I found these images on this website (The Serendipity Project) many years ago at this page. Wayne Burrows either runs the site/blog or is a major contributor.
“Published by wayneburrows. Writer based at Primary in Nottingham (UK). Often works under pseudonyms or semi-anonymously, most frequently the entirely fictional post-war British visual artist Robert Holcombe (b.1923 – d.2003) whose works continue to be fabricated and exhibited. View all posts by wayneburrows“.

The article dates from 2012 and there is some link to Nottingham. They were found here and three can be identified as being in West Bridgford so the rest might have a chance of being connected. I have recreated the post here with a few extra notes in the slim chance somebody might be able to put names to faces or dates and places.

Johnny Johnstone, himself a prominent jazz musician in sixties Nottingham, replied and identified the group as the “Fairweather Brown All Stars at the Dancing Slipper Ballroom, West Bridgford, probably in the 1950’s / 1960’s”. The Fairweather Brown All Stars were frequent visitors to the Slipper so it might be hard to say which year it was with any accuracy. You can see a “Alan Elsdon” poster on the wall and his band were frequent visitors too. That Alan Elsdon image dates from 1962 I think, at least it was around then although it may have been used for a long time after. The other photos of people / jazz fans look late fifties, early sixties. That is about as best as I can do. Here is the original wording from Wayne Burrows:

JAN 24 2012: FIFTEEN MONOCHROME SNAPSHOTS FROM THE NOTTINGHAM JAZZ AND BEAT SCENE (C.1960S)
Posted by wayneburrows on January 24, 2012 · 2 Comments

All I know for sure about this series of images is that the photographs were framed when found (at the Sneinton Cattle market a week or so ago: one or two show fading where the mounts overlapped the images themselves) and all seem to have been part of a wider gathering of pictures relating to Nottingham’s jazz scene, from the 1960s to the near-present (about half a dozen more recent photographs showed the jazz band John Lucas plays trumpet with in performance at a Beeston pub around 2004 – I’ll be passing those on to him next time I see him). The fifteen seen here, though, go back to an earlier era, and the characters and locations – ranging from Nottingham pubs and bars to a single shot taken outside a Paris cafe – are pretty vivid, evoking a world that would have been familiar to a few of Alan Sillitoe’s characters back in their primes. A few are traceable to a particular gig, too, with the pianist, horn section and lead musician of the Sandy Brown band in performance, with Brown’s own picture signed on the back by the man himself. All in all, an intriguing bit of post-war Nottingham history can be gleaned from these shots, as they travel from domestic into social space, between pub tables and the open air and (as noted already) as far afield as Paris, all the while shifting between smart suits, early sixties frocks and vaguely beatnik personal styles: the details a younger Ray Gosling was busy writing and making films about at this time, too. The atmosphere in these photographs is akin to that found in such Free Cinema landmarks as Karel Reisz’s We Are the Lambeth Boys (1959) or Momma Don’t Allow (1956) and just as representative of a certain historical moment’s richly transformative potential.

Comments
2 Responses to “Jan 24 2012: Fifteen Monochrome Snapshots from the Nottingham Jazz and Beat Scene (c.1960s)”
John M.Johnstone says:
February 15, 2013 at 7:32 pm
The band shown on the photograph,is of the Fairweather-Brown AllStars,at the Dancing Slipper Ballroom,West Bridgford,probably in the 1950’s/1960’s.I would appreciate further information,as to whether there are other photograaph’s,among your find,of this band,which was one of my favourites. Johnny Johnstone. A wonderful find for me. Thanks.

Reply
wayneburrows says:
February 17, 2013 at 7:04 pm
I knew some were of Sandy Brown, as his own pic is signed and a couple of others were stamped as press photos – but that clears up the rest of the mystery, ie: where they were playing and who else was involved! The photos were found in Nottingham at the Cattle Market, and the other pictures with them were of the band John Lucas plays in from the early 2000s, which was odd, as I know John. Afraid the b&w pix that I found that day were all here, though…so there were no others of a 50s/60s vintage at all…

THE PHOTOS

4 pictures of the Fairweather Brown All Stars at the Dancing Slipper Ballroom, West Bridgford featuring Sandy Brown and Al Fairweather. There is also a website dedicated to Sandy here.

The line up in late 1958 was:

Sandy Brown: Clarinet
Al Fairweather: Trumpet
Tony Milliner: Trombone
Stan Greig: Piano
Tim Mann: Bass
Derek Hogg: Drums

…… but the Alan Elsdon Jazz Band didn’t appear at the Dancing Slipper until May 1962 so I’m going to suggest the following band photo’s could be 1962.

Two Alan Elsdon beermats once owned by Dancer Slipper patron Mike Parsons that date sometime from the early 1960’s.

THE OTHER PHOTOS