JCUK presents The Jake Leg Jug Band

Duncan Wilcox: vocals, double bass

Liam Ward: vocals, harmonica, jug, washboard, kazoo, saw

Warren James: vocals, guitar, banjo

Alex Clarke: saxophone

The Jazz Centre aims to promote our music not just in all its glorious myriad forms, but to explore its deep roots in blues, gospel, Ragtime and the enduring African influences. Sometimes overlooked in that musical gumbo is the Old Time Roots music of the 1920s and early 1930s generally known as Jug Band music, sometimes Spasm Band. The list of jazz musicians who played in such bands is both long and illustrious: Louis Armstrong and Johnny Dodds just for starters. Clarence Williams' Jug Band, (Clarence on vocals and jug), featured at various times Willie 'The Lion' Smith, King Oliver, Lonnie Johnson and Albert Nicholas.

There was a 1950s Jug Band revival in the USA, which paralleled the British Skiffle boom which grew out of the Chris Barber and Ken Colyer bands. That revival endures, with more jug bands performing than ever, and not just in the UK and USA.

It is generally regarded that Louisville, Kentucky was the birthplace of this style of music and then it spread all over the southern states. The music was hugely popular during hard times. However, as the economy improved, the fad of jug band music was gone as quickly as it arrived.

Jake Leg’s Duncan Wilcox: “We bill ourselves as a 20s and 30s band. We play jazz, blues, ragtime, gospel, vaudeville, and old-time music. The skiffle movement was basically the British interpretation of the earlier American jug band movement, just like the trad jazz movement was a reinterpretation of the earlier New Orleans Dixieland jazz, and the British Blues invasion of the 60s mirrored the Chicago electric blues of the 50s. It’s feel-good music and there is a lack of that in the mainstream these days. But the music scene tends to go in circles so everything has its day, then tends to come back as a revival stronger than ever - with added nostalgia.”