The World Gone Mad: 1899 - 1919

Jass, Ragtime, Tin Pan Alley and the Blues

Debuted at Cadogan Hall in The EFG London Jazz Festival on 24th November, 2018

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The most exciting and significant era of popular music was not the ‘60s. It wasn’t the ‘40s. It wasn't even the Roaring Twenties. The real revolution took place between 1899 and 1919. In those years the world was shaken by war, ragtime, jazz, modernism, female emancipation and the invention of the entertainment business. Those years saw the greatest shake-up to the established order the world had ever seen and everybody felt it. It affected everything from the monarchies of Europe to the length of a skirt. The World Gone Mad features a fascinating and entertaining selection of the music from this turbulent period.

In 1919 two American jazz bands came to Britain and caused a sensation.  The music of The Original Dixieland Jazz Band and The Southern Syncopators was as big a musical revolution in this country as the later explosions caused by Bill Haley and The Comets, Elvis and The Beatles.   Many, on being exposed to this extraordinary new sound believed that the world had gone mad.   For the 2018 London Jazz Festival the Jazz Repertory Company presents a concert that features the influence of the music coming from America since 1899 and how British composers and bands responded it to it all with their homegrown versions of Jass, Ragtime, Tin Pan Alley and the Blues.  Many believed the fad wouldn’t last but the music grew, changed and eventually became the music that took over the world.

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The Jazz Repertory Company’s 19 piece orchestra features:

James Davison, Tom Dennis: cornet

Andy Findon: flute/piccolo

Keith Nichols: piano and musical director

Martin Wheatley: banjos and musical director

Thomas “Spats” Langham: vocals and banjo

Richard Pite:  tuba

David Horniblow, Richard Exell: reeds

Kit Massey, Nick Parker: violin

Nick Ward, Nick Ball: drums and percussion

Music includes:

At The Jazz Band Ball, Alexander’s Ragtime Band, Everybody’s Doing It, That Ragtime Suffragette, Heliotrope Bouquet, Dear Old Shepherds Bush and many more.