Friday night is live jazz night for a select crowd of Edinburghers. Chronological Shorty George was running late, so I picked an empty table all on my own and stuck my old red puffa on the chair beside me.
The room began to fill up, and the other chairs were taken. The woman beside me traded her boots for a pair of 1930’s style T-straps. They were beautiful and betokened the serious swing-dancer.
“I like your shoes,” I said. “Saint Savoy?”
Her answer was lost under the glorious racket of the band, but she appreciated that I liked her footwear. She liked my shoes, too: early 1930’s style flats from Memery, for as yet there are no vintage-style heels that suit my age-damaged feet. She was a newcomer from the Continent, escorted by her friendly Scottish boyfriend. He was visiting from the Highlands and said wistfully that his town was “too backward” for swing dance lessons.
Chronological Shorty George (CSG) arrived and claimed his chair. There were introductions all around, followed by the inevitable question.
“How do you know each other?”
“Church.”
“What?“
“Church!”
The last party I went to, a woman I’ve known slightly for years asked me if CSG and his brother, sitting across the room, were my sons. I was delighted that anyone could think that Mr McLean and I might have produced them.
“Adopted. Unofficially,” I joked.
Anyway, the band playing on Friday night was Colin Steele’s Kings of Swing, and they were terrific. Colin Steele himself is the trumpeter who won for “Best Instrumentalist” at the Scottish Jazz Awards last month. Any meeting of the Edinburgh Jazz ‘n’ Jive Club at which the Kings of Swing are playing is always fun. Last night the Kings brought down the house with a jazz version of Mozart’s “Rondo alla Turca.” It was clear they were not just playing: they were playing. Indeed, they looked like they were having as much fun as the dancers.
Occasionally I egged on CSG to ask the (few) younger women around to dance.
“That girl in the white shirt has a very sweet face.”
“But she’s with that guy.”
“Who cares? You can take him.”
Alas, the sweet-faced girl in the white shirt didn’t seem to get to dance very much. The woman with the excellent shoes beside me was more than willing to get out on the floor with her boyfriend or without.
The friendly Highlander watched CSG dancing with his girlfriend and confessed to being intimidated by all the great dancers in the room. He wanted to learn, though, for her sake. Ever enthusiastic about helping people dance, I used my phone to find the Lindy Hop lessons nearest his town. I also observed that CSG hasn’t been taking lessons that long but also that it took me ages to learn how to dance.
“It’s really all down to repetition,” I said, although I should have added “Plus good teachers, time, and a desire to improve.”
Speaking of time, there were two short speeches to drum up interest in a meeting about the club’s future. As I wrote before, the club is principally made up of Scottish jazzmen and jazzwomen now over 70 years old, plus a smattering of an international set of swing-dancers. To keep going, the club needs a good turnout every Friday. How to secure this, the founders are not sure. Thus, they want other people to give them ideas so that jazz–“LIVE jazz!”–will continue to play to dancers in Edinburgh.
My own idea is that someone should have a word with the Scottish tourist board. Yes, the tourists love looking at the rugged Highlands, buying the tartan, and hearing the pipers on Princes Street. However, there is more to Scotland’s musical patrimony than bagpipes and ceilidh dancing. There is also our take on jazz, including (or especially) Edinburgh jazz, right from the traditional jazz revival of the 1940s when some pals from the Royal High School started their own band. If tourists want to see “real Edinburgh” (and not just the Royal Mile) and be among “real Edinburghers” (and not just all the other tourists) then they ought to get on the 8 Bus at John Lewis and go to Heriot’s Rugby Club on Friday night.
Another idea is to get the word out to all the swing-dancing clubs in the Scottish Diaspora: England, Australia, New Zealand, Canada, the USA. Lots of swing-dancers from the Colonies turn up in Edinburgh for work, university, or vacations. They should hear about the Edinburgh Jazz’n’ Jive Club and make plans to visit before they leave home. It should be a place of jazz pilgrimage.
I shared my first idea with the taxi driver who drove me home after the dance. Despite being rather deaf, he was quite interested in the topic and told me about a friend of his who had played in The Elastic Band. The Elastic Band was so-called because the musicians changed all the time. My driver also told me something I already knew, which was that the Edinburgh jazz scene began dropping off in the 1990s.
This led to a conversation about Britain’s dying night life. My driver had asked his grandson why he did not go to pubs to meet girls, and the grandson had said that nobody does that anymore. His generation looks for girls online. Many clubs had shuttered, said the driver with sorrow.
The drive ended on a hopeful note, however, as I said I thought AI would turn the internet into a sea of rubbish and young people would return to the experiences of past generations. Human beings are social creatures. It is just not normal to live as much of one’s life as possible alone on the ever more untrustworthy internet.
Meanwhile, I cannot think of anything more fun than dancing to live jazz, so I have my own selfish reasons for wanting the club to survive for another 25 years. Thus, I will continue to advertise it here and elsewhere. A less selfish reason, of course, is to continue the legacy of the wonderful set of Edinburgh jazzmen and jazzwomen who keep on going to the Church of Jazz year after year, Friday after Friday.
“I’m getting too old for this,” confessed the founder, as he wrestled with the raffle tickets.