"They are not long, the days of wine and roses"

Join me for a trip into the origins of rock'n'roll via rhythm & blues, swing, jazz, and whatever. The music which appears on this blog includes the kind of stuff that falls outwith the conventional rock'n'roll parameters. Stuff such as early jump bands, swing bands, be bop and 40's/50's jazz. There's also plenty of vocal groups, blues shouters, tenor sax honkers, big names, half-forgotten names, and complete obscuros.

They've mostly passed on now, those artists whose music has formed the soundtrack to the last few decades of my life. In fact when I started listening to this kind of music thirty years ago, many of its creators were already deceased. But the music lives on - the notes still echo somewhere in the eternal bop night, down dark alleyways and through long deserted rooms which were once full of life, laughter and the clink of wine glasses. Ballrooms and theatres, night clubs, bars, juke boxes and the glowing dials of valve radios - they've all gone. However, in the mind's eye, we may yet catch fleeting glimpses of the past captured forever in a tenor sax solo, in a tinkling cocktail jazz piano, in voices long stilled yet living on in grooves on shellac and vinyl.

I hope that the music you hear on this blog will inspire you to go out and buy more. There are no CDs here. The music files consist of digitized tracks from my collection of vinyl and cassettes, plus the generous donations of fellow enthusiasts. Whenever I am aware of the availability of a newer, still in-print version of the music I post here, I encourage readers of this blog to investigate it and buy it. Re-issue companies such as Ace, Proper, JSP and Rev-Ola need your support.

Please support the artists (or their estates) by going out and buying the latest issues of this kind of music. Please support the legitimate reissue companies by buying their CDs.

Now it's dark. The neon lights are beckoning. We can hear the music filtering into the street from basement clubs and through the brightly lit barroom doors. Those saxes are honking and the bass is walking the boogie. Tonight we're going to let the good times roll.