lasca sartoris...
Archive/RSS/Ask
Lonely Londoner living the Lush Life
| introducing... | index... | reading list... | |
| pinterest... | twitter... | instagram... | Lasca's London list... |
British Pathé newsreel of Carmen England, hairdresser at the British Colonies Club, straightening (hot combing/pressing) a woman’s hair which is then styled in a typical 1940’s fashion.
British Colonies Club, St Martin’s Place, London. 1948
Does anyone have information about the British Colonies Club? Would love to know more!!
Duke Vin, Count Suckle & the Birth of Ska in Britain trailer
FREENESS!! Soho: The Negro Quarter of Central London 1919-1939
The lovely people at the Equiano Centre’s Drawing Over the Colour Line project have just completed new research into the cafes, bars and clubs of London’s Soho between the wars.
The map is wonderful insight into the diverse nightlife and cafe society of interwar Soho thought of as “the negro quarter of central London” in the 1930s.
It explores 13 venues, from the Florence Mills Social Parlour opened by Pan-Africanist political activist Amy Ashwood Garvey (first wife to Marcus and FEARLESS BOSS LADY!!) to the Cafe de Paris, at the time London’s most fashionable venue, frequented by the rich and royal.
The map isn’t available to the public yet but they’ve let me a couple of copies to give away. If you’d like a one, drop me a line at lasca.sartoris@gmail.com and I’ll post it out to you.
We all like a bit of freeness innit!?!
“About Soho we went before the light;
We went, unresting six, craving new fun;
New scenes, new raptures; for the fevered night
Of rollicking laughter; drink and song, was done.”
- Claude McKay, La Paloma in London, 1922
Drawing over the Colour Line: Geographies of art and cosmopolitan politics in London, 1919 – 1939
I hear that Dame Shirley Bassey will make her first appearance on the Academy Awards on February 24th. I can’t wait to see that! Here, she is in her dressing room in London in May 1958, looking almost as good as she does today! Photo by Popperfoto/Getty Images.
Completely off topic but amazing documentary on Sound System culture in 1980s London.
Featuring legendary UK Sounds like Coxsone, Saxon and Fat Man and a very fresh faced David Rodigan. Made in 1981 and narrated by Mikey Dread.
Pinkie McKenzie, who entertained and recorded in Britain during the WWII years.
She recorded “More Than You Know” with Leslie “Jiver” Hutchinson & his Coloured Orchestra for Decca on 31st July 1944.
To coincide with Stephen Poliakoff’s five-part BBC drama, Dancing on the Edge, who Andy Simons, who compiled the British Library CD Black British Swing, has published his companion book online. Read at the links below…
Since we’re on the Black British Jazz tip tonight - have to mention the imitable Dame Cleo Laine.
Dame Cleo is the only female performer to have received Grammy nominations in the jazz, popular and classical music categories.
Came across this excellent newsreel about the “Stars Campaign for Interracial Friendship” in 1959 which was formed to combat the White Defence League. Her husband, composer John Dankworth, was chairman of the campaign. Cleo Laine discussing how she would have to be repatriated her to her birthplace… Southall.
Links:
Stars Campaign for Inter-Racial Friendship: rock against racism in the 1950s?
Ken “Snakehips” Johnson Britain’s first Black swing bandleader, c.1936.
“I determined I’d make them like swing at the Café, or die in the attempt, and boy, I nearly died”
On Saturday 8th March 1941, during the Blitz, that two German bombs exploded on the dance floor of the Cafe de Paris after the start of a performance. Thirty-four people died including Johnson – who was decapitated – and saxophonist David Williams. An eyewitness recalled how he was found lying dead, a flower still in his lapel. He was 27 years old.
Listen to Ken ‘Snakehips’ Johnson & His West Indian Dance Band
The Ken SnakeHips Johnson Story at www.swingtime.co.uk
Bourne, Stephen “Mother Country - Britain’s Black Community on the Home Front 1939”
Black British Jazz Pioneers
Leslie “Hutch” Hutchinson and Ken “Snakehips” Johnson
and Chiwetel Ejiofor looking flipping gorgeous in white tie and tales in BBC drama Dancing on the Edge, 2012.
