The Servants Ball
Whilst reading a book about the life of Scan Tester, the Sussex concertina player, in the years between the Great Wars, Bass player Ben Nicholls found the set list from a village hall dance band, a band who would play any party or ball which would have them if the fee was right.
The set list contained a strange collection of music, some folk music, some music hall, and fashionable dance tunes of the day, light classical and even ragtime which was spreading across the country like wildfire during those years. Much of this music has fallen between the cracks in the years since. Many of these lost tunes now half remembered as a dusty nursery rhyme melody or something a long gone grandparent might have whistled.
But within this forgotten music lies a cultural scrapbook of British history, ancient English dance tunes, polkas and quadrilles from Europe, African American banjo music, Victorian music hall, Italian opera, step dance tunes, even the influence of the then popular passion for Egyptology.... a true melting pot.
Dancer-musician and expert in Sussex/Kent step dancing, Ewan Wardrop features on the album with the Blakey's hammered into the soles of his shoes percussively tapping a storm through many of the dance tunes alongside music performed by some of Britain's leading traditional musicians.
The band are;
Ewan Wardrop - The Ukulele Orchestra of Great Britain, The East Band with Martin and Eliza Carthy
Rob Harbron - Concertina- Leveret, Full English, Jon Boden Remnant Kings.
Ben Paley - Fiddle - Tom Paley, Bonnie Dobson, Damon Albarn, Long Hill Ramblers
Ben Nicholls - Upright Bass - Seth Lakeman, Full English, Kings of The South Seas, Nadine Shah
Evan Jenkins - Percussion - Neil Cowley Trio, Ben Watt
Julian Hinton - Piano - Trevor Horn, Seal