Ken Colyer in Hamburg March 3, 1958 The gaunt, grey stones of the Curio-Haus wore a fringe of ice on the evening of March 3, 1958, as the bus carrying the Ken Colyer Jazzmen bounced through the stinging rain to slither to a halt at a side door. With a vicious spell of winter weather bedevilling their cross-country run the band had arrived several hours late and crowds of jazz enthusiasts from north and west Germany were already finding their seats inside the gloomy, agebrown hall with its flanks of marble pillars. The platform, thickly carpeted with rubber padding, was a forest of microphones. The atmosphere was one of growing expectancy, for the Ken Colyer unit had already gained a considerable reputation from their eight weeks’ stay at Hamburg’s famous New Orleans Beer Bar early in 1955. Behind the scenes a half bottle of Steinhäger, a potent German gin, rapidly changed hands as musicians revived themselves after the arduous journey, stretched cramped muscles and tentatively blew cold instruments. The German recording engineers had already been forced to cancel the balance test scheduled for that afternoon which added to the usual back-stage 'nerves'. However, the concert was a tremendous success.