History is made at night

Playwright and actor Steven Berkoff (b.1937) wrote an autobiography 'Free Association' in 1997. Born in a Jewish family in Stepney ...

The historian Eric Hobsbawm (1917-2012) died yesterday at the age of 95.  There's plenty to criticise in his political judgement  as he...

1950s Soho clubs are one of the enduring obsessions of this site, but I didn't realise until recently that there was a specifically an...

In our search for the origins of rave , we have previously looked at the revivalist and trad jazz scenes in London from the late 1940s to th...

Next up is Pete, a one man link connecting jazz, mod and techno rave scenes. He is currently involved in the Young Unknowns gallery project...

The excellent Another Nickel in the Machine - a site focusing on 20 th century London -has recently featured some great photos of A Rave o...

More on Soho Nights from today's Guardian: '... in 1956, I heard about this new dance craze called hand-jiving. So I made a number...

Showing at the Photographers Gallery in London at the moment is Soho Nights, an exhibition of photographs of London nightlife in the 1950s....

In the ongoing documentation of the history of London nightlife, I have mentioned before the cellar coffee bars of the West End in the 1950...

The Soho jazz clubs of the 1950s (discussed in previous post) act as the setting for the film Beat Girl (1960), in which art student Gillian...

A great piece from 1958, I believe from the Daily Mirror - journalist Anne Allen goes on a tour of London jazz clubs to try and understand...

Just a few months after the death of his former bandmate Mick Mulligan , another of the great jazz ravers has died - George Melly . We have...

An obituary in The Guardian today for music promoter Rik Gunnell (1931-2007). The clubs he was involved in were critical in London music i...

Steve Fletcher has sent this great photo of himself and then girlfriend at a jazz 'rave' on Hampstead Heath in 1955. According to St...

In previous posts we have looked at the revivalist jazz raves organised by Mick Mulligan and Cy Laurie in 1950s Soho. From the mid-1950s a ...

In an earlier post , we referred to the revivalist jazz raves organised by Mick Mulligan and George Melly in London in the early 1950s, the ...

Last month saw the death of Mick Mulligan , the English jazz trumpeter described in the 1950s Melody Maker as the King of the Ravers - and t...