JAZZ PERFORMERS

 

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Kenny Ball

The record label Pye recorded a number of Trad groups. Kenny Ball s (1930-2013) recording of Cole Porter s Samantha was a hit in 1961. His Midnight In Moscow (1961) reached the Top Ten in both Britain and the United States.

Ball had a clip on his trumpet. This was to hold any cigarette that he might be smoking when not playing.

 

Chris Barber

Chris Barber had no intention of becoming a jazz musician until an incident at a Humphrey Lyttleton concert. The trombonist Harry Brown tapped him on the soldier and asked Would you like to buy a jazz instrument? How much? replied Barber. 6, 10s. . Barber happened to have that much money on his person, could think of no immediate reason why he should not acquire the instrument, and did so.

Alexis Korner (n Koerner) (1928-1984) was a member of Chris Barber s first amateur jazz band. When Barber became successful, he invited American Blues musicians, such as Big Bill Broonzy (1903-1958) and Muddy Waters, to appear as support acts. There was no financial advantage to himself because he was able to sell out venues on the appeal of his own name alone. The audience took to them. He invited Korner and Cyril Davies (1932-1964) to perform a Blues section during his show.

Following his return to the U.K., the trumpeter Ken Colyer joined Chris Barber s Jazz Band, which the clarinettist Monty Sunshine (1928-2010) had joined. Colyer s dominant personality led to the band being renamed Ken Colyer s Jazz Band. It acquired a residency at Bert Wilcox s London Jazz Club in Marble Arch. Colyer and the group s banjo player Lonnie Donegan developed a mutually antagonistic relationship. All of the band left Colyer and reverted to being Chris Barber s Jazz Band in May 1954.

In 1956 Rock Island Line became an international hit. Donegan left the band.

Sunshine had recorded Sidney Bechet s (1897-1959) tune Petite Fleur in 1952. In 1957 Barber suggested to the clarinettist that he re-record for an album that the band was going to issue. The group had developed a particular following in Hamburg. The song reached No. 2 in Germany. This prompted Pye to release it in the U.K., where it reached No. 4 in early 1959 and the United States, where it reached the Top Five. Over 2.5m copies of the record were sold and Bechet received a substantial royalty payment.

Sunshine made it known that he disliked the inclusion of Muddy Waters s blues music in the set. In 1961 Barber sacked him. Acker Bilk developed a profitable sweet clarinet sound from the success of Petite Fleur.

 

John Chilton

John Chilton (1932-2016) was a jazz trumpeter. However, his day jobs included being a music publicist, jazz writer, and running a bookshop in Great Ormond Street.

In 1969 Chilton and the clarinettist and cartoonist Wally Fawkes formed the Feetwarmers (named after Sidney Bechet s recording band) took to playing at the New Merlin s Cave pub in Clerkenwell. The following year the newspaper film critic and lapsed jazz vocalist George Melly started taking guests spots with Chilton s group. Their Sunday lunchtime performances became almost weekly. An album, Nuts (1972), was recorded lived at Ronnie Scott s. The producer was Derek Taylor, the Beatles publicist. In 1974 they were invited to play for the Oxford University Jazz Club. The experience prompted Chilton and Melly to try to play professionally again. When the band played at the Reading Festival George Harrison was to act as the Feetwarmers roadie.

The Feetwarmers acquired a reputation for imbibing liquid refreshment. One album had to be recorded after they had heard what they had produced. Chilton gave up alcohol so that he could use research opportunities that touring presented him with.

The band s repertoire was kept fresh by Chilton. He continuously sought out material and on occasion wrote songs.

For almost three decades the Feetwarmers month-long residency at Ronnie Scott s was a fixture of London s Christmas. In 2002 Chilton wound up the touring band. He resumed playing with Fawkes.

Location: The Bloomsbury Bookshop, 31-35 Great Ormond Street, WC1N 3HZ. It was a very small bookshop that specialised in jazz and the Bloomsbury Group. (orange, turquoise)

 

Ken Colyer

Ken Colyear joined the merchant navy in order to try to get New Orleans. However, as a merchant seaman he was required to crew whatever ship needed crewing, therefore, it took him several voyages before he came close to the city. There he was appreciated to be knowledgeable enough to be worth being allowed to it in. He was particularly respectful of George Lewis, who was one of the clarinet players who had not switched to saxophone.

