Don’t worry, this isn’t precious New York water; it’s gin’, announced the sign in Tiffany’s window, next to a fountain bubbling away among the classy baubles. This was July 1965 and, for my first ever visit to New York, I’d chosen quite possibly the driest summer of the century, with the city’s reservoirs almost empty, and - something unheard of - restaurants not allowed to serve iced water unless the customer specifically asked for it.

Luckily, out in Queens where my mother and sister were living it was a few degrees cooler, though there was a hosepipe ban in operation and the lawns were looking a bit sickly. But that wasn’t where I planned to be for much of the time. How many classic movies were set in Queens, after all ?  Manhattan was where I reckoned on spending just about every waking hour, heat or no heat. And it was all so incredibly familiar. That hotel, wasn’t it where Roger O. Thornhill (Cary Grant) was mistaken for George Kaplan in ‘North by Northwest’ and hustled away by the bad guys?  And didn’t the El run at this precise spot before King Kong smashed it all to bits? And that club, isn’t it where J.J Hunsecker ‘the Eyes of Broadway’ (played by a steely Burt Lancaster) said ‘Match me Sidney!’ to Tony Curtis ‘the man with the ice cream face’.

The trouble is, looking back now, I start confusing films I’d seen pre-1965 with the masses of others in the nigh on half a century since.  In the last paragraph, for instance, I’d been about to refer to the very mound of grass that Jane Fonda and Robert Redford had sat on in ‘Barefoot in the Park’, but then had a quick moment of doubt, googled the movie and discovered it didn’t come out until two years after my stay.

What has happened is that my memories of that summer tend to be sharpened, overlaid, even distorted by my subsequent movie-going. I can no longer think of the Copacabana without recalling that extraordinary Steadicam sequence where, to impress his girl on their first date, Ray Liotta, playing the apprentice Goodfella, steers her through the kitchen area, greeting and being greeted, handing out bills left right and centre, till they emerge onto the dining floor where a waiter carries a table, head high, placing it in one of the best spots in the house.

But before that, I already had a huge sequence of memories of my own of the well-known night club. Three years of widowhood combined with a great job on Madison Avenue (yes, in one of the top ad agencies; we are talking ‘Mad Men’ here) had caused my mother to flourish like flowers after a desert rain; and the trip to the Copa was just the first of three evenings where we taken out by different gentlemen friends of hers.

Beau number one one arrived half an hour after us, and we had time for a cocktail or two (a Manhattan, what else?), while I looked round at the staff and some of the customers, wondering if they’d been supplied by Central Casting from the category ‘minor hoods’.

Then, when our man did turn up, we were ushered into the club proper, where he was greeted effusively by the maitre d’, who received and deftly pocketed a 20-dollar bill. Yes, 20 bucks, in 1965.  Five minutes later our host had the head chef come to our table (20 more dollars passing hands) to receive lengthy and specific instructions for how to prepare the dressing for a salad which our man DIDN’T -  EVEN -  TOUCH!

The bill was on him, of course, but I had to dig pretty deep into my wallet for a type of expense you don’t learn about in the movies: paying your way out of the men’s john.  But ‘men’s john’, or even ‘gentlemen’s convenience’ aren’t terms which do justice to this Aladdin's Cave of Assorted Toiletries, presided over by a nattily white-jacketed guy who, I am convinced, must have kicked back serious money to the management for the privilege of running, not to put too fine a point on it, what was after all a tarted up crapper, even if the urinals had marble partitions to prevent any interested party taking a gander at your three-piece-suite.

For, as I stood there on my first visit, I couldn’t help noticing that every single visitor was presented with a freshly laundered towelette and, while drying his hands, had any part of his jacket that was less than pristine deftly brushed, in return for which the attendant received a note. Now I wasn’t very familiar with U.S. currency, but even I knew that there are no nickel, dime or quarter notes. You’re talking about a minimum of a dollar. And remember this was  nearly half a century ago, when the sterling equivalent could probably buy you half a row of back-to-backs in Heckmondwike. So, grit my teeth I did and handed over a dollar bill (not to any noticeable signs of effusive gratitude from his nibs).  And then, what with the cocktails and wines (various) I had to make a second visit. That was the whole row of back-to-backs gone.

