Dance bands in Chester: An evolving professional network

This thesis addresses the live music scene in Chester in the mid-20th Century, and in particular jazz-based styles of dance music, played for the most part by local musicians. The basis of the study is a set of interviews with musicians, promoters and fans who were all active in the Chester area during the period between 1925 and 2008, in settings ranging from military bands and youth clubs to resident dance hall bands, touring concert parties, summer season shows and radio broadcasts. Thirty interviews were undertaken, and along with many hours of taped conversation, these yielded over 200 photographs and other pieces of evidence In this thesis I have synthesised existing theoretical approaches from a number of fields to account for the large number of part-time dance-band musicians who were active in the Chester area, especially during World War II and in the decade that followed. Ideas from popular music studies and jazz studies were part of this framework, but were not sufficient, as both fields have historically had a tendency to concentrate on musicians and places considered to be highly significant or exceptionally influential, rather than routine and local. I have therefore turned to other disciplines in search of appropriate analytical approaches, and used ideas from geography, economics and sociology as alternative lenses through which to view the problem. In the process, I have shown that this dance band scene grew from the people and entertainment infrastructure of the previous, inter-war, period. In turn, the musicians, promoters and venues of the dance band scene, combined with changes in technology and society which fundamentally changed the economics of live entertainment, formed essential parts of the environment in which much better-known rock and pop musicians of the 1960s and 70s emerged and developed

Jazz on the border: Jazz and dance bands in Chester and North Wales in mid-twentieth century

This is the author's PDF version of an article published by Jazz Research Journal, 2013.There was a high degree of overlap between western popular music and jazz in the mid- twentieth century. However, histories of jazz and histories of popular music are often puzzlingly separate, as if divided by strict borders. This article looks at some of the rea- sons for this (including those proposed by Frith (2007) and Bennett (2013). The impor- tance of musical pathways and hidden histories (Becker 2002, 2004; Finnegan 2007; Nott 2002; Rogers 2013) in the context of local music scenes is considered. The importance of taking live music scenes and provincial areas into account when discussing genre his- tories is discussed, in the context of examples from an oral history study of dance-band musicians and promoters in the Chester (UK) area. These examples help to demonstrate that boundaries between jazz and popular music are frequently less abrupt in practice than they are in theory

Dance Bands in Chester & North Wales, 1930 – 1970: Revealing a Hidden History

Dance bands in Chester and North Wales, 1930 - 1970 : Revealing a Hidden History “… the work of local amateur musicians is not just haphazard or formless, the result of individual whim or circumstance. On the contrary, a consistent - if sometimes changing - structure lies behind these surface activities. The public events … are part of an invisible but organised system through which individuals make their contribution to both the changes and the continuities of English music today.” (Finnegan, 2007) Chester (UK) in the period around World War II had a thriving live dance music scene, in which most of the music-making was done by local semi-professional musicians. Although they were busiest in the 1940s and 50s, many of the bands involved continued to operate alongside groups playing rock 'n' roll and pop, often in the same venues and sometimes at the same events, and the infrastructure which had supported the dance bands is an essential, if under-recorded, part of the history of rock 'n' roll and beat bands in the area (including the Beatles). This presentation looks at evidence from a recently-completed Ph.D. project to investigate how this local dance band scene worked, including the nature and evolution of its 'invisible but organised' underlying structure. The majority of the data was collected from private sources, with the aim of recording information which was not available in a single, academically-accessible archive. Fieldwork included over 30 recorded interviews with musicians, promoters and dancers. It also yielded more than 200 photographs and images which helped to illuminate the world of the bands, musicians and venues mentioned, and to produce a comprehensive snapshot of the local dance band scene, covering as wide a range as possible of social and musical backgrounds and experiences. Inspirations for this oral history project include The Hidden Musicians (Finnegan, 2007), Jazz Places (Becker, 2004), Rock Culture in Liverpool (Cohen, 1991), Other Voices (Brocken, 2010) and Victory Through Harmony (Baade, 2013). It is hoped that combining ideas from these and other sources with a detailed investigation of this specific local scene, as this work has done, will contribute further to a better understanding of amateur and semi-professional music-making in an urban landscape. Becker, Howard S. (2004). Jazz Places. In A. Bennett & R. A. Peterson (Eds.), Music Scenes: Local, Translocal and Virtual (pp. 17 - 27): Vanderbilt University Press. Brocken, Michael. (2010). Other voices : hidden histories of Liverpool's popular music scenes, 1930s - 1970s: Ashgate Publishing Ltd. Cohen, Sara. (1991). Rock Culture in Liverpool : Popular Music in the Making: Oxford University Press. Finnegan, Ruth H. . (2007). The Hidden Musicians: Music-Making in an English Town: Wesleyan University Press

