Jazz tuition at the Calton Studios

A Charlie Watts-related story from my teenage years. One Saturday when I was about 15 the music department at my school organised an outing to the Calton Studios in Edinburgh. The Studios was kind of a small arts centre in the centre of town just down the road from the back of Waverley train station. They had a cinema which I remember going to with school to see Romeo and Juliet which we were studying, possibly for O Level. But this visit was to encourage kids who were interested in playing jazz.

Now I have to admit that I wasn’t much of a jazz fan at that age though I was aware of big band music as my dad used to play his jazz records on a Sunday afternoon. So while the event at the Studios was mainly for the trumpet and saxophone players in my year, myself and one or two others were allowed to come along as we had expressed an interest in playing other instruments like drums or double bass.

I can remember quite clearly sitting behind this drum kit and the drummer asking what music I liked listening to. Despite this being around 1980, and I was into chart music like most kids, I was also quite into 60s music like The Beatles and the Stones and these were the first two band names that came into my head. This, however, did not impress the jazz drummer, whose kit presumably it was that I was sitting at. In a rather grumpy voice he told me that this session was for teaching jazz and not rock music.

The irony of course was that Charlie Watts had started out playing with jazz bands in London before he hooked up with Jagger, Richards and Jones and was asked to join their rhythm and blues band. Not that I was aware of that at the time. That's a shame as I would have loved to have seen the look on that grumpy drummer’s face if I’d been able to remind him of Charlie’s jazz roots.

But after that it was back to playing the violin. I don’t think there was the option of getting any tuition in playing jazz violin in the style of Stephane Grappelli which was a shame. But then being so used to reading sheet music and playing only classical pieces there’s no guarantee that I would have taken to the improvised style of playing jazz. On leaving school I started playing guitar instead and I still listen to the Beatles and the Stones.

Sadly the Calton Studios is no more. I found this headline on the edinburghlive website from 2019…

“Iconic Edinburgh venue that hosted Nirvana to be demolished and turned into flats”