Ken Colyer jumped ship in America. He was imprisoned. He sent back letters to Britain where they were posted on the door of Dobell s.

The trumpeter Ken Colyer was obsessed with early New Orleans jazz. In 1949 he and the trumpeter Sonny Morris and the clarinettist Monty Sunshine (1928-2010), who had been a student at Camberwell School of Art formed the Crane River Jazz Band. The group acquired a residency at The White Hart pub in Cranford. In 1951 the Cranes broke up.

In 1952 Colyer signed up as a merchant seaman so that he could jump ship in New Orleans. He did so. The following year he was deported back to Britain; he was greeted as though he were Moses descending the mountain with the tablets. He joined Chris Barber s Jazz Band, which Sunshine had joined. Colyer s dominant personality led to the band being renamed Ken Colyer s Jazz Band. It acquired a residency at Bert Wilcox s London Jazz Club in Marble Arch. Colyer and the group s banjo player Lonnie Donegan developed a mutually antagonistic relationship. All of the band left Colyer and reverted to being Chris Barber s Jazz Band in May 1954.

The Ken Colyer Trust

The Ken Colyer Trust

Website: www.kencolyertrust.org

 

The Crane River Jazz Band

The Crane River Jazz Band was devoted to New Orleans jazz. Its members included: Ken Colyer (trumpet), John R.T. Davies (trombone), Julian Davies (bass), Monty Sunshine (1928-2010) (clarinet). The band was a unit for eighteen months before its members went their different ways. However, it did reassemble briefly over the next fifty or so years.

 

The Johnny Dankworth Seven

The Johnny Dankworth Seven was set up in 1950. The band included: saxophonist Don Rendell (1926-2015), vocalist Frank Holder, and drummer Eddie Taylor. Practicalities of ensuring that the band had an audience meant that the Seven engaged in comedy antics as part of their performances. Rendell was the only married member of the band. His rent money was always paid out in full before the rest of the kitty was distributed. The Seven became much more popular once Cleo Laine became a vocalist. In 1953 the band broke up.

In the late 1940s Club Eleven was a haven for Modernists. It was where Johnny Dankworth developed his reputation and formed his Seven in 1950. The group included the trombonist Eddie Harvey (1925-2012) and the bassist Joe Mudele (1920-2014).

The Johnny Dankworth Seven included the Guyanese-born percussionist Cy Holder (1925-2017).

 

The Mike Gibbs Orchestra

Musicians who performed in The Mike Gibbs Orchestra included: the saxophonist Mike Osborne (1941-2007).

 

'Tubby' Hayes

In the mid to late 1960s 'Tubby' Hayes (d.1973) played with Ron Mathewson, Tony Levin (1940-2011) on drums, and Mick Pyne on piano. He refused to accept any jobs that did not allow to take along his rhythm section.

 

Ted Heath

In terms of a revenue Ted Heath was the most successful jazz musician of the 1950s. He kept his extensive fanbase happy by having brassy charts, plenty of showmanship, and employing the best musicians who would work for him. The visual aspects of the show included a moment in which all the venue lights were turned off and the band were seen to glow phosphoretically. The pianist Stan Tracey (1926-2013) worked for him for a couple of years in the late 1950s.

 

The Jazz Warriors

In 1991 Gary Crosby established The Jazz Warriors. The band became associated with the Jazz Caf . The musicians who played in the ensemble included Courtney Pine. Among its members there was a belief that musicians had a duty to teach would be-performers. Tomorrow s Warriors was set up to furnish a means of providing free at the point of access teaching for students and an income for the musicians who taught. Its funds are generated by concerts.

The Jazz Warriors were led by Cleveland Watkiss.

Tommorrow s Warriors

Location: 73 Canning Road, Harrow, HA3 7SP

Website: https://tomorrowswarriors.org

 

The Jump Band

The saxophonist and clarinettist Bruce Dad Turner was a teetotal, non-smoking, public school-educated Marxist. He was particularly partial to the small jazz bands of the 1930s. He had a reputation for being absent-minded. He played with Humphrey Lyttleton.

