In the UK people probably first heard of samba in 1934 when the famous film “Flying Down to Rio” was released. Starring Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers, this film was what introduced to people here the samba dance (or “carioca” as it was called then). Arguably, the big breakthrough musically for samba was in 1940 with the release of the Carmen Miranda film “Down Argentine Way”. This was significant, as Robin noted, it featured her band, Banda da Lua.

Although it was mainly through film that people in the UK first heard of samba, during the 1930s there had been a growing interest in Latin music in Britain – although this was a very small scene in London and centered around what can be regarded as London’s first Latin Club – the Nest Club in 23 Kingly Street in Soho (it still appears to be there, under a different name, I visited it for the first time in 2014). There was enough interest to persuade the Cuban pianist Don Marino Barreto from New York (then playing in Paris) to settle in London and organise a Cuban Orchestra, sometime around late 1938. Thus, Barreto was to form the first Latin band in London, two years before the outbreak of World War Two. In 2008, when I asked Robin about how Latin music had first evolved in London during the 1930s, the first words he said were simply: “Don Barreto”.

 A year before Barretto had arrived in London, another one of the first pioneers of Latin music in the UK, Edmundo Ros (1910–2011) had come to the UK in 1937. Ros, a musician from Trinidad who had studied Latin music in Venezuela, played first with Don Baretto and then Fats Waller at the Nest Club. The club by then, was by all accounts, the only venue in London where black and white people could hang out together and see not just Jazz, but also what today we would call “world music”.

There may have been another early LSS member who was in the audience at the Nest Club – a drummer called Don Lock who joined the school in 1986. One day at a gig in East Grinstead in 1994 l asked this elderly member of the bateria how long he had been into Latin music and where he had first come across it in London. His reply amazed me: “oh, l was going to Latin clubs in London before the war!”. Really l thought, were there any Latin clubs in London before 1939?

It was only after l began researching all the leads that Robin gave me that l stumbled across the Nest Club with all its connections to the early Latin music in the UK. What Don told me was corroborated by Robin. I now consider that we had a witness to those pre-war Latin nights in the Nest club in the LSS. Possibly Don saw Don Barreto and Edmundo Ros at some of the nights there.

In 1940 Ros formed the first indigenous UK Latin group in London playing “ballroom” rumbas and sambas amongst other Latin styles. In 1951 he bought the famous Coconut Grove Club in Regents Street and named it “Edmundo Ros Dinner and Supper Club”. But this was for the rich only—only those mentioned in “Who’s Who” were allowed in. The Club was soon famous all over the world, and the BBC had regular radio broadcasts from there.

It is worthy of note the role of Trinidadian’s in helping spread Latin music across the the UK. First, we had Ros forming the first Latin band in the UK. Then we had Trindadians of the Windrush generation helping set up the Notting Hill Carnival between 1964 & 1966.

In the 1950s, one of the Latin percussionists in the Edmundo Ros Band was Roy “Pando” Shelton. He would be the guy who first taught Robin to play panderio. He had gone backstage when Carmen Miranda came to London in 1948 and played at the London Palladium with her backing group, Banda da Lua. Here, Shelton met Rico Pandeiro, a malabarista from one the first samba schools in Rio de Janeiro: Mangueira. Rico taught Shelton how to play panderio, and later, perhaps in the late 1960s, Shelton passed on what he had learn’t to Robin.

 Robin said that Shelton was “without doubt, the first panderista in England” and “one of the earliest sambistas in the UK”. He was also a player in the Edmundo Ros band for many years, and played on most of his albums. I can’t be sure exactly when Shelton joined the Ros band, but this appears to have been in early 1950s when he is credited on several of Ros’ albums. There is track by Ros called “The Laughing Samba” that was first released on London Records in 1955 on a 7″ EP called “Sambas Vol. 2”. The track is remarkable as the introduction clearly features pandiero, tamborim and reco-reco. I think we can be sure not only is this Shelton playing pandeiro, but that it represents the appearance of what was to become the national instrument of Brazil for the first time in the UK.

 I forgot to ask Robin exactly where he met Shelton, but I suspect it was before he was actually a member of the Edmundo Ros Band. Robin was a busy musician in a very small Latin jazz scene in London, so its possible that he perhaps met Shelton in the late 1950s or early 1960s. Robin told me he played in the Edmundo Ros band between 1969 until Ros dismantled the band in 1975. Its also possible that it was during this final part of the era of the Edmundo Ros Band that he met Shelton.

