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
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.
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.
