The 80s
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The Caxton St Jazz Band’s performances at the Caxton Hotel were legendary. Thanks in part to the enlightened publican, Mike Drum, who astutely tapped into an awaiting market, spent money on advertising, guaranteed the gig 3 months, and adopted a policy that the outdoor gig was on “rain, hail or shine”, and in part to the band’s public appeal, the gig thrived and became famous. By the mid 80s, The Caxton beer garden would be packed by young people, as Mike Drum reinvested his profits in improving the hotel facilities.
The band’s success at The Caxton led Mileham Hayes to offer them every second Saturday night at the The Cellar. At one stage, the band had 9 regular gigs a fortnight.
The band also played on Thursday nights at The Caxton for a number of years, and had two stints on Sunday nights at “The Barn” at the Waterloo Hotel in the Valley during this period. There was also a brief period at The Orient in the city on a Friday night in 1981.
From 1 July 1981 to 30 June 1982 the band played 163 public gigs at its regular venues and 20 private gigs.
The picture left was taken for an article in the now defunct Telegraph on 20 October 1981 and shows (from left) Bob Mair, Peter Ransom, Tich Bray, Graham Duffin, and Tom Nicolson. Obscured are Bernice Haydock and Brian Eydmann.
In early 1981, the CSJB recorded again at the Qld Uni. The band invited recent members Ian Oliver and Tony Ashby to participate. The result was the “orange cassette”, which included some numbers from the original 1980 Uni session.
In late 1981, Tich Bray left the band to join The Vintage Jazz Band after Andy Jenner had left. Barrie Webb joined the CSJB on reeds from November 1981 to May 1982, before taking off on a round Australia trip. Col Wharton joined the CSJB, presumably around May 1982, and was the clarinet and sax player with the band until ill heath forced his retirement in the early 90s.
The early ’80s publicity pic left shows Brian Eydmann, Barrie Webb, Bernice Haydock, Peter Ransom, Graham Duffin, Tom Nicolson and Bob Mair.
Clarinettist Frank Tyne played with the band for a time, but only on the Sunday night gig at The Barn. It is thought that this occurred while the band was in between clarinet players, probably between Tich and Barrie.
In November 1982, the band recorded again, this time at Andy Jenner’s place. Andy had developed an interest in recording and had the necessary equipment. The resultant cassette, the “yellow cassette”, was entitled “Candid Caxton” and was a combination of this session and a number of live recordings of the band. Some of these had been made by Tich Bray, who was an inveterate recorder of bands he played in. Tich would bring his cassette recorder along to a gig and set it going at the beginning of each set. The remainder came from Peter Arnold, a fan and recording enthusiast, who made many live recordings of the band onto reel-to-reel tape. Peter later died in tragic circumstances. Bob Mair spent many hours listening to these cassettes and tapes to extract a few tunes that were suitable for release for sale.
The CSJB attended the 1982 Toowoomba Convention, at which it sold a number of both cassettes. The band was at this time well-rehearsed and thus very tight. Well-known Sydney reeds man Graham Spedding remarked that “you guys get better every time I hear you” and that “Chimes Blues was a knockout”! Sydney trumpeter Mike Hallam also was very complimentary about the band.
The CSJB of 1982 had a stable line-up of a group of enthusiastic musicians who had reasonable instrumental skills, and of whom four also sang. Graham Duffin presented Satchmo-like vocals from a Satchmo-like mouth, Tom, Peter and Bernice also sang well. Even Bob and Brian would combine in the novelty number Barnacle Bill the Sailor (Brian was able to effect a Popeye-like voice). With regular rehearsal, the band was able to present a combination of serious jazz numbers (for example, the challenging Jelly Roll Morton tune Sidewalk Blues) with entertaining, crowd-pleasing novelty numbers. The band was famous by this time for “Minnie the Mermaid”, which involved crowd participation by voice and action.
The picture right is of the band playing in King George Square in front of Brisbane City Hall in 1984. Left to right we have Brian Eydmann, Bernice Haydock, Peter Ransom, Bob Mair, Frank Tyne, Graham Duffin, and Tom Nicolson. The band attended the 1984 Wollongong Convention and was again very well received. Bob Mair had decided this would be his swansong with the band, and left effective January 1985. The band to this point had used washboard instead of drums. Now it had no choice but to replace Bob with a drummer. Geoff Allen was the man. Bob had been the manager of the band since Andy’s departure in the 70s. So, with his resignation, a period of mild instability existed, and eventually Tom Nicolson left to be replaced by Kirk Jaress, and Geoff Allen left and was replaced by Mike Ross. Bernice took over the leadership and set about enhancing the polish and tightness of the band, exploiting Kirk’s great skills on the trombone, and Mike Ross’s vocal talents.
The band attended the 1986 Convention in Adelaide. The local luminary Dave Dallwitz told Bernice the CSJB was the best band at the Convention. Their performance at the public concert at the Adelaide Town Hall which brought the house down was probably this particular line-up’s premier performance. It fortunately is preserved on a recording made from the live radio broadcast of the concert.
In 1987 Graham suffered a mild stroke but continued to play, in spite of a partially numb lip. As a result of its performance at the ’86 Adelaide Convention, the band was invited to the 1987 York Jazz Festival in WA, along with the Melbourne-based bands The Creole Belles and The Society Syncopators. Bob Mair went along for the ride as Mike Ross was still the drummer. Later in 1987 or perhaps early ’88, Kirk, Brian and Mike left to join a rival band, and Graham eventually resigned, leaving Bernice, Peter, and Col. At this time, Bernice got Bob to come back (on drums), and John Braben and Mike Hawthorne became regulars at the Caxton. Bassist Dave Sandercoe also joined. This group played for a time but nobody knows how long. A photo in the next chapter shows that John and Mike were still there in 1991, but no one remembers them being in the band for that long! Later, in the 90s, Peter Uppman became a regular trumpet player. There was a period in the early 90s where the band used who it could get to hold down the Caxton gig. Geoff Hawes and Joe Epps (trombone), Ken Evans and Kevin Keogh (trumpet) were some of the players used. Meanwhile attendances at the Caxton gig were declining.