Whenever it was, Shelton passed down to him the pandeiro techniques he had first learn’t in 1948 from Rico Pandeiro of Mangueira. The style was chorinho, and later in 1995 when Robin went to Rio de Janiero with LSS founder member Alan Hayman for the first time he said that when he started playing pandeiro in front of people in Rio, they were amazed. He told me in 2008 “that style was not played anymore–people knew about it, but no-one played that way anymore in samba”. It turned out that Robin had been taught a much earlier form of pandeiro technique which had either been lost or forgotten by many players in the leading samba schools in Rio by the 1990s. Thus via Shelton, Robin had helped preserve an earlier form of pandeiro technique.

Like Shelton, Robin played on many of the albums released by Edmundo Ros. He told me that he had made six albums with him—although his name never appeared on any of the them, as Ros rarely listed his players. Through the Edmundo Ros Band, he met two other percussionists, who like Shelton he considered to be some of the “godfathers of samba in the UK” – Barry Morgan and Roberto Inglez. Thus, through playing with the Edmundo Ros Band Robin was able to meet and learn from the first pioneers of Latin music in the UK. Through Robin, the LSS would have this thread that would take us all the way back to the earliest days of the Nest Club with Don Barretto, the first pioneer of this genre in this country.

At the end of the 1960s Robin told me another highly influential new Latin band was formed in London by Carlos Romanos. He said the band had in it musicians who had also played a major part in the evolution of Latin music, notably samba, in the UK:

“By this time, I was playing with both the Edmundo Ros band and the Carlos Romanos Band. Although I liked the latter as the music was much more authentic in many respects—and more modern, it still had to conform to the same British values of not playing any particular type of Latin music. There were five other Latin musicans in the Carlos Romanos Band who contributed much to the development of both Brazilian and Afro-Cuban music: Rodney Mendola (piano), Ian Henry (piano), Olav Vas (Sax/flute), Tony Uter (conga/percussion) & Percy Borthwick (bass) who I consider the first, truly authentic Latin bass player in the UK” Olav Vas (1935–2011) was another key person in the early story of musicians who later founded the LSS: In 1983 he played with one of founders Dawson Miller (1950–2018) in the band “Weekend” on their single “The View from her Room”. This for me was a special moment as hearing the little bit of samba on it played by Dawson stirred something in me and I went out and bought the record straight away. This is where my interest in playing samba began.

 In between playing with Edmundo Ros, Robin released two famous albums which had samba on them. He told me these tracks “were regarded as the first authentic samba tracks in the UK”. In 1971, the LP “Denga” was recorded by Robin Jones And His Quintet and featured a track called “Goodbye Batucada”. One of the drummers on this was Simon Morton – who was listed as another early member of the LSS in June 1984. A second groundbreaking album called “El Maja” was released by The Robin Jones Seven in 1972. It had a track on it called “Batucada da vida”. So, via these two tracks, Robin was a pioneer, helping introduce samba to a much wider audience in the UK.

 Robin said that some of the musicians who had played with him in the Carlos Romanos Band featured on his ground breaking early recordings: “

My early recordings all crossed the lines musically between Afro-Cuban and Afro-Brazilian music. I made two such albums that were released by Kudos Records and were very successful in the 1970s: “Denga” and “El Maja”. The reason l mention these two is because there was samba on them. These were the first authentic samba recordings in the UK. There was also some bossa nova.”

He told me the names of the musicians who played on what many consider the first UK samba track “Goodbye Batucada”: Percy Borthwick (bass); Simon Morton (bongos, percussion); Tony Uter (congas, percussion), Olaf Vaz (flute, alto flute, soprano & tenor saxophone); Ian Henry (piano, electric piano), and of course Robin (drums, timbales, panderio) with the track produced by Wilf Todd.

 In either 1975 or 1976, Robin told me he had “a small samba group that played at the Lewisham Carnival. This was with a few people l was teaching in the UK and it included a percussionist called Luis Jardim. There were no dancers in this group. We had also done an earlier performance at the Lord Mayor’s Show but this was not of any consequence. We played Samba from a small float in a parade with a few ritmistas”. These performances by Robin and his group in Lewisham and the City of London can probably claim to the first by a samba group in the UK.

In 1976, a highly-influential Brazilian group called Brasil Tropical appeared at the Sadlers Well’s Theatre. Robin Jones was invited to perform with them and he joined other key performers, such as the dancer and choreographer Domingos Campos and capoeiristas Edvaldo Carneiro and Mestre Camisa Rosa, who had been a student of Mestre Bimba. Robin said that the Sadlers Well’s show was the first time that people in the UK had really heard samba, or seen a show that resembled anything like what they could expect to see in Brazil.

He told me:

“People didn’t realise how important Brasil Tropical was: the music, Carnival, folklore and dance—everything was there.”

