Slowing Down (10 page)

Derek had it framed within a cover of a particularly unpleasant shade of eau de Nil, gave the album the title
Nuts
, and below the image itself he reprinted what they had suggested on the proof, ‘Wouldn’t this photograph make a fine enlargement?’ Typically he sent the cover to the delighted photographer, who displayed it prominently for a time among the nurses and graduates.

In the UK the recording was heavily publicized by Derek on badges and T-shirts in the approved rock fashion. ‘Melly-mania’ was the typical legend. It did well, if not sensationally, and he decided on a follow-up album,
Son of Nuts
. For this he hired Merlin’s New Cave itself. The cover was a blow-up of the front page of the magazine
Exchange and Mart
. He cut out an irregular hole in this and behind it there was another photograph of me, this time emoting and sweating. It was ‘warts and all’ time.

Meanwhile we made our first paid appearance at Ronnie’s, second on the bill to a celebrated US black modern drummer, Elvin Jones. We got on very well with each other and every night, as he came off stage and we went on, he would embrace me, which, as he was sweating profusely, was a flattering but dampening experience. The audience received us with enthusiasm, so much so that we were rebooked for the following Christmas season. This created enormous interest in the press. I was an established TV and film critic and they were intrigued by my resigning from Fleet Street, as it still was, to revert to the road. In a column in the
Spectator
, for example, an eminent journalist, accompanied by an American
woman, reported her as saying, ‘Who is this guy? He’s like Professor Longhair’ (a New Orleans pianist much admired by Paul McCartney, who mentioned him in one of his post-Beatles compositions) ‘before,’ she added, ‘he went serious.’

The season went so well they booked us for next year and, in my case, continue to do so up to the present.

The employees at Ronnie’s were less adaptable than the punters. They were so cool that one of them at the front desk, when asked who was on, answered rather disparagingly, ‘Oh, some little Dixie group.’ On another occasion Venetia, who has never missed an appearance of mine there, arrived a little late and, as I’d asked her to, announced her appearance. The same man, unimpressed by her undeniably upper-class diction, replied by asking, ‘What am I meant to do? Jump in the fucking air?’ At that time John nicknamed the club ‘The Frith Street Charm School’.

Since then, familiarity has bred not contempt but friendly acceptance, especially among the bouncers at the door, all of whom embrace me warmly each year on my first appearance in early December. Pete King too has become a true friend, and although during his lifetime Ronnie would always announce our forthcoming appearance with the words ‘and then George Melly – God help us’, it was humorously intended, not heartfelt.

Forewarned by our own earlier example, we stayed sober enough during our second recording, this time at Merlin’s New Cave, not to have to do it all over again.

Derek had ordered Steve the landlord to provide fish and chips for the full house. This he did, charging for each portion as if it were Beluga caviar.

No doubt WB paid but Derek noted the outrageous amount. He had the huge bill reprinted and inserted a copy in each album when it was issued. Many of those who bought the LP returned it, explaining there must have been a mistake. Steve the landlord didn’t make that kind of mistake and was far from pleased. He was, in both character and appearance, not unlike a slightly dodgy character in Dickens anyway. It took, for example, a long time to persuade him to invest in a new piano or at least a passable second-hand one. The instrument in residence was fit only for the pianistic knacker’s yard and those eminent American pianists who dropped in were absolutely appalled by it.

The gents, too, would have been condemned by the Bombay health authorities. I was happily never ‘taken short’ there, but if I had been and it was too late, you’d hardly have noticed. Still the atmosphere every Sunday was magic, and once, leaving to fulfil an evening engagement, Steve gave us a catering tin of crisps. This was kind of him but later, on the way to Maidstone or wherever it was, one of the band gave a cry of horror. He had just popped in his mouth a mouse’s head!

Mouse’s head apart (Steve the landlord said he couldn’t imagine how it found its way into the box of crisps), Warner Brothers UK didn’t stop Derek from promoting our LPs. He organized a series of national tours, and came with us. During this honeymoon period the company laid on limos to carry us to the large theatres and halls where we attracted perfectly respectable audiences and put us up in grand hotels. He himself was at his most mischievous and had us constantly in helpless hysterics.