The Jump Band was a mainstream jazz band that was led by Turner. In 1958 the trumpeter John Chilton joined it. In the early 1960s Jack Gold made his first documentary, Living Jazz (1961), about the band.

 

Humphrey Lyttleton

Humphrey Lyttleton (1921-2008) was the scion of a Worcestershire landowning family. He was descended from a member of the Gunpowder Plot. His father was a housemaster at Eton College. The schoolboy Lyttleton developed an interest in military music. An early attempt by him to learn the piano petered off. He developed a passion for Louis Armstrong s trumpet playing. He put together a band in which he played the mouth organ. In 1936, while he was supposed to be attending the Eton vs. Harrow cricket match at Lord s he stole away and bought his first trumpet at a shop on the Charing Cross Road. Musically, he was self-taught.

Following war service in the Brigade of Guards, he attended Camberwell School of Art; he had some skill as a caricaturist. He started playing jazz at venues such as the Nuthouse on Regent Street. In 1947 he joined George Webb s Dixielanders, who had a residency at The Red Barn pub in Bexleyheath. At the start of 1948 Lyttelton set up his own band. The cartoonist and clarinet player Wally Trog Fawkes became a member as did Webb eventually. Trog worked on The Daily Mail newspaper doing column-breaker cartoons. When he was given a strip, Lyttleton took over his job. He stayed on the paper in various roles until 1953, his final job being to provide storylines for Trog s Flook cartoon strip. In 1948 the brothers Ian (clarinet) and Keith Christie (trombone) joined the band, thereby completing its classic line-up. It was able to sell out the Royal Festival Hall in hours.

In 1948 the Graeme Bell Band, an Australian outfit, arrived in London. They were less hidebound than the British units. They used popular songs that were from outside the jazz repertoire.

In 1949 Sidney Bechet ignored the ban on American jazz musicians performing in Britain and played a concert with Lyttleton.

On one occasion the trombonist Eddie Harvey was tried by a kangaroo court for fraternising with dance band and modern musicians

The band wanted to see the Melody Maker dance band competition. In order to do so without paying, they entered it. Their waltz was not well-received. However, they ended up coming third and garnered a huge amount of publicity. This was a factor in their being credited with a key role in the jazz revival. Decca had the band record four songs.

In November 1949 Lyttleton signed a recording deal with Parlophone. He eventually came under the wing of George Martin.

During the 1950s he was to become B.B.C. Radio s principal jazz presenter.

When Lyttleton s interest began to progress from the New Orleans style, Webb moved on. Johnny Parker (1929-2010) became the band s pianist. He was largely self-taught. He helped the band move away from its original staid style.

In 1951 the Christies left to set up their own band. Lyttleton switched to the clarinet.

In 1953 the alto player Bruce Turner joined the band. This outraged the purists who were unable to tolerate saxophones. At a concert at Birmingham Town Hall a banner that read Go Home Dirty Bopper was displayed in protest. At about the same time he stopped having a banjo player in the band. The changes enabled Lyttleton to take the band from the 1920s-style music onto Count Basie-style swing. It was at this juncture that he went professional. He was to retain a life-long interest in exploring music, including the avant-garde upon occasion.

Lyttleton recorded Bad Penny Blues only because he had some spare time at the end of a recording session. The result was reworked by the producer Joe Meek. In 1956 it reached No. 19 in the charts. It was the first jazz record to have broken into the Top 20.¹

In 1956 Fawkes left the Lyttleton band.

In 1957 Parker left the Lyttleton band.

In the late 1950s the British Council helped the Lyttleton tour internally. During the 1960s he, in his turn, brought over American performers to work in the U.K..

As a young and middle-aged man he was rather grumpy. However, he grew into a pleasant old buffer.

The band never had a regular vocalist. However, those who performed with it included: Helen Shapiro, Elkie Brooks, and Stacey Kent. He was one of the first band leaders to hire female instrumentalists.

In 1967 he started presented the B.B.C. Radio jazz programme Best of Jazz. He only gave up the show a few months before his death.