And through “Brasil Tropical” Robin would help sow the seed that led to formation of the first samba school in the UK, the London School of Samba in 1984. When “Brasil Tropical” returned to London in 1979 to appear at the Drury Lane Theatre (next door to the club that would later become Guanabara), they again contacted Robin and invited him to perform with them. It was on this second occasion that he first met Bosco de Oliveira, who had arrived in the UK in 1978. This time, “Brasil Tropical” brought with them the capoerista Zenon Rocha, who Robin told me went to become the first major Capoeria teacher in the UK, and who by 1980 was teaching capoeira at the YMCA off Tottenham Court Road.

Bosco wasn’t the only founder member of the LSS to be involved “Brasil Tropical” : another drummer was the late Hilton Leite (1935-2017), one of the 12 founders of the school with Bosco in 1984, and later played in Paul Rumbol’s band, Viramundo in the 1990s. Paul told me that Hilton played on a “classic recording that he was credited on was the 1970 album by Rosinha Da Valenca called “Ipanema Beat” where he played drums on all tracks.”Following his death, his son told that Hilton “had also played with Joao Gilberto before Joao went to the USA”. Robin said that Hilton was “a very fine kit drummer”.

When Robin met Bosco de Oliveira it would be the beginning of a long friendship, one that would eventually change the samba and carnival scene forever in the UK.

 In 1980, Robin formed a new Brazilian group, Carnival Brasil – a small group that became the first samba group to perform in the Notting Hill Carnival in 1980 and 1981. When I first interviewed Robin in 2003 he told me that O Globo had interviewed him on the streets of Notting Hill, probably in 1980. I mentioned to him that it was a historic event and he said “that was exactly what someone said to me then”.

 In Carnival Brasil his daughter Marion was responsible for choreography and Bosco was the Musical Director and advisor of Brazilian folklore. Thus as Robin noted: “so Carnival Brasil was born”. Joined by Zenon Rocha and John Oboro from Nigeria, they travelled extensively and did several carnival parades—including the Notting Hill Carnival (1980), the Deptford, Finchley and Enfield Carnivals. Robin told me how in 2008 how the first two parades of a samba group in the Notting Hill Carnival had come about:

“In 1980, Carnival Brasil got a residency at the Churchill Club, then we moved the the Alfa Laya club in Mayfair, which was on the site of the old Astor Club, and we ended up being there six days a week. It was such a novelty for a Brazilian show at the time—we were playing samba, capoeira and folklore. We attracted a lot of people to this show. We also started doing the theatre circuit in the provinces and many other major gigs. However, it was at the Alfa Laya where this agent guy who was involved with the Notting Hill Carnival came to see us at the club and he asked us to join the parade in Notting Hill. I can’t remember his name, but I think he was involved in the running of Carnival. At the time there was no Brazilian group taking part in the parade, and at that time, Carnival Brasil was just a stage show. However, for the parade in 1980, we got a small group together—there was no float, we just walked along playing.”

Robin said the drummers in Carnival Brasil were firstly Sam Catchlove and Hilton (who served as his dep). Also involved in the group included his two other daughters Karen and Mirelle and the percussionist Phillipe Servier, who Robin said was later in the LSS. He added:

“The group had started out as a 8-piece band which was cut back to four when travelling. However, the main show ended up having around 20–25 dancers, drummers and capoeristas. Robin said “we did a massive show in the Fairfield Halls on the South Bank in January 1981”.

The final piece of the jigsaw that led to formation of the first samba school in the UK was the arrival in 1977 of a South African exile called Alan Hayman (1949–2012). The idea of forming a samba school in London was his, and in late 1983 he was passed Bosco’s name. One night at the now defunct Rockgarden in Covent Garden (now the site of the Apple Shop), he approached Bosco who was playing that night with Dave Bitelli in Onwards International. Alan told him that he was forming a school of samba in London and asked him if he would be the first Mestre de bateria, to which Bosco immediately agreed. By January 31st 1984, the samba school had been formed with 12 founding members. By 1st April 1984, the LSS had played its first gig in Covent Garden Piazza with some 40 drummers, including Robin.

Other LSS founder members had played with Robin before the LSS was formed: Dawson Miller & Dave Bitelli (who had a group called Onwards Internationals Robin said he knew Dave from playing with Wham!). Robin told me that he knew another LSS founder member Dave Pattman before he helped establish the school. Dawson told me that in the 1980s he was in a group with Robin that often performed with at a private dinner & dance club in Covent Garden – a place that in 2005 was to become known as Guanabara.

 When the LSS paraded for the first time in the Notting Hill Carnival in August 1984, Robin joined as a “malabarista” (pandeiro juggler) along with two of his daughters, Marion and Mirelle. O Globo were there again and interviewed Robin and when they asked him what he thought of the parade he said it was “fantastic – I wish we could do it all the time”. Of significance was that when O Globo asked him where he had learnt the specific skill of being a “malabarista”, he said from a Brazilian percussionist who had come over with the show “Brasil Tropical” in 1979 called Martinho Veloso.

