Jazz legend Dave back in town for anniversary
Founder of Jazz Club has worked with Max Bygraves, Rod Stewart and Chuck Berry
A MAN who has helped international stars and who opened the popular Samantha’s club in Leek is back in the town to celebrate the 60th anniversary of Leek Jazz Club.
Dave Daniels, an international entertainment consultant, has been involved with many stars including Max Bygraves, Rod Stewart and The Faces and Chuck Berry.
Formed in 1960, Leek Jazz Club was a fixture of the town’s social scene for several years, featuring live music at the George Hotel, which stood opposite the Green Dragon (then the Swan) at the top of St Edward Street.
The 60th anniversary could not be celebrated in 2020 because of the covid lockdown, and the original venue disappeared when the George pub was knocked down in 1972 for road widening.
Now Dave, founder of the jazz club, on holiday in Leek from his home in the USA, is organising a live jazz celebration in conjunction with the Foxlowe in Leek on June 16, as a reunion for club members and as an event for today’s jazz audience.
Chris Thompson, chair of Foxlowe trustees, said: “We are delighted to be working with Dave for this special event and hope jazz nights will become a regular feature.”
Back in March 1960, Dave formed Leek Jazz Club with the help of his friends Nigel Keates and Geoff Browne, who were trying to form a band and needed somewhere to practise.
The club began in a small way by booking local bands such as the Ceramic City Stompers but within a year was able to host nationally famous bands for special events.
In the late fifties and early sixties, trad jazz, a recreation of New Orleans-style music from the 1920s, enjoyed a boom in Britain and bands led by Chris Barber, Acker Bilk and Kenny Ball often featured in the popular music charts.
Jazz clubs and local bands sprang up all over the country but the boom faded when the Beatles took off in the early Sixties. But trad didn’t go away altogether and many of the young musicians of the Sixties are still playing today.
Dave was born in Leek and started his entertainment career when he was still at the old Stoke Tech college, organising a dance to raise funds for the students’ soccer team to do a tour of Ireland.
Unfazed by supposed difficulties, Dave promoted the event so successfully, even creating festoons of advertising banners out of toilet rolls, it raised more than enough for the trip.
At Exeter University he continued as a booker for student union gigs and established contacts with the big name jazz and rock groups of the early Sixties.
He came back to North Staffordshire and built up an agency booking bands for the big dance hall circuits and promoting his own events. He then opened the very popular Samantha’s club in Derby Street, in the large hall above the shop which is now Milletts.
In the Seventies he also helped to organise the Buxton Pop Festivals with headline acts such as Chuck Berry.
A business friend whose family lived in Florida invited Dave to take a holiday there and in 1976 he moved to the States permanently. After a spell as catering manager on luxury cruise ships, he bought a bar which he transformed into Churchill’s, an English-themed pub in Miami. British beer and English soccer on satellite TV were among the attractions, and then there was music.
The early years were tough but the pub became famous as an independent base for live (and loud) music which claimed to have hosted more bands than any other single venue, 20,000 and counting. It catered for all styles -jazz, rock, punk and more, even a wildly successful International Noise Conference of far-out entertainment.
Dave sold the pub several years ago but still lives in Miami and keeps in touch with old friends in Leek and the wider world.
Speaking to the Post & Times Dave said: “I met Max Bygraves in the USA. He phoned me and asked if I could help him.
“One of the first things he wanted was some stone crabs from a restaurant. We flew Chuck Berry over from the States for a day at the Buxton Festival. I have also completed bookings with Rod Stewart and The Faces. In the seventies I opened Samantha’s club in Derby Street, I also ran regular events in Ashbourne.”