This is one of the first sites I found when I finally gave in and got a computer:

http://www.redhotjazz.com/

Thanks for sharing, pinz.

Did you ever notice that jazz was invented around the same year as the cinema?

I don't think I could name a year, but seems it happened over the period 1902-1914, for both jazz and the movies.

Both were "developed" around 1895 but 1902-1914 is the first period of seriousness for both, I'd say.

And that record label the site links--Timeless Records--is also awesome. They rerelease records in a collection belonging to Chris Barber (who made a skiffle tribute CD a few years ago with Van Morrison and Lonnie Donegan):

http://www.timelessjazz.com/index.php?cPath=24&osCsid=b86d3357f975480e9f2eeabbdad8eccc

Barber, with his then banjoist, Lonnie Donegan, in effect started the UK skiffle thing. This youtube thingy is a live recording made at a Barber concert at The Royal Festival Hall, London, in 1954. The importance of Barber and Donegan to the British blues 'boom' of the 1960s can't be overstated, I reckon.

I used to think of the skiffle era as the UK counterpart to the "folk music scare" in the US, but it seems the skiffle era might have predated the folk scare by a few years, and I don't think US folk and jazz musicians mixed it up much during the folk scare. Seems like maybe those two movements were for the most part, independent of one another.

Skiffle was 'born' in the UK in 1954, as an 'intermission' novelty at 'trad' (=dixieland) jazz concerts (Chris Barber Band, Lonnie Donegan, banjoist and 'skiffle' vocalist; there were other bands, doubtless, doing a similar thing ...).

Skiffle took off as a 'pop' phenomenon at the same time as rock 'n' roll was making its mark in the UK (late 1955/early 1956-ish, through 1957) with Bill Haley, Presley, Gene Vincent, Fats Domino, and homegrown talent like Tommy Steele. Donegan's raucous, rocking take on US 'folk' music (Leadbelly, Carter Family, Washboard Sam, Woodie Guthrie, etc etc etc), and the army of home-made skiffle groups that arose in his wake (much like the do-it-yourself ethos of British punk 20+ years later), fit perfectly in the burgeoning UK rock 'n' roll scene. All of the UK rock and R&B groups of the early 60s, from the Beatles on down, came out of the 'do it yourself' approach fostered by Donegan's success.

There WAS, at one point, 1958-59, something of a manufactured rivalry in the UK charts between the hugely successful US folk group, The Kingston Trio, and Donegan - he covered their songs 'Tom Dooley' and 'San Miguel', and both versions were sizeable hits. Later he covered the US group The Highwaymen's 'Michael, Row The Boat Ashore' and again both had big hits.

Yes--skiffle seems to have been more rockin' and raukous than Joan Baez, Ian and Silvia, Peter Paul and Mary, etc. More like Jerry Lee Lewis with a banjo.