Sylvie's Place
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Pete Skivington - autobiography
my tune
Pete SkivingtonI wouldnt say I came from a particularly musical family, although my Dad was a drummer in a pipe-band at school in Scotland, and my maternal grandfather played melodeon in his South Wales mining social community. Dad used to rattle out some side-drum licks with knife and fork before Sunday dinner.My first experience came when my Mum took the front room curtains down for washing. I found that if I took one end of the coiled curtain wire and held it against the window pane, a ping would produce a nice low note. Cant imagine what passers-by might have thought. Until a certain Saturday, my impression of jazz was just a tangled set of unrelated shrieks and howls. My twin sister, Pam, used to be listening to a jazz programme when I returned from Spurs on the bike. I would be waiting for Sports Report and would hear various strangulated Stan Kenton discords and suchlike. My preferences were more for people like John McCormack, Joan Sutherland, and orchestral stuff like Mozarts Eine kleine Nachtmusik.One Saturday, on entering the living room, I heard the Hot Five, liked it, and asked what it was. I then realised that I had been unlucky on my previous aural encounters. I spotted one of my mates, Tony Johnson, doing nothing much at the top of the street. I went out and mentioned my discovery. His reaction betrayed the fact that he was already a fan and I was a charlatan. He told me about Wood Green Jazz Club, and the fact that chaps played there in tee shirts with fags, beer and no music (shudder). Were going tonight, he said. It was Sandy Brown that night. That was it.A chap who lived around the corner, but with whom I had had nothing to do until we both started catching the 8.36 train from Brimsdown to Liverpool Street had said to me that he had always wanted to play the banjo. That was Roy Hart. He bought one for £6, a G-banjo, and immediately started learning from the accompanying book. Another friend, from school and general gadding about, Dick Perryman, had spent a few months in hospital with TB. Whilst in there he bought a guitar. Later on he lent me the guitar, so Roy and I learned the basic chords in his dads car, in the dark, and in the garage. We also did vocal harmonies.Just before going for National Service in March 1957 I bought a cheap guitar and grappled therewith until being posted to Cyprus with the Royal Signals. Once there, I ended up mingling with some more experienced guitarists etc., almost all Country and Western fans. I was recruited into their ranks and, sometimes suffering, got to know a lot of their favoured music. There was also pop stuff like Only You, or Twilight Time, which I preferred, but I was always caught out by a certain diminished chord in My Prayer.After demob, I just dabbled and listened to all sorts of music, mostly at Wood Green JC, until one day in March 1963 a drummer, Frank Cross, whom I barely knew, knocked on the door of my digs and asked, Do you still play that guitar? THAT guitar! There seemed to be a disapproving edge to it. I affirmed, and he asked if I fancied going to Turkey. Why not? I had a rubbish job, less than luxurious digs, no girlfriend, snow-wrecked shoes and a clapped-out Matchless motor bike so why not?Turkey never happened, but we played in US Officers Clubs in France and Germany. There was no bass, so I tuned THAT guitar down an octave, thereby recreating some of the earlier Kenton sounds. I was determined to get a bass guitar on my return, both of which occurred that October, 1963.I met a relation of a friend, Jim Burridge in the George pub in Enfield. He had just returned from Germany as well, so we had plenty to talk about, including getting something together. From that encounter The Autumns group was born, originally playing Django Reinhardt stuff but eventually going on to do Beatles and other such popular music. I left them in 1969 and went back to listening. They wanted to turn pro. I had a decent day job as a Systems Analyst and didnt think we were right for the pro scene.A couple of weeks before Easter 1970 I went to the Fishmongers Arms pub in Wood Green, where Stan Greig was running a quartet. A week later I had a sit-in, just for the experience, and was hugely surprised when Stan asked me to be the regular bass-guitarist. I was over the moon when on the first gig was Sandy Brown, one of my real favourites, and where it had all started.I played on and off with Stan right up until he had to retire through Parkinsons Disease, This was interspersed with spells full-time, with Terry Lightfoot from 1971 to 1972, and with Alex Welsh from 1974 full-time until 1979, then semi-pro until Alex passed away in June 1982.Laurie Chescoe asked me to join his new band, Goodtime Jazz, in 1990 and the band flourished until Laurie retired as Bandleader in 2003. We played at the Sacramento Jazz Jubilee in 1995, and did many gigs in Germany, France and Portugal.Since that, I was part of the Keith Smith show, Basin Street to Broadway which has now closed due to Keiths dying.I have formed a band called Swingfellows in order that I may play with some of my favourite musicians, The line up while possible is Chez Chesterman, trumpet; John Barnes, reeds; Dave Hewett, trombones, baritone horn and maybe cornet; John China, piano and vocals; Jim Douglas on guitar and maybe banjo; John Scotney, drums; and myself on both bass-guitar and double bass.
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