The jazz scene at present can only be described as bleak. There was a time when December was packed with gigs, culminating in the highest-paid performance of the year on New Year’s Eve. Not all the gigs were exciting, to be sure; there are few experiences more depressing for a musician than playing in a B & Q store wearing a red hat with a white pom-pom, combined incongruously with a clip-on bow tie and gaudy waistcoat. Gigs like that helped to bring traditional jazz into disrepute, but of course they paid well. The fees for our sort of music are usually in inverse proportion to the depths to which the musicians are expected to lower themselves.
In this context, hats are a particular dislike of mine. At this time of year I frequently wear a hat to conserve my body heat. I’m very fond of my current model, a dark brown fedora which accentuates my resemblance to Terry Pratchett. In summer I favour a wide-brimmed straw hat which I bought in Bude many years ago and which is now in a sad state of disrepair, or a floppy “Country Gentleman’s” hat from Arizona.
However, there is a widespread belief that any band playing jazz in the style of the 1920s or ’30s is improperly dressed unless sporting straw boaters, a belief which is so strongly held by some booking agents that they stipulate in their contracts that such hats must be worn. On one occasion I rebelled against this ridiculous condition on the grounds that a straw hat in combination with a cream dinner jacket and black tie could not be worn by any person with a shred of good taste – not even a drummer.