Reading John Harvey’s books and short stories about London takes me back 60 years!.
I clearly remember visiting jazz clubs like the Flamingo, Ronnie Scotts, 100 Oxford Street and others he mentions, buying sharp clothes at Cecil Gee, hanging around Soho coffee bars, listening entranced to my (and his) Modern Jazz heroes and groups live and on vinyl etc. Each name check- Tubby Hayes, Vic Feldman, Gerry Mulligan, Joe Harriott, Jimmy Skidmore etc- makes me remember when and where I saw them. We even used to gatecrash police dances at West End Central to chat up the dolly birds they attracted.
His descriptions are the nearest I have found to real London life of the late 50s that can only have come from his being there at the time.
I was there too! Thanks for reviving good memories!
John :
Thanks so much for this; means a lot to me that you think I got it right! (Just been listening to Georgie Fame!)
Georgie Fame- one of the greatest jazz pianists of his time (and still a firm favourite of my piano-playing wife along with other piano jazz greats like Monk, Ellington ,Brubeck. even Previn and Jools Holland today.
( I was a wannabe but talentless drummer whose heroes at the time were Cosy Cole, Krupa, Crombie, Ginger Baker, Joe Morello, etc.)
Your writing brings back those days in vivid color- thanks!
Mellotone70Up 
Reading John Harvey’s books and short stories about London takes me back 60 years!.
I clearly remember visiting jazz clubs like the Flamingo, Ronnie Scotts, 100 Oxford Street and others he mentions, buying sharp clothes at Cecil Gee, hanging around Soho coffee bars, listening entranced to my (and his) Modern Jazz heroes and groups live and on vinyl etc. Each name check- Tubby Hayes, Vic Feldman, Gerry Mulligan, Joe Harriott, Jimmy Skidmore etc- makes me remember when and where I saw them. We even used to gatecrash police dances at West End Central to chat up the dolly birds they attracted.
His descriptions are the nearest I have found to real London life of the late 50s that can only have come from his being there at the time.
I was there too! Thanks for reviving good memories!
John :
Thanks so much for this; means a lot to me that you think I got it right! (Just been listening to Georgie Fame!)
Georgie Fame- one of the greatest jazz pianists of his time (and still a firm favourite of my piano-playing wife along with other piano jazz greats like Monk, Ellington ,Brubeck. even Previn and Jools Holland today.
( I was a wannabe but talentless drummer whose heroes at the time were Cosy Cole, Krupa, Crombie, Ginger Baker, Joe Morello, etc.)
Your writing brings back those days in vivid color- thanks!