So what about the food, the comedian, and the main act?  The first was so-so, the second was virulently racist (but, as this was directed against Arabs, it appeared not to count); and the third was a mediocre white girl singer who appeared completely unaware that anything had happened to popular music since about 1951.  And, on every table, was a notice saying ‘Starting Monday: The fabulous Supremes’: the first Motown group to appear there, and I missed them by a matter of days!

Beau number two we met at his duplex apartment on Central Park South. He asked me what I’d like to drink and, when I said ‘What’ve you got?’, replied with the single word ‘ Everything’. I thought for a few seconds, and came up with a minor rival of Pernod and Ricard you’d have to look hard to find even in Marseille.  ‘How about Pastis 51?’ I asked. ‘You got it’, was the reply. Bastard.  But he made up for this by taking us to a Hungarian restaurant where the food was sublime.

Beau number three earned top marks by taking us to a club with a New Orleans theme. OK, my tastes in jazz had moved on since my schooldays, but I was pleased to see that the trio doing their best to cut through the wall of chatter featured a drummer who looked and sounded like one of my heroes, a white kid from Chicago who’d heard King Oliver (with a young Louis Armstrong on 2nd cornet) back in the 20s. He learned drums,  playing with the likes of Artie Shaw and Bunny Berigan, before becoming a mainstay of small Dixieland groups, including his own

A waitress confirmed that it was, indeed, my man; so, during a break, I went over and said ‘You’re George Wettling, aren’t you?’ ‘How do you know?’, he asked. ‘Your style’, I replied, deciding not to add that I’d seen him in London with Eddie Condon a few years back.

‘Anything you’d like us to play?’, he asked. So I named a couple of slow numbers, such as ‘Sweet Lorraine’ and ‘Georgia’, to give them a brief respite from the breakneck stuff that most people associate with Dixieland.

Coming across world-class musicians in humble venues or opening for other groups was the biggest surprise and greatest pleasure of my stay in New York.  Back in London we had Ronnie Scott’s, of course, and I’m not  putting down Ronnie as a tenor player, or his talented sidekicks such as Tubby Hayes, Jimmy Deuchar and Bobby Wellins or, indeed, the regular rhythm section led by pianist Stan Tracey. But what hardcore British jazz fans wanted to hear were the American guys they knew from their album collections.  And when I first went to Ronnie’s, from the time it opened at 39 Gerrard Street in late 1961, all the American Musician’s Union would allow into Britain were solo musicians who would have to play with the resident trio.

It was great, of course, to hear people (mainly tenor players) including Zoot Sims, Lucky Thompson, Stan Getz and Dexter Gordon. But when I went to Manhattan every single member of the band would be a household name, at least in my household.  If you click on the link below to the photos we took in New York, you’ll see me posing with the guitarist Wes Montgomery, who was pretty big at the time. But what impressed me most was that his rhythm section featured Paul Chambers (bass) and Jimmy Cobb (drums) who’d played on Miles Davis’s classic ‘Kind of Blue’, which I’d bought when it came out in 1959, my copy of which was played just about to death.

Then, on another evening, while most people in whatever club it was  were waiting for Sonny Rollins, the headliner, to come on stage, I realised that the warm-up group (led by trombonist Grachun Moncur III) included the legendary Joe Jones who - thirty years before - had revolutionised drumming while part of the classic Count Basie rhythm section.

And all these delights were practically given away!  Back in London you had to pay to get into Ronnie’s, then pay to eat and drink once you were inside.  But in Manhattan, at venues such as the Five Spot, Village Gate and Village Vanguard, there was the customer-friendly system of the ‘minimum’.  So at one of these clubs, the Five Spot I think it was, you got in free, then had to spend a minimum of $3.50 while you were there; meaning that, for the price of admission to Ronnie’s, you could walk into a great New York club, sit down, order spaghetti with meat balls and a quarter bottle of red wine, to consume at your ease while listening to Roland Kirk and his band, or whoever was on that night. And no charge for using (or leaving) the lavatory.

So nights out in Manhattan in the 60s could be cheaper than you think. And the days weren’t too expensive either.  That’s provided, of course, that you didn’t actually go in to Tiffany’s.

                                     (Click here for more NYC photos)