Founding a Legend on its own Music Stand – The
Oxcentrics and its
own Halcyon Days
My affinity with 20s Jazz pre-dates Oxford by many years and has its origins at Geoff Varrall’s family home at Riversdale in Bourne End Bucks, when I can recall a crackly 78 playing strains of Happy Days are here Again, and me as a slightly off-beat teenager with eclectic musical tastes feeling that this was “wot I really, really like”
Sixth form brought the founding of The Phantom Trio – “and there are seven of them” laconically quoted The Bucks Free Press, with definite Bonzo Dog pretensions, a manic Classics master called Malcolm Mercer who would perform the Dance of the Seven Veils to the tune of the Sheik of Araby, with such gusto that at the 1971 Bourne End Talent Contest, we managed to thrash the Joan Boddy Accordian Band into second place, leaving a group of tearful 8 year old accordion players, without the trophy !
Moving to University College, Oxford, my 2nd
year, Michaelmas 1974, when I decided to direct a production of The Hasty Heart
by John Patrick at the Newman Rooms in Little Clarendon Street at the pinnacle
of my acting/directing Phase at Oxford…….but I wasn’t a luvvie and over
Christmas, I nurtured the idea of turning to music and starting a band not
dissimilar to The Phantom Trio, but with less Herb Alpert and more influences
from The Temperance Seven, Bob Kerr’s Whoopee band and The Original Dixieland
Band circa 1919/20. Geoff was running a less-Dixie-more-pretentious band called
The High Society Syncopators at
My patient and supportive father loaned me the money to purchase music, boaters and our calling cards, which to this day and many design and print jobs later would still stand the test of time as a door-opener for gigs !
Week 0, Hilary ’75, back at Univ saw the First XV with ropes round their necks hauling a reluctant piano up staircase 11 to room 5, overlooking the High on one side and Radcliffe Quad on the other – this was indeed the birthplace of The Oxcentrics, and as my Scout frequently reminded me was on the very next staircase to staircase 12 where “young Mr Tully had started The Dark Blues” – by then doing the royal circuit with gigs like Prince Charles’ 21st Birthday Party.
Paul’s memory of Anthony Baines is correct as I misheard him reminisce about a 1920s undergraduate band called The Oxontrics, and so The Oxcentrics was born.
I was very determined that we should not start to gig until we were well prepared for the experience – so regular rehearsals were the order of the day. We had quickly outgrown my rooms and incarcerated ourselves in the Music Room at Univ – a padded cell within a diminished 7th of Shelley’s memorial.
Early personnel certainly included Stephen Bishop on bass trombone, who fairly soon gave way to Paul’s tenor bone; The Hon. Colin Moynihan was our first pianist – him of fast fingers and even faster mouth, who stayed with us until our first gig in the Univ Beer Cellar on 25th May 75.
Trumpeters were always hard to come by – Adam Brett, Geoff Varrall when other commitments allowed and a ginger bearded chap with glasses called Roger Oakley. But the core crew of my era will always be Paul, Olly, Glyn “you have to have black hair to play with rhythm”, Graham, Chris, Simon “Des” Wallace, Herbie, Geoff and Mike and friends – Coco the Seagull and the equally stuffed willy that took The Oxcentrics from being a dance band with musical pretensions to a dance band with entertainment pretensions.
Sadly, I only remember one gig that included Sally in full flapper gear Charlestoning the night away – but it was colossally entertaining and gave The Oxcentrics a new and authentic dimension that added so much to the show.
I was amazed to find that The Oxcentrics brand had survived through to the early
90s when I bumped into Olly and the band at the Chelsea Flower
Show. They had actually
managed to usurp the Grenadier Guards from the bandstand slot in
So to my favourite bits……..For sheer adrenalin, May morning, performing on Univ steps to a crowd of about 500 revellers; For sheer indulgence, getting progressively more pissed on Pimms on the Bullingdon Club Steamer trip down the Thames at Windsor when the stern of the boat got jammed into the bank, while the party hosts were pelting the Eton sculling boys with empty beer glasses; and for sheer excuses – Paul at our Acorn Recording Studio session blaming his bass trombone playing the night before for giving us trombone fluffs in his solo breaks; and for sheer hoot value auditioning for Opportunity Knocks only to be told by Hughie Green that we should try and perform in future without music stands ……I think you missed the point Hughie, old chap; and finally for sheer enjoyment, performing Live at The Roebuck, the night after the recording session and playing the best 1920s jazz Oxford had heard for 50 years !
Thanks for all the Halcyon days, Chaps !