The Lantern Vol. 17, No. 3, Summer 1949

• All the Silver in Taxco • The Fall • Parlor Games • Something There Is • Friday Night • Evening • Checker-Board Country • A Noise • Expected Up In Heaven Today • When Time Has Torn My Youth • Impression of Deathhttps://digitalcommons.ursinus.edu/lantern/1048/thumbnail.jp

The Lantern Vol. 16, No. 3, Spring 1948

• Not So Light • Babba\u27s Luck • Winter Night • God Hath Wrought • Less Than Trivia • What is Progress? • Betrayal • The Key • Journey From a Star • War and Peace • Experiment in Prose Poetry • Dawn • Eternal Question • My Gift • Jazz Fantasy • M.W. Witmerhttps://digitalcommons.ursinus.edu/lantern/1045/thumbnail.jp

The Lantern Vol. 16, No. 1, Fall 1947

• A Little Light • Social Solidarity • The Struggle • 1949 Report • Blues • Angel\u27s Wings • Street Death • The Giant • Not Alone • B or Something • After Argument • Friendship • Built That Way • The Passing • Freshman • Asleep • John J. Heilemannhttps://digitalcommons.ursinus.edu/lantern/1043/thumbnail.jp

The Struggle for Legitimacy: South Africa’s Divided Labour Movement and International Labour Organisations, 1919–2019

Who could be considered a legitimate representative of South Africa’s working class, and even who constituted this class, was bitterly contested during the twentieth century. This chapter examines the struggles for international recognition by the rival constituents of South Africa’s labour movement, which was sharply divided along racial and ideological lines. Initially, the International Labour Organization and other similar bodies formed links with the white-dominated labour movement, which regarded itself as the legitimate representative of all workers in South Africa. This position was successfully contested by emerging black African trade unions who themselves, in the face of fierce repression, competed for financial support made available by various sections of the international labour movement

Dance bands in Chester (1930 - 1970) : An evolving professional network

Headings are: the city of Chester; a hidden history; jazz places; economic places; social networks; methodology and findings

Throwing sheep in the bandroom: Visualising a social and economic network of musicians in Cheshire and North Wales

The aim of this session is to apply some of the visual and technological tools of 21st-Century online social networking, e.g. network visualisation using "friend wheels", to a densely interconnected network of jazz and dance band musicians active in the Chester (UK) area in the 1950s, as revealed by research on the "hidden history" of live music in the area. Over 30 interviews with musicians, dancers and promoters have been collected, plus more than 200 photographs from personal collections, and an M.U. diary/address book belonging to local bandleader Wilf Field. The recent dramatic growth of online social networks such as Facebook, LinkedIn and MySpace has led to a revival of interest in the economic importance of social networks; Fraser and Dutta’s "Throwing Sheep in the Boardroom" provides an interesting survey of the issues, and was an inspiration for this session. But working musicians have long known the importance of knowing (and impressing) the "right people" in order to get work. Have social networks changed fundamentally since the advent of Web 2.0, or were they always there, and just a little harder to visualise when held in a pocket diary, rather than displayed on a Facebook wall

Total war and its effects on the live music industry in Cheshire and North Wales

Given the profound effect which World War II had on the economy of the UK as a whole, it would be surprising if specific areas of that economy – such as live music in the provinces – were not affected as well. How did ‘total war’ affect the live music industry on a local level? Evidence I have collected for a study of musicians active in and around Chester during the period suggests that the large number of military bases in the area, combined with the effects of other wartime factors such as conscription, rationing and the need to maintain both military and civilian morale, did indeed affect the size and nature of the market for live dance music locally. For instance, the large US Air Force base at Burtonwood was a source of work for local musicians, as well as an opportunity to mix with American musicians and music fans. As well as presenting information obtained through interviews with musicians and their relatives, I will also look briefly at what happened to the musicians and the bands after the war, when economic and social conditions changed again, at the same time as advances occurred in music-related technology