 In 1986, Robin Jones founded King Salsa, a highly successful group in which Bosco, and two other founder members of the LSS – Gerry Hunt and Carlos Fuentes, also played in. Robin would be one of the central figures of the LSS in its first five years, parading with the school every until at least 1988, perhaps the next year (which is poorly documented in terms of pictures and films).

He was however there in 1989 when the Madrinha of the LSS, the famous samba school Mocidade Independente de Padre Miguel came over to London for the first time and headlined at the 3rd European Samba Encontro on the South Bank.

Organised by Alan Hayman and Pat Till, this historic event saw Mocidade – with a bateria led by Mestre Jorjão – play at the Royal Festival Hall and give a series of workshops on the South Bank. Robin took part in the huge parade that started in Covent Garden and finished by County Hall. One LSS member, Mike Ryden told me the bateria was some 550 drummers strong.

 Here Robin met the legendary Mocidade “malabarista” the late Ceguinho do Pandeiro, and their famous cuica player, Quirino da Cuíca (died 2017), and they paraded together on the way down to County Hall. Both these Mocidade ritmistas were veterans from the days of Mestre André – the director of the bateria that the LSS namechecked in its first samba de enredo in 1984.

Following this, both Alan and Robin left the LSS and would surface together again in 1992 when Alan instigated a second samba school in London called Acadêmicos de Madureira. They would take part in three parades in the Notting Hill Carnival (1992–1994) and as with the LSS, Alan would help bring together people who would later be highly influential in the UK samba scene: the dancer Henrique da Silva (who later joined the LSS, but would later be one of the founders in 2002 of the highly successful Paraiso School of Samba); Barak Schmool (who formed the FIRE Collective & Rhythms of the City), Joe Hanson (later the first bateria director of Paraiso, and one of the founders of Bloco X, Verde Vai & Uniao de Illhas); the puxador Xavier Osmir, who the the first Mestre de bateria of Acadêmicos, and Paul Rumbol (who along Xavier would join the LSS and from 1996 onwards write 16 samba de enredos for the school for its parades in the Notting Hill Carnival).

In 1995, Robin travelled to Rio de Janeiro with Alan Hayman for the first time and linked up to join Henrique and his brother Mestre Esteves to parade with Estácio de Sá in the Sambadromo. During this period, Henrique was also a dancer with the Pet Shop Boys and in 1996 Robin played on their Latin influenced album “Bilingual”, notably the track “It Always Comes as a Surprise”.

 In 2002, Bosco paraded with the LSS at for the first time in over a decade when I was leading the bateria, and he passed me Robin’s phone number. I finally got round to ringing him in 2003, and he was very happy to hear from someone in the LSS after so many years. He immediately agreed to do a pandeiro workshop for the school at the now defunct Backstreet Studios on the Holloway Road. Later that year he did his first of three interviews with me. In 2004 when Bosco was invited to write the samba de enredo to celebrate played on our 20th anniversary, he kindly agreed to play on it. In 2005, he was a judge at our samba de enredo competition.

 In 2008, I did another much larger interview with him where he gave me valuable leads identifying many of the early Latin musicians in the UK and told me in great detail how his musical career in London had got started. He came to the LSS base in Waterloo for the last time when Bosco did a farewell workshop before returning to Brazil in 2011. Robin was a special guest at our 30th anniversary party of the LSS at the Conway Hall on 2014. Finally in 2017 he agreed to do a series on interviews with me on film, which I hope to publish on the LSS Historical Archives youtube channel in due course.

 I will be forever indebted to him for the time he gave me to see him at his house in Barnet and have what seemed like unlimited time to talk to him about how he first got involved with the LSS and what he had been doing in the Latin world long before that. He was a warm and friendly person who whenever I rang him to tell him of some special event the school were doing, the first thing he would always say to me was “how is the school doing?”. He was always reminiscing, and our phone conversations and interviews would be dotted with random memories of some moment when he met someone who had been important in the history of the LSS, or someone who was, like him, a pioneer of Latin music in the UK. Like Alan Hayman, he helped form Latin groups that would give many people a breakthrough in the otherwise tough music scene of London. A kind and generous person, he was someone I could see always helped give advice and support to up-and-coming musicians who either joined his groups or the LSS. He was one of the godfathers of Latin music in the UK, one of the pioneers of samba, who helped spread and popularise it long before the foundation of the LSS in 1984. He will be greatly missed by all in the LSS and we have dedicated our parade in the 2019 Notting Hill Carnival to him. As part of this tribute, some of the musical elements of his track “Goodbye Batucada” have been incorporated into the LSS samba de enredo. So, once again, a little bit of the music of Robin Jones will be heard on the streets of Ladbroke Grove.

Mestre Mags
12th August 2019