In Edinburgh, at the North British Hotel at one end of Princes Street, he rang up the hall porter and ordered six hookers. The man didn’t know what he meant. Derek explained. The response was appalled. ‘This is a respectable hotel,’ he was told. ‘We dinna supply such a sairvice under any circumstances.’ He sounded just under control; perhaps he was a member of the ultra-puritanical Wee Free church.

‘Oh well,’ said Derek completely unfazed. ‘Then send up six chicken sandwiches.’

On that visit to Edinburgh, Derek introduced the concert. Obviously extremely drunk, he stumbled and rambled for what seemed for ever, much to the puzzlement and eventually irritation of the largely jazz-loving audience. We more or less pulled it out of the hat.

Next day, at the hookerless hotel, he sprinkled ‘grass’ in our Scotch broth. At that time, in the early seventies and beyond, John had a bookshop in Great Ormond Street, run then by Teresa, his short, bright and formidable wife, who had previously retired to give birth to and rear their three children. While jazz books were the staple fare, many of them ordered from the States, there were other general books, some rare first editions, while the regular browsers included many distinguished writers and bibliophiles. In any town we visited John sought out the booksellers (largely an unpleasant race, in his view) to find useful books not only for Teresa’s shelves, but also for his own considerable library, often uniform editions of Hardy, Evelyn Waugh and several others to his liking.

On this occasion, unaware of the cause but high as a space probe, he set off and bought, at the full asking price, loads of rubbish; fourth editions of Warwick Deeping,
nineteenth-century sermons in Welsh, anything! Later, when the effect of the grass wore off, he wondered if the first shop he entered hadn’t alerted the others that there was a free-spending madman on the loose.

And so we hunted the drunken snark, spooning down haggis and neaps and downing rare malts.

It was in Glasgow that Derek’s last memorable prank of the tour took place.

He and I entered a pretty tough pub with a crowd of middle-aged drinkers, heavily tattooed, and in some cases bearing facial scars, who looked at Derek with suspicious amazement.

Finally one of them lit his Sweet Afton with a standard lighter. Derek asked to see it. The man reluctantly passed it over. Derek offered him five pounds. ‘It’s no’ worth that,’ said its owner.

‘Ten then,’ said Derek.

While perhaps tempted, the man still resisted. ‘It’s only an ordinary wee lighter,’ he told him.

‘Oh all right, thirty, then,’ said Derek counting out the notes with a picture of Sir Walter Scott on one side.

This was too much for the owner of the lighter to turn down. Holding the money up to the dim light bulb, he pocketed it and rather aggressively handed over the ‘wee lighter’.

After we left we wondered what line their subsequent analysis of this very un-Caledonian demonstration of topsyturvy anti-business practice might have taken. The landlord, opening many bottles of Wee Heavy, must have been delighted.

*

And so we returned eventually to London. Derek was still convinced he could sell me to Warner Brothers US and later he and I flew over to try to bring this off. He failed dramatically. Meanwhile, despite going professional, work in Britain, Warner Brothers promotions and Ronnie Scott’s apart, seemed to dry up. There was less about somehow than even in our semi-pro days.

Ronnie Scott’s was not only a club but also ran an agency, upstairs. Although Derek still advised us, it was the Scott Agency who booked or, in this case, didn’t book us. We had, as our own agent within the organization, a sweet young man with very long eyelashes called Chips. We liked him very much personally, but began to suspect that, as an addict of both vodka and sleep, he wasn’t up to the job. I doubt he lifted the phone very often.

John and I went into Pete King’s office to complain about this state of affairs and Pete told us that it was all going to change. ‘You’ll be working so hard,’ he told us in his seductively laid-back East London voice, ‘that you won’t ’ave time to wipe your arses.’

This just didn’t happen. Then, as later, our arses remained as clean as whistles.

Finally John and I decided to resign. We made an appointment and walked into the office at the agreed hour. Pete was there. Chips was there (Ronnie didn’t interfere much with business) and another man was there, in his middle fifties so far as I could judge. John and I recognized him at once. His name is Jack Higgins.

