Varsity Jazz
Varsity Jazz Jazz at Reading University 1951 - 1984 By Trevor Bannister 1 VARSITY JAZZ Jazz at Reading University 1951 represented an important year for Reading University and for Reading’s local jazz scene. The appearance of Humphrey Lyttelton’s Band at the University Rag Ball, held at the Town Hall on 28th February, marked the first time a true product of the Revivalist jazz movement had played in the town. That it should be the Lyttelton band, Britain’s pre-eminent group of the time, led by the ex-Etonian and Grenadier Guardsman, Humphrey Lyttelton, made the event doubly important. Barely three days later, on 3rd March, the University Rag Committee presented a second event at the Town Hall. The Jazz Jamboree featured the Magnolia Jazz Band led by another trumpeter fast making a name for himself, the colourful Mick Mulligan. It would be the first of his many visits to Reading. Denny Dyson provided the vocals and the Yew Tree Jazz Band were on hand for interval support. There is no further mention of jazz activity at the university in the pages of the Reading Standard until 1956, when the clarinettist Sid Phillips led his acclaimed touring and broadcasting band on stage at the Town Hall for the Rag Ball on 25th February, supported by Len Lacy and His Sweet Band. Considering the intense animosity between the respective followers of traditional and modern jazz, which sometimes reached venomous extremes, the Rag Committee took a brave decision in 1958 to book exponents of the opposing schools. The Rag Ball at the Olympia Ballroom on 20th February, saw Ken Colyer’s Jazz Band, which followed the zealous path of its leader in keeping rigidly to the disciplines of New Orleans jazz, sharing the stage with the much cooler and sophisticated sounds of a quartet led by Tommy Whittle, a tenor saxophonist noted for his work with the Ted Heath Orchestra.
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