We start our story with Ken Colyer and his brother Bill. Ken Colyer never had a hit single but was one of the first to include a skiffle session in his jazz set. He is mostly forgotten but he was very important in the early years of skiffle. In this first article about Ken and Bill Colyer we will look at their childhood and teenage years.
Ken Colyer was born on 18 April 1928 in Great Yarmouth, Norfolk, in the home of his uncle William Erhardt. The Colyer family lived in London but Ken's mother couldn't afford to have the baby at the hospital so went to her family instead, so she and the baby could have the rest they needed. A few weeks or days after delivering the baby she went back to London where Ken could meet his father and his two older brothers Bill and Bob. Their father was gone a lot of the time and their mother was in poor health and life was tough for the Colyer family. They lived in the most cultural part of London: Soho, with it's clubs and jazz music. Not that this was of any interest to the family, it was also cheap to live. But before they left Soho in 1938, sixteen year old Bill was already a big jazz fan and the money he made with his apprentice job was all spent on jazz records. He collected about 30 before he was 16 years old. Bill was still too young to go into the clubs, but listen on the street to the music coming from the basement of these clubs. Every evening Bill was allowed to listen to his jazz records and he took extreme good care of them. His brothers Bob and Ken, and later his younger sister Valerie were not allowed to touch the records.
In 1938 the Colyer family moved from Soho to Cranford, in the west of London. A year later, in September 1939, the Second World War broke out and Bill, the oldest son of the family, was soon called up for military service. His brother Bob would soon follow. Ken was only eleven when the war broke out and stayed at home with his mother. Their house in Cranford had a bunker in the backyard but Ken’s mother never used it. When German planes were detected the air raid sirene would sound and the power was cut out, so the pilots could not see the city and hopefully missed their targets. Most people would go into a bunker for safety but this was also an opportunity for robbers to go round houses and steal what they could use, mostly food or food stamps. Ken’s mother was very afraid of the robbers and never went to the bunker but instead protected her house from robbers. Ken used their bunker as a playground to hang out with friends, and when he got a harmonica from a neighbour he practised for hours on the instrument in the bunker, where nobody could hear him. Music started to become a big part of Ken’s life and he also started to listen to his brother's records, and fell in love with jazz music. We know nothing about the schools Ken attended, only that he left school in 1943, when he was fifteen years old. He tried to enlist for the navy but was too young so he then worked as a milkman and with the money he made he bought a second hand trumpet. As with the harmonica Ken practised for hours on the instrument and tried to play along with his brother’s records.
In 1944 Bill Colyer wrote to his mother that he was coming home, he received a letter back that she was very happy that he returned but that his little brother was now playing his records. Bill came home angry, he had spent so much money on these records and always took great care of them and now his little brother probably broke them. When he saw that his records were still in perfect condition and that Ken knew a lot about jazz and could play along on his trumpet, Bill’s mood changed. From then on the two brothers talked about jazz a lot and Bill bought Ken a book called ‘Modern Style Trumpet Playing’ but Ken was not interested in learning how to read notes, he’d rather play by ear. Months after Bill had come home Ken turned seventeen and enlisted as a cabin boy on a merchant ship. When you enlisted your name would be on a list of available cabin boys and when you were picked you had to take the job. Ken’s idea was to see the world this way but mostly because he wanted to visit America and see New Orleans and all the old jazz musicians still playing there. But it wasn’t up to Ken where he was sent, and on his first job he wasn’t very successful in reaching America. He gets a job as a cabin boy on the British Hussar, a tanker from 1923, which headed east instead of west. Ken hated his job and when you got back from his first trip, he went back to school to become a cook. When he passed the exam he was called to travel with the Waimana, an even older ship then the British Hussar, as a kitchen assistant. Ken had by now also bought an acoustic guitar and brought that, with his trumpet on the Waimana and practised on both instruments every day. He was still hoping this time they would sail to America but he was unlucky again when the ship headed for Australia. Early 1948, after months and months sailing in the wrong direction, he got lucky when he got the job of second cook on board of the Port Sydney, a transportship with frozen meat which would sail to America. The first harbour the Port Sydney visited was Montreal and like in every harbour they stayed there for a few days. Ken went into the city to look for jazz clubs and saw the young Oscar Peterson play Boogiewoogie piano at Café St Michel. Montreal was great but nothing could prepare Ken for the next stop: New York City. It was 1948 and England was recovering from the war, London was grey and life was hard. New York City was not affected by the war and brought light and entertainment and the music of the future, at night the city really came alive in the various clubs.