Now in his eighties, Jack has had a full and action-packed life. He has a healthy, rubicund complexion and has always dressed smartly, if slightly squirishly. His only physical
handicap is his teeth, of which there are remarkably few, clearly by design, for if he wanted he could have easily been fitted with the best on the market, literally ‘the cutting edge’. He is a gourmet and wine specialist, an excellent cook even when it is only for his own benefit. He now grows his own vegetables and keeps ducks, named after famous jazz musicians, like Buck (or Duck) Clayton. His voice is classless, his laugh, when he is crossed professionally, is humourless but formidable and has earned him, among those who have opposed his professional propositions or attempted to beat him down financially, the decidedly unflattering nickname ‘The Braying Mantis’. While I have occasionally lost a limb in his chomping jaws I remain very fond of Jack 90 per cent of the time. We’ve never needed a contract.

For most of his adult life Jack has been in the agency business. For many years after the war he was second-in-command to the formidable Harold Davidson, whose agency handled the importation of and the arrangements for American stars from a wide musical spectrum, including jazz and blues. With most of these, he became a friend – but not inevitably. He much disliked Roy Eldridge, for instance, a great if slightly underrated trumpet player, and the bridge between Louis and Dizzy. This, I’d speculate, had nothing to do with Roy’s musical prowess, but probably arose from his touchiness and easily triggered temper.

Jack had told me of this antipathy, and as his tales of his early years are completely fascinating, I asked him how he’d got on with the white cornet player Ruby Braff, a notoriously irascible person. Jack often surprises me. ‘Perfectly well,’ he told me, in a tone of voice indicating that he in turn was
surprised at my question. ‘He was always completely reliable as to business arrangements.’ In fact Jack’s measure of a client is neither talent nor genius, although most often this is their selling point, but their professional approach to jobs and money.

Of course, dealing with American stars he has inevitably come into contact with their very tough managements, sometimes, as is widely known and right through from the twenties, connected to the mobs. No bother there of course, but then Jack is physically fearless. Someone told me, it may have been John, that he was in a Soho pub much frequented by villains when a gang fight broke out. No guns in evidence, but knives flashed, and chairs, glasses and bottles flew through the air. John, if it were he, left at once, but glancing back, took in that Cool-hand Higgins, who was sitting at the bar sipping a half pint, didn’t move a muscle but observed the whole fracas like an entomologist might a war between red and black ants.

So what was Jack L. Higgins doing in Ronnie Scott’s office?

He had for some years prior to this unexpected appearance managed a marina, but now, snorting like the war-horse in the Old Testament ‘Ha! Ha! Amongst the trumpets’, felt a need to return to the music business. Pete King, perhaps not unaware that that branch of the business was not the jewel in the Scott crown, had, when Jack applied, taken him on.

Pete had told Jack that we were coming in to see him about something and Jack, having looked at the snow-blinding almost empty date-sheet, predicted we were going to resign. Pete said he couldn’t believe
that
, but Jack said he was sure.

He had then taken the no-doubt-reluctant Chips into another office with a telephone and, although, as a recent member of staff, he was the more junior employee, made him ring up jazz clubs and other modest venues all over the country.

When John and I came in, our determination reinforced by a couple of drinks in the Intrepid Fox on the corner, we began to say something like, ‘No offence, Pete, but…’ when Jack strolled forward and handed us both sheets of paper. ‘Your date-sheets for the next month,’ he told us in a throw-away voice. While admittedly in most cases modestly rewarded, almost every night was booked!

From then on Jack raised our fees where possible, but his personal intentions were less in evidence. He learned all he could about the current jazz world; he had a fast memory; and he was prepared to stay in the office until long after Chips had left to relax even further, or perhaps kip.

Then, when he was good and ready, the long green legs rubbed together and the harsh laugh of the Braying Mantis was heard in the land. Jack Higgins resigned; and shortly afterwards he asked us to join him.

Pete was furious. The scales fell from his eyes once he had understood Jack’s strategy. He refused to speak to him for many years and the negotiations for our Christmas appearances at the club had to be conducted through a third party in Frith Street. (Chips had left shortly after Jack’s defection.) Jack was refused entry to the club on Pete’s instructions, even in the company of friends, for many a season. Recently, however, they communicated again – another great, if on this occasion pleasant, surprise for me.