Rob Hurst

Much more than, you know, being in the cadet corps, of course.

Yeah, I met this fellow called Michael Stenning, and his obsession was the original Dixieland jazz band, which started about 100 years ago last year, 1917 they started.

I hadn't heard that music very much.

It's very primitive recordings, of course, back then.

It's kind of syncopated music with... The drummer used to use a big marching drum rather than a kick drum, and this was before hi-hats.

There was a kind of a sock cymbal they had, and they had all sorts of things they called traps, which were bells and whistles and woodblocks and little cymbals and, you know... And they had these amazing songs like Tiger Rag and Maple Leaf Rag, and they had...

this song called Livery Stable Blues, which was, I think, the first one that we played together in this new band, which we called the Stanley Street Jazz Band, named after the road that goes down next to Grammar.

And we got gigs immediately.

I mean, we were really...

But that kind of suited the music because it wasn't highly produced music and the recordings were so rough.

It kind of worked.

And immediately, I mean, we weren't of an age to drink or drive or anything, but we got invited to all these boozy parties.

and things.

There was a regular meeting of all these old jazzers with long beards and, you know, serious drinking habits on Berry Island.

And we were invited there a few times.

And there was a gig called the Abraham Mott Hall in the Rocks, which was a regular weekend gig, Saturday or Sunday.

And once again, we were underage and alcohol was flowing big time.

But we managed to play that a few times.

And then we got invited to...

All sorts of different kind of gigs.