This venue presented this area’s mainstay ‘jazzfix’ during the fifties.  Run by Art and his lovely wife Viv Sanders at the Fishmongers Arms, Wood Green, the club offered jazz on Saturday, Sunday and Tuesday nights.

In the early days, Tuesday, was used by Viv and Art to introduce new and up and coming bands. They were always ready to give new bands a gig, and the wages for these novices was always good, unlike some other promoters who paid the apprentice bands hungry for work, peanuts!  As a result, many newer bands got their first chance to hit greater heights, at the Fishmongers. They gave local band The Dauphin Street Six a chance and as their following grew, transferred them for many more Saturday nighters.

 If Art decided to move you to a Saturday night slot from Tuesdays, you knew you were made. To be able to boast to hesitant promoters that you ‘played Saturdays at the Fishmongers’, would almost certainly assure you of some of the best gigs in the Country.

I recall fondly the first visit of Mr Acker Bilk’s Paramount Jazz Band.  What an unexpected rave-up it turned out to be.  As we piled onto the trolley bus afterwards, everybody was talking about this new phenomenon from the West Country.  We somehow knew he would some day become a household name.

Many other famous bands took to the Fishmonger’s stage; the list would read like a who’s who of British jazz history.  Art also had a policy of engaging touring bands, like The Clyde Valley Stompers from Glasgow with the fabulous jazz singer Fiona Duncan.

The club was a haunt for all Enfield Ravers and was easily reached via the 629 trolley bus from Cecil road, and ran every few minutes. (The motor car then was a luxury afforded only by some rich adults). Resultantly, we were among the most privileged jazz fans in the country as we got to see some of the first sessions played by bands which went on to become legends in their own lifetimes.  
 
Unlike most venues, the spectators’ pew-like seats were arranged at the front, and the dancers’ floor was in the dusky area at the back.  This meant that those learning to jive, could do so without being seen making fools of themselves. It also meant that the dance floor was never empty and the band always had an ‘immediate audience’, and did not play to that large empty open space, (the dance floor) experienced at some lesser discerning clubs. This all added to the atmosphere. The stage was set about three feet above floor level and there were several huge candle-waxed bottles either side with lighted candles giving the place a dimly lit and true jazzy ambience.  

Alas, at the the dawning of the sixties, Trad was beginning to give way to the commercial sounds of the Beatles, and the beautiful melodies of the trumpet, clarinet and trombone were being replaced by the newly discovered twanging of electric guitars.  It was at this point, my work took me temporarily away from London and away from my favorite jazz haunt.

Today, some fifty plus years on, our regular ‘jazzfix’ is satisfied at the BAY Jazz Club here at Botany Bay Cricket Club pavilion every Tuesday evening.  The Bay Hall of Fame page illustrates the range and diversification of bands appearing at this much sought- after venue.  Look up also the three month rolling Programme and fix a date or two to pay a visit, you will not be disappointed. Believe it or not, there are among its membership, one or two Enfield Ravers from those heady days of yore!

But for many of us who were ‘there’ though, in the fifties, during that great ‘Trad-fad’ era, we owe so much to Viv and Art for providing us with the best jazz of the day.

Whenever, I meet another jazzer at a festival somewhere, I am often asked, “Did you ever go the Wood Green Jazz Club?” To which I always reply, “Did I ever go to the Wood Green Jazz Club?”

Don