I just had to feature this article reproduced for the Web from this September’s issue of
Just Jazz Magazine.

These links add to the story:

Burt at The Two Brewers

My Acrylic Portrait of Burt

Betty, her life, her loves and her Jazz

My Acrylic Portrait of Betty

1950’s/60’s Jazz on The North Kent Coast
Coincidentally, I lived in neighbouring Herne Bay in the 1950s and 60s and have joined the Whitstable and Herne Bay Facebook Groups. Recently I asked members of the Herne Bay Group whether they remembered jazz in The Kings Hall on The Downs, Herne Bay. Here are a couple of the replies:

“I remember Jonny Dankworth Cleo Lane, George Melly, Chris Barber, Humphrey Lyttelton, also Mick Mulligan who was with George Melly. They were good days all at the Kings Hall.” (June Friend nee Finch)

“Kenny Ball was at the Kings Hall in the early 60’s.” (Carol Anne Lewis)

Oh to recapture youth – those were great days for jazz! Yet nil desperandum there is a new generation of jazz bands emerging even now. Search the features on this site to find
a good many of them!

Peter M Butler
Editor & Proprietor Jazz&Jazz

(Photos & YouTubes © Peter M Butler, Jazz&Jazz)

Presenting  the Winter 2014/15 issue of The Kent Jazz News compiled and edited by jazz devotee Harry Stubberfield.

It’s packed with news about the jazz scene in Kent and beyond.

Click here to view your online copy:
WINTER JAZZ NEWS

To receive your personal copy in print, email Harry at: [email protected]

W(Correction: “See New Year In ith Snake” continues on Page 3)

The Spring Issue is due out in March. Copy for this to be submitted to Harry by last week in February:  [email protected]

I have an enduring love for Kent, the adoptive county of my teenage years and my early twenties. We lived in East Kent in Beltinge, a cliff top village just along the coast from Herne Bay. So I like to think of myself as a “Man of Kent” even though I don’t qualify through birth east of the River Medway.

Sammy Rimington, Canterbury, 2011

What connection does this have with jazz in Kent? You’ll find several Jazz&Jazz posts about my involvement with jazz in Kent, one of them being “BBC Jazz Club, 1960. Just Reminiscing!”  Look out too for posts on Sammy Rimington’s annual Kent tour, on Ramsgate Seaside Shuffle and on Gerry Birch’s “Jazz at The Star”.

My acrylic portrait of Kent Jazz Man Gerry Birch on Sousaphone

Then there was and still is my involvement in jazz in Whitstable and the feature “Keep Doing What You Are Doing”  touches on that and also my involvement with the “Ramsgate Seaside Shuffle Festival”,

Just recently, through Ramsgate Seaside Shuffle, I’ve got to know Brian Summers, a jazz enthusiast from Faversham, Kent. Brian began sending me videos he takes of Kent based jazz bands and I urged him to upload these as YouTubes.

So here they are, featuring local jazz maestro Burt Butler with his Jazz Pilgrims playing “When You’re Smiling” at a Ramsgate Seaside Shuffle harbour-side gig and “You Meet The Nicest People” at “The Two Brewers” in Whitstable. Both unique settings each with its own special atmosphere.

Brian lists the names to the musicians at the end of each YouTube. Best watched on YouTube. Enjoy!

Photos © Peter M Butler, Jazz&Jazz / YouTubes courtesy Brian Summers

Derek Nash

Here is the Autumn 2014 issue of The Kent Jazz News compiled and edited by jazz devotee Harry Stubberfield.

It’s packed with news about the jazz scene in Kent and beyond.

Click here to view your online copy:
AUTUMN JAZZ NEWS

To receive your personal copy in print, email Harry at: [email protected]