While the name “John Petters” may not be familiar to many American trad jazz fans, it is a well-known one to their British counterparts. Petters was born in Stratford, East London, in 1953 and is a self-taught drummer. He formed his first band while at college in Harlow, Essex, and started gigging in the early 1970s. He has formed many bands and combos as time has passed and has issued many jazz CD’s by these groups, a number on his own label, Rose Records. In addition to being a bandleader, he is known to sing on occasion with his groups. He also has promoted jazz festivals, jazz concerts, and jazz club dates, as well as written jazz articles and lectured and presided over broadcasts on the subject. In addition, he has been working with Upbeat Recordings on Jazz Reissue CDs, assuming the mantle of the late Mike Pointon. Clearly, he is a kind of “Renaissance man” of traditional jazz in the UK.
On this CD Swinging down Memory Lane,Petters curated the content, playing drums on all of the tracks with groups of various sizes from trios to septets. While a number of the musicians appear on several tracks, no two tracks have the identical personnel. These combos include many visiting Americans, such as Kenny Davern, Yank Lawson, Art Hodes, Wild Bill Davidson, to name a few. Of the British personnel, I’m sure several will be familiar to most readers of TST: Ken Sims, Wally Fawkes, Ken Colyer, Mike Pointon, for instance. Sadly, many are no longer with us, but their artistry is still available here.
Collectively the tracks offer a smorgasbord of British jazz musicians and provide an excellent opportunity for anyone unfamiliar with them to become acquainted. The selections are collectively referred to as “hot jazz,” and I would not dispute that, although I might be more inclined to label them as “driving swing” music. They are akin to what one hears from the likes of the Benny Goodman/Gene Krupa groups of the late thirties, and if you find them congenial, as most trad fans do, you will revel in what this CD has to offer. Although one might infer from some of the tunes’ titles—“King Porter Stomp,” “Snag It,” “Dippermouth Blues,” “Jazz Me Blues,” et al.—that this would be a dixieland or revivalist jazz CD, that would be a wrong assumption. The entire contents are given a swing treatment, and a very good one. Of the sixteen tracks, only a couple—“Revolutionary Blues” and “The Half of It Dearie Blues,” perhaps—may be less than familiar to most readers.
Despite being an autodidact, Petters is a superb drummer. The first track on the disc, “Drummin’ Man,” credited to Tiny Parham and Gene Krupa, evidences this fact. It opens with a drum flourish, and after several choruses featuring first sax then piano comes a vocal by Val Wiseman containing vocal breaks that Petters fills with relish. The drumming is very impressive, demonstrating tremendous stick control, and very supple wrists. Although the tempo is bright, Petters keeps a solid four on the bass drum all the way through, neither rushing nor dragging the beat. (I detected only one instance of the slightest of tempo increases, despite the four-beat bass, on the final track, “Chicago Buzz,” and it is almost imperceptible.)
Subsequent tracks, too, all display his phenomenal technique. While he is self-taught, he also has clearly learned a great deal from the drummer who is probably his main mentor, Krupa. He also is sparing in his use of cymbals, employing them only where effective, such as the definitive crash that closes “California Here I Come,” or the ride cymbal playing to accommodate a demanding musician who disliked drums as was the case with “Shim–Me-Sha-Wabble.” But he did not enjoy playing ride cymbal, employing, rather, press rolls, stick work on the rims, and the punctuation of rim shots. On that same track, “Shim–Me-Sha-Wabble,” one hears much judicious use of the rim shot and playing on the rims, as well as a tasty solo and concluding four-bar tag containing these. The other tracks also display these devices more than they do cymbal work. And, of course, there are the many drum solos throughout, all of them tasteful and musical, not a mere engaging of the various components of the drum set for their own sake.
![JazzAffair](https://syncopatedtimes.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/ffair2026-SQ.jpg" "JazzAffair")
Of the other musicians who appear with Petters, suffice it to say that each is up to the task at hand. In their various combinations they often contribute fine instrumental touches, such as the nice 4-bar stop time phrase at the close of “Dippermouth Blues,” ending on a sustained chord. Another is the closing descending chromatic chord run—a tip of the hat to the Goodman trio version of “Avalon” and taken almost directly from it. And speaking of Goodman, we must not forget the version here of “Jazz Me Blues,” à la Goodman Quintet—even to the inclusion of vibes, the only appearance of such on the disc. Of this track Petters says, in the album notes, “The music literally sizzled with excitement,” and he was not exaggerating. (The notes, while conveying much of interest and having something to say about each of the tracks, suffer a little from their rather small text size. It would be a good idea to have a good magnifying glass to hand.)
This is clearly Petters’ disc, as the subtitle “with John Petters,” implies; so the focus is on him. His performances here should particularly delight all drummers and those who enjoy drumming. Petters has put together over these years some very compatible groups to play swing music of the first order, as this CD proves, and his performance in these groups is, quite simply, a bravura one.
Like all Upbeat CDs, it is available on the Upbeat Recordings web site www.upbeat.co.uk as well as on-line from Amazon.
Swinging down Memory Lane
International Legends of Hot Jazz
(Upbeat URCD 346)
Drummin’ Man; King Porter Stomp; California Here I Come; Of All the Wrongs; Avalon; Snag It; Shim -Me-Sha-Wabble; Down in Honky Tonk Town; Dippermouth Blues; Revolutionary Blues; Runnin’ Wild; The Half of It Dearie Blues; Too Busy; I’ve Got My Love to Keep Me Warm; Jazz Me Blues; Chicago Buzz.
Recorded at various locations on various dates between 1985-2009, all details given in the CD booklet. All sessions live recordings.
Personnel: John Petters, drums, all tracks, along with a host of musicians, all identified in the CD booklet. These include Ken Colyer, Sammy Rimington, Wild Bill Davidson, Art Hodes, George Chisholm, and many others.
Born in Dundee, Scotland, Bert Thompson came to the U.S. in 1956. After a two-year stint playing drums with the 101 st Airborne Division Band and making a number of parachute drops, he returned to civilian life in San Francisco, matriculating at San Francisco State University where he earned a B.A. and an M.A. He went on to matriculate at University of Oregon, where he earned a D.A. and a Ph.D., all of his degrees in English. Now retired, he is a professor emeritus of English at City College of San Francisco. He is also a retired traditional jazz drummer, having played with a number of San Francisco Bay Area bands, including And That’s Jazz, Professor Plum’s Jazz, the Jelly Roll Jazz Band, Mission Gold Jazz Band, and the Zenith New Orleans Parade band; he also played with some further afield, including Gremoli (Long Beach, CA) and the Phoenix Jazzers (Vancouver, B.C.) Today he reviews traditional jazz CDs and writes occasional articles for several publications.
