Burt Butler's

    Jazz Pilgrims


                           Burtie has played with many musicians and different bands. 
                                         Here is his Hall of Fame of clarinet players.
 
 
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                                                      PAGE  ONE  TWO


         
                Clarinet players page two of Burties hall of fame, read how they  started
               then click on their name to hear the quality and musician ship of their playing.

       Clive Brooks

 

                

                                                                                                     

                      Clive Brooks - clarinet - piano - trumpet                      20th December 1935 - 24th June 2009


  
This is the Preface taken from Clive's book 'Trad Mad' a wonderful book of which most Kent based trad musos have in their possession. Why
   Kent? Well, partly because I spent my entire playing career in bands based in Kent, but mainly because the Garden of England can fairly be
   said to be the birthplace of the revival of traditional jazz in this country. The first jazz record I ever owned was 'Tiger Rag' by the 'Original
   Dixieland Jazz Band'. I bought it in a shop in Liverpool, I think, 1949. I was 14yrs old and from that moment on I was hooked. The drive of
  Nick La Rocca's cornet, the interweaving melody of Larry Shields clarinet, the raucous smears of Eddie Edwards' trombone and the collective
  improvisation all fascinated me, and I longed one day to be able to play in such a band. My next purchase was ' At the Jazz Band Ball' by Mugsy
  Spanier's Ragtime Band. This was very different, but equally hot and exciting. My collection of Jazz records slowly expanded as my pocket money
  would allow. I played them on an enormous wooden wind-up gramophone which my mother bought me for five shillings (25p) in a junk shop.
  My mother was both a professional dancer and an expert pianist, she could literally play anything from Lizst to Jelly Roll Morton by sight,
  transposed at will into any key!! I had picked up from her at least the rudiments of reading, and also harmony and counterpoint. I was fascinated
  by the eight-beat boogie-woogie Chicago style of piano playing as exemplified by Meade Lux Lewis, Albert Ammons and Pete Johnson, which I
  had  heard on the 'wireless' . I had a school friend, Maurice Deeprose , whose father had been a dance-band drummer, Maurice, or 'Moz' as we
  called him, started practising on his father's old kit ( he owned two Harry Roy 78s ) and eventually joined a local band in Crosby called Ralph
  Whatmough's Dixielanders. I followed the band around on many of their gigs. We Moved to Gillingham in 1950 and in 1952 I purchased an old
  rosewood simple-system clarinet for two pounds in a second-hand shop in Old Brompton, and started to teach myself to play. A school friend,
  Bev Bromley, bought himself a trumpet, and we practice together in my front room. Learning to play turned out to be a very complicated affair
  as we were both unaware that his instrument possessed a key  with which you could alternate between 'A' and 'Bb' and needless to say, it was
  stuck in 'A', which made life a little difficult. Eventually, another friend pointed this out and the instrument was exchanged. What made matters
  worse was the fact that my piano, on which we used to pick out tunes and chord sequences, was tuned in 'Bb' instead of 'C', although at least
  we were aware of that from the beginning. One day, whilst practising at home in his bedroom, my pal smashed his trumpet over the end of his bed
  when he failed at the umpteenth attempt to negotiate even the first two bars of Louis Armstrong's intro to 'Cornet Chop Suey'. He never played
  again. Undaunted, I persevered with the clarinet. However, in the first band I joined, I was to play the piano. We rehearsed in a youth club in
  New Road, Chatham. I remember watching the Coronation at a friends house in 1953, ten of us were squashed in front of a tiny television set in
  a darkened room. Later that day the band played a gig at Blue Bell Hill Village, Chatham, in honour of the event. It was our first public
  engagement and we were paid ten shillings (50p a lot of money in those days) each. We didn't know many tunes, so as the day wore on, we had to
  start our repertoire over again, and had actually played 'The Saints' three times before the evening was out! From then on I played almost
  continuously in various bands in various bands based in Kent and on different instruments, clearly demonstrating the old adage ' Jack of All Trades
  Master of None' Eventually I retired in 1996 due to arthritis in my hands. It is interesting to plot the careers of some of the musicians, moving
  from band to band, perhaps playing in more than one at the same time. Some were an important influence, others made little impact, yet others
  appeared on the scene only briefly. All however, whatever their abilities, played a part in the history of 'The Revival' in Kent as portrayed in my
  book 'Trad Mad'.

                                                              
                                        Tony Pink and Clive on the piano                                      Clive  circa early fifties
 

                                                           
                                                                                                                       
                                                                    With the Tony Pink's Jazz Men

                                                        Sam Weller tmb, Clive Brooks piano, Tony Pink tpt,
                                   Ivan Gandon bnj, Pete Godsiff clt, no drums but the guy at the back is Bev Bromley'
 

                                                              Here is Clive with the Kid Webster's Jazz Band in 1975

                                    Kid Thomas Boogie             Let me call you Sweetheart          Tishomingo Blues    
                           
Clive Brooks  piano

                       These recordings were made in the Bear and Key, High Street, Whitstable, Kent. 8th April 1976
                       The personnel being:    Brian Craig tpt, Clive Brooks clt/alto/piano, Charlie Kid Webster tmb,
                                                           Frank Webster bjo, George Stockley bass and Pete Lay drms.

                                              

                                                                       
                                                            
                              Clive had a great send off at his funeral, 7th July 2009 at the Medway  Crematorium, and
                                       afterwards at the 'Robin Hood Inn', Bluebell Hill, Chatham, Kent.

                                   here are some great photos and movies of Clive's fellow musicians at Clive's wake

                                                              
                                         At the Crematorium                                                          The Flowers

                                                                      
                                                    At the wake at 'Robin Hood Inn', Bluebell Hill, Chatham, Kent.

 

                                     The lads giving Clive a great send off - click on picture and title for the video

           

                                                         
                                                    A 12 bar blues                                                                                  Corine  Corina

                 Left to Right:                                                                                                                                        Left to Right: 
                 Dave Straker bnj, Burtie Butler bnj, Mick Stansell tpt, Colin Martin piano                           Colin Martin piano, Don York tmb, Keith Blundell tmb   
                                  Tony Pink tpt, Mick Durell bass, John mason tmb,                                                           Mick Durell bass,  John Ellmer drms, Tony Pitt gtr.
                                                  John Ellmer drms, Tony Pitt gtr.                                       

                                                                                                            
                                                                                                                           
Sunnyside of the Street

                                                           Left to Right: 
                                                                            
 Colin Martin piano, Don York tmb, Mick Durell bass, Ivan Gandon sax,
                                                                                             Allan Bradley tpt,   John Ellmer drms,   Tony Pitt gtr.

 

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