Abracadabra Jazz Club – The Mercers Arms

 

Abracadabra Jazz Club – The Mercers Arms

By Pete Clemons

One of the most pleasing aspects I find about writing music blogs is the interest they can attract. And that interest can lead to further information which adds more meat to the bone. I am indebted for the following information that detailed the birth of jazz at long gone The Mercers Arms Hotel and pub.

I have written several articles about The Mercers Arms but this one focuses on, arguably, the most successful of the jazz clubs staged there. The Abracadabra Club, later The Yardbird Club.

The Abracadabra Jazz Club, Coventry, which met every Friday at The Mercers Arms Hotel, Coventry, was part of a chain of Jazz Clubs and began running as early as 1959. The Abracadabra was one of several clubs that operated at the venue.

Abracadabra was the name given to clubs run by its creator Bill Kinnell. At the time Bill ran branches at Nottingham, Derby and Leicester. All of the major traditional jazz bands of the day appeared at the Coventry venue and, in Bill Kinnell's words, 'only the very best of professional jazz musicians were used'.

Historically the Abracadabra Jazz Clubs had a background dating back to 1941 when Bill Kinnell first started running jazz sessions and was secretary of the original Nottingham Rhythm Club.

Bill had been a jazz enthusiast for many years and had been responsible for the discovery and development of many musicians and bands up and down the country. During the 1940s Bill held a variety of positions. He was jazz record reviewer for 'Fanfare' magazine, staff writer for 'Vox Pop' (a magazine for the Workers Music Association) and lecturer on jazz and folk music for the armed Forces Education Branch.

In 1943, along with writer James Asman, Bill published and edited one of the very first British Jazz magazines – 'Jazz Record'.

Two years later the pair formed the first private company solely devoted to the release of jazz records. Known, like the magazine, as 'Jazz Record', the company issued many previously unobtainable jazz masterpieces and was responsible for recording the pioneer traditional band George Webb's Dixielanders.

During 1948 Bill Kinnell was partly responsible for the appearance in this country of the then very famous Graeme Bell Australian Jazz Band who played such an important part in the post war jazz revival in Britain. He promoted and organised concerts for them them in both Nottingham and Newark.

Bill was also, a regular compare at the famous Birminghm Town Hall concerts, the organisation which pioneered the big jazz concert movement in this country. With such a prominent promoter at the helm of the Abracadabra Jazz Club they were bound to present only the very best in British Jazz. And this they did for many years as The Abracadabra club attracted guests such as Tubby Hayes, Nat Gonella, Alan Ganley, Harold McNair, Cy Laurie and Terry Lightfoot.

Mercers Arms Coventry.