let's fly down

Cromer is getting better. Once an elegant and genteel Victorian resort, the town went through a bad patch some years ago. Its haute-couture blazer wore through at the elbow, the cuffs frayed and a button dropped off. Now the seamstresses have been hard at work. A smart leather patch has been expertly sewn onto the arms, the cuffs have been turned and sparkling new brass buttons adorn the front. Today, part of the original grandeur is again being glimpsed.


Our arrival in the town had a touch of ‘good news, bad news’ about it. The good news is we parked easily and avoided the frantic crush. The bad news is we were a day early for Carnival. Never mind. We found in the town an air of expectancy, as if a band could be heard approaching from afar but the leader had yet to appear over the brow of the hill. To call the anticipation ‘fever pitch’ would be gross exaggeration. This is Norfolk. Full of character and characters it is; febrile it is not.

Yet we knew something was about to happen. For a start, the sun broke through at last. Then we saw fairgrounds and fluttering breeze-tickled bunting; the signs for extra parking; heavily laden drays delivering extra supplies to the pubs; holiday-makers wandering around with programmes in their hands; a jazz band playing. Cromer was a-buzz.

Jazz? To my delight, I encountered The Smokehouse Blue Jazz Marching Band marking time in a lazy circle on the corner by the old tobacconist’s shop, saxophones (Mick Murphy on alto), trombone, clarinet, trumpets, drum et al pumping out pure New Orleans. For what is Carnival without a jazz band? Nothing but a wan replica, a plastic Mona Lisa, a £20 note bearing the image of Cheryl Cole, a cheese and tomato sandwich made with Edam.

This band is good. Paucity of live jazz leads us to be grateful for small blessings and so we tend to consider most of what we hear as worthy, but this was beyond worthy – it was unquenched primitive excellence. Early jazz had a rawness and un-sophistication about it. Marching jazz - carnival jazz - rekindles that early enthusiasm and energy from the times when jazz was still being played as intended – to get people dancing, even, or maybe especially, at New Orleans funerals. What the music set out to do, this band seems to achieve. A small but appreciative audience applauded cheerily.

Smokehouse Blue processed along the High Street. At the band’s head, the grey-beard Grand Marshal, resplendent in black coat and hat, ceremonial sash and ornate traditional umbrella, led his musicians to that most appropriate of NO anthems – Bourbon Street Parade. Impatient cars squeezed past. Not even good jazz can be allowed to halt commerce and the traffic.

Serendipity! Around the corner was a carnival music market with a huge stock of covetable LPs for sale. I could have spent a lot of money, but I settled for a 1962 recording by the Gerry Mulligan Concert Jazz Band. I still reckon Mulligan had one of the best swing (with a small s) bands around at the time. In my choice is an irony. Mulligan purposefully formed his big band with the objective of playing music for the concert hall, not for dancing. But I can’t always square the circle.

Take a look at www.smokehousblue.com. You can listen to a few of the band’s favourite tracks.