Hot jazz with Original Rabbit Foot Spasm Band at O2 Academy Oxford

The bandleader, composer and polymath is taking a break from a songwriting session to share hair raising stories about his band. And there are plenty of them.

The Original Rabbit Foot Spasm Band burst onto the Oxford music scene 15 years ago like a hurricane with an attitude problem. And at the centre of it all was Stuart – an unpredictable creative tornado presiding over a riot of incendiary jazz and jump blues shot through with the spirit of punk .

“We’ve had a terrific consortium of group members over the years; all complete individuals,” he says with a wink.

“There are some stories, that’s true, but I am certainly not going to have them printed in The Oxford Times. What goes on in the group stays in the group!”

Tonight (Friday) the band return to one of their favourite haunts, the O2 Academy in Cowley Road – previously the legendary Zodiac.

The show follows a storming gig across town at the Jericho Tavern, which saw the suited-and-booted jazzers firing off in thrilling new directions, while keeping the bouncing crowd in the palms of their hands.

Stuart insists the band has stuck to its founding principles.

“The band came out of two necessities,” he says. “The first was we needed to make some money. The second was inspiration of skiffle, and the British jazz revival of the 1940s and 1950s.

“Take for instance the influence of George Webb’s jazz band, who emerged from an arms factory in South London. I met George a few times, then well into his 90s, and his daughter would drive him to gigs where he’d stand in his Charlton Athletic scarf and sink a few pints with me. She wrote the name of the group down for him on the back of a £20 note.
“What George’s Dixielanders did was to heave New Orleans ensemble jazz into the cellar of their local pub, the Red Barn in Barnhurst. This was in about 1943. 

“The press of the day patronisingly drew comparison between this gang of enthusiasts, and impoverished musicians in the American South.

The British-based musicians copied music from 78rpm discs, and their gigs were promoted by the Young Communist League.
“What inspired us to play gigs was the enthusiasm which greeted them.”
He drains his coffee and goes on: “I have always maintained that the audience is the most important member of the group, and to scour the typescript fanzines of the times their enthusiasm bounces off the staples.
“They would squeeze on the bandstand, on top of the musicians. They would take Riverboat Shuffles up the Thames. Swig jugs of cider – a thrifty beatnik bunch. 
“That’s the core audience at a Rabbit Foot gig. I don’t like swing dancing. I like mosh-pits. We like noisy people who are out to enjoy themselves. 
“To think back to those audiences here in the late 1940s, that was a very British rebellion, writhing out of respect for the music, and its originators. Alas, when some toff up Denmark Street caught a whiff of money, a waist-coated, bowler hatted brigade were spawned from a genuine youth movement. The music was still great, but its raucousness was on a drip.
“We are about sending that electricity back into the cellars. Jazz needs to thrive to stay alive. If you don’t stand up for good music, one day you could be in a care home, being force-fed a soundtrack of Take That and – who else is popular today, Whigfield?
“So I say out with functions. Back in with drinking, partying, and snogging.”
From their earliest shows, the band were hailed as bringing something completely new to the music scene. 
At a time of identical indie bands, this bunch of virtuoso musicians were blasting out raucous jazz - and getting crowds on their feet... and sweating. They were credited with making real jazz sexy again.
“Yes that was us,” Stuart smiles. “Jazz is sexy, but it’s also a serious art form which has been dressed up as entertainment, or an exercise in nostalgia. It is a living, breathing music.
“Looking back a century you can take a great innovator such as Louis Armstrong, who in the length of one side of a gramophone record had the genius to simultaneously sculpt the blues out of sound, and demolish the continuum of the English language. And our trick is to mix it with a peculiarly British DIY culture, that comes from skiffle, punk and grime. With perhaps a shot of John Betjeman thrown in for good measure.

“Instead of branching into modernism, we start at about 1951 and branch into all the stuff I love about growing up in England. When people ask me what I do for a living, it’s easier to just change the subject.”
So how did it all begin?
“We started out as a skiffle duo in cabaret in 2005, so the group is just old enough to vote in next week’s elections,” he quips.
“Skiffle remains the overriding influence in all we do. In fact, I made a comb and paper kazoo for a gig last weekend using pictures of Dominic Raab I ripped out of the Evening Standard. I made him very wet. 
And what is this show about?
“Oh we are looking forward to this show!

"It has come about to show solidarity with The Cornerman Project, which provides support services for men in South Oxfordshire. Men’s mental health isn’t written about much.

"Everyone in the group sees the worth of the project, and understands the positive impact sport and music can have. I wanted to do one gig this year, and we’re humbled to have been asked. 
And it may be the final chance to catch them for a while – so is not to be missed.
He says: “This will be the last full band show for a long while, and the last time we’ll be jumping around like the young punks we are not.

"Audiences can expect some of our popular songs which we are unlikely to perform again.

"If you haven’t seen us play full force, this is the one to get to.”

• The Original Rabbit Foot Spasm Band, with support from The Cornermen and Deadbeat Apostles, play the O2 Academy Oxford tonight (Friday, April 28).
• Tickets from ticketmaster.com or on the door