1960s Jazz and Trad Boom

From 1960 to 1963 jazz, for the last time – at least up until now! – was the music of the people.

The three-year ‘Trad Boom’, headed by trumpeter Kenny Ball and his Jazzmen, clarinettist Acker Bilk and also trombonist Chris Barber – sold out concerts all over the UK and sent records like Ball’s ‘Midnight in Moscow’ and Acker Bilk’s ‘Stranger on the Shore’ rocketing into the charts. Dozens more bands including clarinettist Terry Lightfoot’s Jazzmen and trumpeter Bob Wallis’s Storyville Jazzmen followed on with hits of their own, but the Boom was brought to a conclusive end in 1963 when the Beatles arrived with a trilogy of hits ‘Please please me’ ‘From Me to You’ and ‘She loves you’ founding today’s rock culture in the process. From 1963 jazz met the challenge in various ways; the Trad Boom Kings went into cabaret and mainstream radio and TV, while modern jazz continued on its creative pathway headed by tenor saxophonist Tubby Hayes, the quintet of saxophonist Don Rendell and trumpeter Ian Carr and other great musicians. The music took further intellectual steps forward with ‘free jazz’ headed by drummer John Stevens with his Spontaneous Music Ensemble, tenor saxophonist Evan Parker and guitarist Derek Bailey. And by the end of the decade and with the arrival of Miles Davis’ classic albums ‘In a silent way’ and ‘Bitches Brew’ in 1970 a new genre called ‘jazz-fusion’ was on the way.

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