The first person I contacted was my good friend, Antony Brunt, proprietor of the Yarn Market Hotel, Dunster, near Minehead in Somerset. My Riviera Ramblers band was booked there for three days over the New Year celebrations; and, in fact, I’ve been playing there for two weekends per year for about 20 years, and we’ve never had a duff one! Antony was keen, checked the diary and came up with Friday, Saturday and Sunday March 21st, 22nd & 23rd 2025 I quickly phoned Sammy, and he confirmed the dates. So, “ABRACADABRA!” (Sammy is a magician, too!) we have a three day holiday with an international star of New Orleans Jazz! Antony will run the hotel and sell the tickets; I’ll underwrite the band fees and expenses.... so, all we need now are bums on seats and heads in beds.
The Yarn Market is a small, family run, hotel. It’s homely and comfortable and in a beautiful setting, adjacent to Exmoor and the Somerset coast. The food is excellent, and the staff are pleasant and obliging.
The band is “international” and includes Emile van Pelt form Holland on piano, and the excellent Trevor Richards from Frankfurt/New Orleans on drums. I’ll be on trumpet, and Bob Rowbotham, a former colleague of mine in Barbara Widmer’s band in Switzerland and France will play banjo. Our double bassist is Bob Culverhouse from Berlin. He’ll travel from Germany with Trevor. It’s going to be a great weekend!!! Sammy is one of the most melodic, energetic, exciting reeds players anywhere and he has an ability to capture the emotion of hymns and spirituals that is simply outstanding. John Shillito
The “Kid” Shillito Ragtime Band pictured at the Ken Colyer Club, Studio 51, Leicester Square in 1959. Left to right: Dave Cutting trombone, Johnny Mason bass, Pete Ridge drums, Roy Loscombe banjo, Graham Paterson piano, John “Kid” Shillito trumpet, and Sammy Rimington clarinet.
Back in 1959, the “Kid” Shillito Ragtime Band was a regular and popular featured band at the Ken Colyer Club in London’s West End. John was busy most nights of the week, blowing in jazz clubs from Brighton in the South to New Brighton in the North; (including the Liverpool Cavern Club, before it became home to the Beatles), as he started his journey as a “journeyman” trumpeter. Sammy was still in his ‘teens, but was already widely heralded as a prodigy clarinet virtuoso with a remarkable affinity with the sound of New Orleans clarinettist, George Lewis. The Shillito Band was, indeed, inspired by the exciting, free flowing, George Lewis Band.
Sammy soon went on to become a featured member of Ken Colyer’s Jazzmen, and, later, the Chris Barber Band, before leading his own exciting bands internationally, and establishing himself as one of the world’s foremost musicians in the New Orleans idiom.
For over 50 years, now, he’s been a regular performer at jazz festivals in New Orleans, (starting with the very first New Orleans International Jazz Festival in 1968), and at festivals wherever New Orleans Jazz is enjoyed, all over much of the rest of the world.
He’s been playing professionally since 1960, when he joined the Colyer Jazzmen for a concert tour of Switzerland with none other than clarinetist George Lewis as a guest. He visited New Orleans for the first time in 1962, and took clarinet lessons from George. Since then he has toured and recorded internationally as a band leader and a side man, making well over 200 recordings. He was a member of Louis Nelson’s New Orleans All Stars, with whom he toured Japan three times. He has performed with some of the great musicians from the history of jazz, including Jabbo Smith, Trummy Young, John Lewis, Alvin Alcorn, Arvell Shaw, Danny Barker, Thomas Jefferson, Doc Cheatham and many others.
Sammy Rimington is now coming up to 83-years old and is semi-retired. Just before Christmas, he phoned John Shillito to suggest that it would be nice if they could find an opportunity to make music together again. John Shillito is 86.
Despite their ages, no one can accuse either of these men, (or any member of this band of veterans), of “just going through the motions”. This will be a remarkable celebration of long term musical skills and devotion to New Orleans Jazz..