Title
Memories of dance bands.
Subject
Music
Description
Brian Harvey recalls playing in dance bands in Leicester from the 1950s.
Creator
East Midlands Oral History Archive
Source
Interview with Brian Harvey for the East Midlands Oral History Archive. Uncatalogued.
Publisher
East Midlands Oral History Archive
Date
1950s.
Rights
You may use this item in accordance with the licence http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/2.0/uk/
Format
.mp3
Language
English
Type
Oral history
Original Format
.wav
Duration
2 min 10 sec
Bit Rate/Frequency
320kbps
Transcription
So, eventually, 1950 came to an end and we came out (of National Service). As I came out, got a great friend, who died some years back, Brian Hamilton, who was a drummer, local drummer with Jimmy Hearth, did a lot of the Leicester bands, he took me to see a guy called Lew Branston, who’s only recently died.
What sort of music were you listening to at this time?
Jazz, really.
Was that from when you were a teenager […] was it jazz or dance bands?
No, jazz. Dance bands as well, I was always interested in… ‘cos I played in dance bands, but jazz was our thing. But, we didn’t really do jazz – I was coming to that – jazz came to me in the late 1960s, ‘70s, as the dance bands went down. The music became different. I’ve monitored (?) that somewhere, the bands became smaller and smaller. And of course, just in passing… I do quite a lot of improvisation now, and busking as we call it, and that came from the dance band days. What happened, everything was read – three sax’s, four sax’s, so forth – but you’d play two waltzes and then they’d do what we laughingly call ‘a busker’, an improvised waltz, as a third one, if there were people still on the floor, you see. So, that started to get us… so we started to learn other tunes and eventually we’d got quite a knowledge of all the basic modern tunes, what do they call it? The American Songbook is the modern term, isn’t it? All the standards, that’s right.
What sort of music were you listening to at this time?
Jazz, really.
Was that from when you were a teenager […] was it jazz or dance bands?
No, jazz. Dance bands as well, I was always interested in… ‘cos I played in dance bands, but jazz was our thing. But, we didn’t really do jazz – I was coming to that – jazz came to me in the late 1960s, ‘70s, as the dance bands went down. The music became different. I’ve monitored (?) that somewhere, the bands became smaller and smaller. And of course, just in passing… I do quite a lot of improvisation now, and busking as we call it, and that came from the dance band days. What happened, everything was read – three sax’s, four sax’s, so forth – but you’d play two waltzes and then they’d do what we laughingly call ‘a busker’, an improvised waltz, as a third one, if there were people still on the floor, you see. So, that started to get us… so we started to learn other tunes and eventually we’d got quite a knowledge of all the basic modern tunes, what do they call it? The American Songbook is the modern term, isn’t it? All the standards, that’s right.
Interviewer
Ned Newitt
Interviewee
Brian Harvey
Location
Interviewee's home
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