History of the Slaughterhouse Seven

In 1963 Chuff, with his friend John Molony, set up "The Yardmen" whilst students at Downside School.  It was in this band, which he was the principal arranger and pianist for, that he learned the skills needed to create the Slaughterhouse Seven.

Although Chuff did have music lessons, he mostly taught himself by listening to the bands that were part of the trad jazz revival in the sixties.  These included Kenny Ball, Chris Barber and Acker Bilk.  However one of the main skills Chuff learnt was that bands involve people, and every band goes through its fair share of disagreements.  If he could learn to navigate the ups and downs of a band with his peers, then later as a teacher, he may be able to do the same with a group of people younger than himself.

Here we have a recording of the Yardmen playing Chimes Blues, all the way from 1965 along with tracks from various SH7 recordings over the decades.

In 1972 Chuff joined Downside as a teacher and set-up the Wet Look String Vest Band playing many of the tunes from the Yardmen days.  2 years later he set-up the Slaughterhouse Seven, whose first gig was at Saint Joseph's Hall in Stratton, the first of 18 gigs that school year.  

1977 proved an excellent year for the Slaughterhouse Seven as they were featured on BBC Morning West launching their LP "On the Air in Paris", a BBC Nationwide film-shoot, and an HTV West (local ITV) News film-shoot.  They also played at Bristol City football ground before the Division 1 (Premiership in today's football) match against Norwich City.

In 1979 the first "Big Band Show" took place.  This was later to become "Last Night of the Downside Proms".  These raised cash for various great causes and became so popular that they had to be run over two nights due to the risk of the audience size exceeding fire regulations.  Plenty of quality jazz was played including more than one excellent performance of Rhapsody in Blue, and there were memorable antics as well as Chuff relished throwing bins full of cans off the stage (well it's a form of percussion) and setting off a variety of explosions.

Over the years there were tours that created a lifetime of memories for those involved including -

1977 France
1984/85 Jersey
1987 USA
1989 Hong Kong
1990 Spain and Dublin
1992 New Zealand
1993 Dusseldorf
1994 Australia
1996 France
1998 World Tour
2001/02 Malta
2005 Gibraltar
2006 Africa

It's clear that none of this would have happened without Chuff.  Over the 35 years the band existed there were over 200 musicians who contributed and who left school with the ability to surprise anyone with their knowledge of jazz.

However there were others, "friends of the Slaughterhouse Seven", who should be mentioned here -

Malcolm Bowles of Bath Music Centre
Bert Catley of Lydford's Bus Company
Roger and Lesley Putt 
Brian and Dolly Pickering
Jonathan Lane