The interview: Jools Holland

Jools Holland back in Lancashire for a couple of projects in Blackpool and a live show in Preston. MALCOLM WYATT talked past, present and future with the esteemed bandleader and pianist.

It’s difficult to write about Jools Holland without going down the retro route. He is after all a man who carved out a career celebrating the best in popular music from the past century.

His long-running BBC TV show Later With Jools Holland provides the best elements of old and new music, while his Radio 2 show spins an eclectic mix of records from his own vast collection.

There are also his Rhythm & Blues Orchestra live shows, a big band in every sense switching between blues and boogie-woogie, jazz, ska, soul and country.

Not to mention his new wave past with Squeeze and the days he co-fronted Channel 4’s cult entertainment and music show The Tube.

That’s as good a place to start as any, so I put it to Jools that I find it hard to believe it’s now 30 years since he filmed with Paula Yates for The Tube at the Tower Ballroom, Blackpool.

As he put it in entertaining 2007 autobiography Bare-faced Lies and Boogie-Woogie Boasts: “We all, with the exception of Paula, thought there was something rather romantic about empty holiday seaside destinations off season.”

It appears that’s still the case for Jools, three decades after his first Fylde coast filming stint.

“Blackpool has changed since, but has a certain atmosphere, and is a magical place. It has a romance to it, and is one of the most iconic towns in Britain.

“When you have a place where people have gathered and enjoyed themselves over the years, even when they’re not there a certain resonance stays.

“I think that’s happened in Blackpool, particularly at the Empress Ballroom, where we are this time. All those that saw big bands there and enjoyed themselves – something of that stays in the room, even when all the people have gone.

“It’s very nice to bring it all back and resurrect it. We won’t sound like the big bands back then, but we’ll be paying tribute to a lot of those who came before, going through the history of big band music, from my point of view taking in a lot of the blues and swing.”

It would be something to be a fly on the wall during those golden years, would it?

“Exactly… as long as I didn’t get swatted.”

That Empress Ballroom Big Band Special free date is on Wednesday, June 24, and set to be broadcast on BBC 4 in July.

Jools aims to give a personal view of the genre, with a little insight into Big Band greats such as Duke Ellington, Count Basie, Louis Armstrong and Lionel Hampton.