George’s Regis Jazzband celebrate 25 years

Now, increasingly, they are getting bookings for people’s golden wedding do’s two or three years ahead,

The point is that over the years George Bennett and his jazzmen have been a huge part of lives in and around the Bognor Regis/Chichester area.

Alongside all those anniversaries, they’ve played at parties and weddings, at openings and closings and even funerals, offering jazz-lovers their distinctive take on a good old-fashioned New Orleans send-off.

Now the band has got it own landmark to celebrate, and they are doing so in style.

George’s Regis Jazzband have reached their own quarter of a century, and George has brought them together to produce a 25th anniversary celebration CD, his very own salute to all those who have made it all such fun over the years and to all those who, sadly, have gone to the great jazz club in the sky.

They start their second quarter century in fine form – hardly surprising given that music, as George says, is simply something in his blood.

“I have always been a drummer since my early days. My father was a drummer. It was just something in my genes. It was an instinct. Music was something that I wanted to do. I couldn’t drive, and if it wasn’t for my father helping me, I wouldn’t have managed, going to different rehearsals, going to see different musicians.

“In the early days, I used to listen to the light programme on the radio,” says George, who lives in East Wittering. “We are talking about the mid-50s. I just wanted to make music. I was young, but I got married and had a family first. I originated in Surrey and lived on a houseboat, and that’s how it started. I was doing riverboat shuffles up and down the Thames, five to six days a week, usually Hampton Court to Sunbury or going down river.

“I moved to Bognor Regis in 1986, and I was travelling backwards and forwards to London, still doing various gigs in my old stomping ground where I was brought up and lived. And then I thought it was a bit daft going to London three to four times a week. I just thought ‘What about forming a band in Bognor Regis?’ I didn’t know any of the local musicians, but I did find out who was who in the jazz world in Bognor, and so we started.

“I managed to get hold of three players that stayed with me: Bill Harvey, who was my first trumpet player and who is still with us today; George Walker, who is a banjo player; and Butch Holden, who unfortunately is no longer with us. That was our very first band.