After leaving the Crane River Jazz Band and the Christie Brothers Stompers Ken Colyer tries his luck with the Merchant Navy once again. He makes it to America once again and he hopes he never has to return to the UK again.
After leaving the Christie Brothers Stompers Ken was again without a band and frustrated that he couldn’t find anyone to play the early style New Orleans jazz with. Not performing with a band also meant no income, so Ken once more tried to realize his dream. So he rejoined the merchant navy as a gallery cook and hoped that he could find a ship that could bring him back to America. He already visited New York City but now he wanted to go to the place where it all began, the city where the old jazz artists were still playing, New Orleans. Ken gets signed to work on the Port Lyttelton, a rather new ship and a lot modern and comfortable that the old ships Ken used to work on. It is unknown where Ken went on this first trip but he was back within six weeks and again looking for a ship to bring him to New Orleans. He then was signed to work on the Llandovery Castle and go to Cape Town but Ken refused, this ship was going in the wrong direction. After a phone call from the merchant navy where they explained to Ken that he couldn’t refuse and if he did he would never work on a ship again. So Ken went on board of the Llandovery Castle to sail to Cape Town and back. Next was the Tamaroa which also sailed in the wrong direction, shipping Britons who immigrated to Australia to their new homeland. Back in England Ken tried again to get a job on a ship going to America and was lucky, he could get a job as a second cook on the Empire Patrai. The only problem was that the Empire Patrai was docked at Mobile, USA at that moment. So Ken took a plane to Mobile and boarded the Empire Patrai. The Empire Patrai sailed from Mobile to Puerto Ordaz, Venezuela and back exporting machines used in the mining industry.
Ken’s first trip with the Empire Patrai went down very smoothly and when he got back in Mobile, Ken had a week off so they could load and prepare the ship for the next trip. In modern times it takes about three hours to go from Mobile to New Orleans, in 1952 it must have taken even longer but that doesn’t stop Ken from going to visit the city of his dreams. Ken bought a ticket at the Mobile Greyhound Bus station and to make the long journey to New Orleans. Ken had heard that George Lewis was playing that night, and he was a favorite of Ken. When he arrived in New Orleans he was too late for the show and heard that George Lewis wasn’t even there. He does meet three other old jazz musicians and talks to them for hours about jazz and New Orleans. Late at night Ken takes a Greyhound bus back to Mobile but he is late and the crew is mad because he was supposed to make them breakfast now they were making their own breakfast. They couldn’t fire Ken because they were sailing out the same day back to Venezuela.
During his second trip from Mobile, USA to Puerto Ordaz, Venezuela Ken could only think about that one evening in New Orleans. The Empire Patrai arrived safely in Puerto Ordaz but on the way back to Mobile, just outside of the harbour the Empire Patrai had engine trouble. It turns out a piston rod has been broken and there is not else to do but sail but to Mobile very very slowly. The trip takes much longer than expected and soon food is running out and Ken has to be creative to feed everybody. When the Empire Patrai finally arrives back in Mobile Ken has made up his mind, he goes straight back to New Orleans and is not planning on returning to the Empire Patrai. Ken has a US visitors visa for a month and on November 25, 1952 he buys a bus ticket to New Orleans and will never return to Mobile or the Empire Patrai again.
When Ken arrives back in New Orleans he again hears that George Lewis is performing that night, and this time Ken is on time and gets a good seat close to the stage. Finally he can attempt a concert of one of his favorite musicians and has the time of his life. Soon Ken is a familiar face in the New Orleans jazz scene, he is a white kid from England who came all the way to New Orleans to see his heroes, who are mostly black. Soon word goes around the city that Ken is a real jazz fan and knows a lot about the music and the musicians. The old musicians are mostly surprised because nobody is interested in their music anymore and now there is this young white boy from across the ocean that is crazy about their music.
What Ken didn’t know, or didn’t care about, was that New Orleans was still very racist with segregation still in place. Ken really didn’t care about the colour of the skin of the musicians, he only cared about the music they were playing but not everybody thought like this.
Ken Colyer: “I was given a quiet word of warning one day, that it was going around that I was a n*****-lover and should play with white musicians more. I quietly explained that this was what I had come to New Orleans for and nothing was going to deter me.”
Ken would later pay the price for his position on racism when he tried to extend his visa. As the weeks go by Ken not only listens to his favorite jazz musicians play live but also gets asked to join them on stage. Ken must have felt like he was in heaven, playing with so many talented musicians.
Late December 1952 he went to the immigration office and asked for an extension of his visa so he could stay in New Orleans and study jazz with the old black musicians there. The immigration office sees this as a violation of the American race laws and put Ken in jail because of anti-American activities. His bail is 500 dollars and three different friends try to bail Ken out but the sheriff’s office refuses to take the money and set Ken free. They tell Ken at the jail that he will be held there till he can be deported back to the UK.
Ken is upset that he has to leave New Orleans, never to return again but also what he will find back in London. He left more than a year ago in a hurry and couldn’t call home to see how everybody was doing, he did send letters to his brother Bill. When Bill got these letters he decided, always supporting his little brother, to send these letters to Melody Maker. Melody Maker was very happy with these letters because the British music magazine couldn’t afford to send a reporter to New Orleans, and now they have letters from somebody in New Orleans reporting on the scene there. The Crane River Jazz Band had generated some attention from the press but these letters made Ken famous among the jazz fans in Britain. Ken was the first to cross the ocean and meet and play with the great jazz musicians in New Orleans and soon he became a hero for many. The news of Ken’s arrest and deportation made the frontpage of Melody Maker on February 21, 1953. You can see how long letters from America were on their way to Britain, as Ken was jailed late December 1952.
While Ken is in jail waiting to be deported, he receives a letter from his old Crane River bandmade Monty Sunshine. The Crane River Jazz Band broke up and Monty started his own band with, old Crane River Jazz Band, drummer Ron Bowden, clarinist Chris Barber, banjo player and gitarist Tony Donegan and bass player Jim Bray. Monty had heard about Ken’s deportation and offered Ken a position in the band, and not just a position, Ken will be the leader of the band. Monty suggests the name Ken Colyer’s All Stars to Ken but it will be up to Ken to make all decisions in the band.
On March 3, 1953 Ken boarded the US United States from Ellis Island in New York City to make the trip across the ocean once more.