George Webb

George Horace Webb (8 October 1917 – 10 March 2010) was a British pianist considered by many as the father of the traditional jazz movement in Britain. He grew up with a love of early jazz recordings, principally those made by the New Orleans musicians; and in his playing he tried to re-create the style of such bands as King Oliver's. Webb "worked as a machine gun fitter in the Vickers-Armstrong factory at Crayford. The son of a former music hall artiste turned fishmonger, he was a keen jazz enthusiast and self-taught amateur pianist. He took it upon himself to organize lunchtime entertainment at the factory, assembling scratch bands from among the workers." With his band, George Webb's Dixielanders, he played regularly and famously at The Red Barn public house at Barnehurst, Kent, from the early 1940s. "No one has ever seriously challenged their claim to have been the first British revivalist jazz band". They made several recordings and BBC radio broadcasts. The Dixielanders disbanded in January 1948.