot Club of Hastings and the Cafe de Paris Band.

After Dave’s Swingtet disbanded in the early 80’s, I played other kinds of jazz and eventually did a lot of Celtic playing with various local people, including Chris Hamblin (The Celtic String Band) and with Chris Fyfe and others in the Stag Band. In 2005 I bumped into Mark Allinson a great guitarist and Gypsy Jazz enthusiast, so we started playing acoustic Jazz with two guitars at various venues, especially the White Rock Hotel and then Chris Hinman joined us on double bass and Nuri Koseoglu on violin – and we called ourselves the Hot Club of St Leonards. We also played with Mike Hatchard on violin. He is an amazing musician, playing a number of instruments to a high standard and he’s the only person I know who can memorise a tune after one hearing and appears to be able to read music when its upside-down on the floor.

Musette

The Parisian Café Swing sound that we know today comes ultimately from the sound of the musette, a kind of bagpipe played in the Auvergne region of France. From the late 1800’s migrants from Auvergne brought the instrument and its music to Paris, opened bars and danced to this music. Then from the early 1900’s Italian migrants also arrived in Paris with their accordions and started to infiltrate this music and the bars with their own sounds. Many conflicts arose over territory, instruments and national groups, but in the end the accordion won, picking up the musical tradition played on the ousted musette bagpipe, but played on accordion. And this music, which today we associate with the Parisian café sound, continued to be called Musette.

Gypsy Jazz

It was in this musical pre-jazz mix that Django started to play in Paris bars and dance halls in the 1920’s, and some of these places were pretty rough. This mix of musette, chanson and traditional gypsy flair on stringed instruments formed Django’s fluent and driving style. Then in the late 1920’s he heard Louis Armstrong and American jazz, and that completed the mix that was to become Gypsy Jazz in the early 1930’s. At various gigs he bumped into violinist Stephane Grappelli, who had also similarly discovered American jazz, and they started to play jazz tunes during the breaks, for their own amusement, responding to and inspiring each other’s playing. Everyone was amazed at this new jazz form, and before long they were playing and recording regularly, and gypsy jazz was born. And it was played with the totally unconventional line up of 2 or 3 acoustic guitars double bass, and violin. Amazingly there was only ever one film made of one song of Django playing,

The song is J’attendrai, a popular French song recorded in 1938 and associated with the outbreak of war. It was filmed as promo for their 1939 UK tour, which was in fact cut short by the war, with Django dashing back to Paris and Stephane staying in London. You can see this historic clip here.  Stephane takes the melody then Django does a couple of solos.

Hot Club of Hastings & Cafe de Paris

We like to present both Musette and Gypsy Jazz since people in Hastings love both. The Hot Club of Hastings is a quartet with violin, playing gypsy jazz and swing, and The Café de Paris is also a quartet, but with accordion playing the musette and café waltzes of the 30’s, as well as some gypsy jazz. We sometimes bring these styles together in a Quintet and that gives a rounded and complete musical form.

I was playing a gig in the Old Town about ten years ago and an elderly woman came up to me and told me how as a teenager she had seen Django Reinhardt and Stephane Grappelli playing at the White Rock Theatre (formerly the White Rock Pavilion Concert Hall) in 1939. She still remembered the gig.

What have been some of your most memorable experiences as an entertainer?

It’s usually when the active listening of the audience merges with the playing of the musicians and that co-creates something that’s bigger than everyone. Good music is always engaging, but this special interaction happens sometimes. You can’t ensure it, but you can prepare for it, and everyone knows it when it comes.

You are also very much involved in education working as an ELT consultant and trainer and previously as a director of the International Teacher Training Institute at International House in Hastings. Would you like to comment on this aspect of your career?

Yes, I was one of the founders of International House Hastings in 1973, and was there till it was sold in 1999. We built an amazing educational culture there, helped by many factors, and I continue in that tradition though I have been self-employed since ‘99. Following my own learning as a musician has been a feeder for my wider work in language teaching. A lot of my work now is running short training courses for teachers or speaking at conferences. Since English Language teaching is a global activity, I frequently travel abroad. Fitting jazz gigs around this just about works.

What do you get up to when you’re not involved in consultancy, training or musical activities, and how do you relax?

Organic gardening: I like to work with the energy that nature and life provide. In a garden there is a great sense of simply nudging the mighty forces of life, energy and evolution. But gardeners are simply facilitators. They don’t ‘grow’ anything. Big and inexplicable forces do that. Gardeners just tweak this energy, and people say oh look, a garden, or a veg patch. It’s like sailing across the ocean. The wind and the waves do that, the sailor just manages what is given. Musicians too. These sounds and tones are around and the musician selects and articulates from what’s there.

What would be your message for potential visitors to Hastings in terms of its musical and other attractions?

OK, here’s my recipe: Come for three months. Every day walk along the sea front and in the Old Town, and along the coast and inland. Every evening go to a different pub with music and hang out there. After about two months frequent your favourite places, but keep visiting the others. If possible come at the time of various events like Jack in the Green, or Coastal Currents.

• More information about oncoming jazz sessions at the FILO here.
• Django Djypsy Djazz here. (Formerly the Hot Club of Hastings) Adrian Underhill and Steve Aston (guitars) Chris Hinman (bass) and Mike Hatchard (violin/vox) pay homage to the great Django Reinhardt in this swinging rendition of ‘I can’t Give You Anything but Love’ recorded at the Masonic Hall, St. Leonards-on-Sea November 2011.

SOS  1 May 2015

 

 

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