What was it like, I asked?

“It was awful, all that shouting and screaming, I didn’t like it at all,” said the lady, now in her 90s, who did love music…especially jazz.

But times were changing fast.

Skiffle had come and gone.

Our very own Queen of the Blues, Beryl Bryden, performing at the Grosvenor in Norwich during December 1957. A  great jazz singer (Image: Newsquest archive)

Now the beat bands were on the road and the music scene was being taken over with groups like The Beatles and then The Rolling Stones heading our way and encouraging boys and girls across East Anglia to get rockin’ and rollin.’

Take the Grosvenor Ballroom on Prince of Wales Road – a fine building now long gone – for example where the Liverpool lads played.

The resident band from 1958, replacing the Jock Brennan Orchestra, was Tubby Rogers & His Band before they headed off to Hunstanton and The Kit Kat Club.

Thanks for the musical memories. Our very own Colin Burleigh, celebrating his 94th birthday this month (Image: Newsquest archive)

Then The Roger Vickers QT and The Gordon Edwards Band.

Back in time we had both the Norwich-born “Queen of the Blues” Beryl Bryden and the “King of the Blues” Albert Cooper plus a host of great bands keeping the people of Norfolk and Suffolk on their toes before all this twistin’ and jivin’.

There was the Jazz Band Ball at Chantry Hall, Norwich, organised by the East Coast Jazz Club back in 1953 and the following year the Norwich Jazz Ball took place at The Ailwyn Hall where seven bands played to an audience of more than 500.

The much-loved Mustard City  Stompers, first seen in 1954 on the first night of the Norwich Jazz Club at The Orford. The first time the cellar had been used to host music (Image: Al Garner/ East Anglian Music Archive)

The performers were The Collegians, Ann & Harold/The Gibraltar Jazz Band, The Yare Valley Jazz Band, The Shoe City Foot-Warmers, The Colin Bilham Modernists, the Jack Rogers Jazzmen and the Lowestoft Club Sextet.

We also had some great dance bands and the popular Melody Maker magazine organised the Norfolk District Championship at the Samson & Hercules in 1954.

Taking part were: The Delta Five from Fakenham, Ronnie White AHB from Sprowston, The Esquire Orchestra from Harmer Road, Norwich, The Flamingo Qt from Armes Street, Norwich, The Colin Bilham Qt from Old Catton and the Ken Stevens QT from Cambridge.

One gentleman at the forefront of the jazz scene across the county was Colin Burleigh of Dereham, who is celebrating his 94th birthday this month.

He started life on stage at the age of 12 when, with his two young sisters, joined a juvenile concert party putting on shows to raise money for the war effort.

After serving with the RAF in Germany during National Service he came home to become the singer with the much-loved Collegians Jazz Band.

They won the 1958 National Jazz Band Contest and were taken on by a London agency, working across the land and aboard with the likes of Acker Bilk, Kenny Ball and Terry Lightfoot.

He sang with the band until they called it a day in 1988 and within a few months, aided by a drum kit and short lesson from Kenny Ball’s drummer, joined the Vintage Hot Orchestra and played with them for 26 years as drummer/vocalist.

The Collegians in full flow. Left to right,  Les Gosling, John Barker, Colin Burleigh and Eric (Curly) Varnon on drums (Image: Newsquest archive)

Highlights of his career?

Singing with the Dutch Swing College Band, joining the great American blues singer/pianist Memphis Slim on a blues number, playing on Children in Need and at Knebworth and Burghley House alongside a symphony orchestra with laser show and fireworks.

Colin went on to be a regular guest with those great broadcasters Keith Skipper and Ray Waller on BBC Radio Norfolk and presented the All That Jazz show.

A photograph taken of jazz fans in Norwich with the adverts for concerts during 1962 on the wall behind them. Do you recognise anyone? (Image: Newsquest archive)

He later joined “Skip” as a member of the highly entertaining Press Gang.

He met his wife June at the Green Turtle Jazz Club in Norwich back in 1961 and they married three years later.

“If I had the chance to live my life over again there is very little I’d want to change,” said Colin.

This week it is one year since our “King of the Blues” Albert Cooper died, aged 91, and an expanded tribute edition of the book looking at his life and times by Kingsley Harris for the East Anglian Music Archive is on sale at City Books, Norwich.