In 1972 he started chairing the radio comedy panel game I m Sorry I Have n t A Clue. In it, he a na ve, despairing, schoolmasterly persona. He had a fine dead-pan delivery style. The scripts were written by Iain Pattinson. He hosted the show until the year of his death.

¹. Paul McCartney was to state that Johnny Parker s (1929-2010) bustling piano riffs on Bad Penny Blues may have influenced his use of the piano on Lady Madonna.

 

Mick Mulligan

After military service Peter Mick Mulligan (1928-2006) joined his family s wine shipping business. He was partial to sampling the stock. After a while his cousins paid him a salary to stay away. He spent his time playing jazz trumpet. In 1948 he held auditions for the Manila Jazz Band, a jazz band that he wished to set up. Uninvited George Melly turned up and auditioned to be the singer. Mulligan felt unable to tell Melly that he had been planning to have a vocalist and so hired him. The band played the music of Louis Armstrong and pre-dated the Trad Boom in doing so. Ken Colyer and Humphrey Lyttleton led the other bands in the vanguard.

Mulligan disliked rehearsals and the style of the band varied consider depending on who was in the line up at the time. However, overall, it drifted towards the Chicago style of Eddie Condon. In 1953 the band broke up. It reformed eighteen months later. Its members included the drummer Pete Appleby, the clarinettist Ian Christie, the pianist Ronnie Bix Duff, the trombonist, and Lancashire cricketer Frank Parr. Mulligan and Melly s incessant roistering led to the word ravers being coined by Mulligan and their agent Jim Godbolt to describe them. In 1962 the band officially broke up although its members continued to work together. In late years Mulligan stopped playing. He became a grocer at Pagham in Sussex but continued to attend Codgers lunches of jazz veterans and their associates.

Location: Lisle Street, WC2H 7BA. Mulligan s home. (red, pink)

New Merlin s Cave, 34 Margery Street, WC1X 0JJ. During jazz s quiet years, the Clerkenwell pub was one of the few venues in London that hosted jazz gigs. (blue, yellow)

George Melly

George Melly (1926-2007) was born into a long-established family of Liverpudlian merchants. His mother was friendly with theatrical performers such as Douglas Byng. While a pupil at Stowe, Melly heard a recording of Bessie singing Gimme A Pig-Foot and A Bottle of Beer. His interest was prompted by seeking a reproduction R n Magritte s London Bulletin. The interest was underscored by reading Herbert Read s book on Surrealism.

In 1944 he was called up. He joined the Navy because he liked the cut of its uniforms. He remained an ordinary seaman rather than becoming an officer. Anarchist pamphlets by Bakunin and Herbert Read were discovered in his locked and confiscated. During his service, he became a subscriber to Mesens s journal Message From Nowhere. He started to submit items for publication. He met Mesens at one of the Surrealist meals that were held in the first-floor Barcelona Restaurant in Beak Street. On leaving the Navy, his pamphlets were returned to him. Melly became Mesens s assistant. His father invested 900 in gallery stock. Mesens s wife Sybil seduced Melly. Thereafter he embraced heterosexuality. As a person he found Mesens to be a bourgeois businessman.

Melly started to attend revivalist jazz dances. His dancing at Humphrey Lyttleton s Leicester Square Jazz Club led to his being dubbed Bunny Bum . In 1948 he joined the trumpeter Mick Mulligan s revivalist the Magnolia Jazz Band. The band played in the Dixieland style rather than the New Orleans one practised by the likes of Ken Colyer and Chris Barber. In 1950 he left Mesens s employment to become a full-time singer with Mulligan. He never sought to be an original artist. He became an impersonator of the blues singer of the 1920s. He developed humorous stage routines, drawing on his fondness for music hall. Mulligan disliked rehearsing and Melly found the band s repertoire increasingly dull noise . However, Mulligan s anarchic personality and anarchic sense of humour kept him in the band.

In 1961 Melly wrote a piece about his life as a jazz singer for Queen magazine. This led to further journalism. In 1962 Melly met Diana Moynihan (n e Dawson) in The Colony Room. In 1963 the pair married one another. While their marriage was open , it lasted until his death 45-years later. In 1965 The Observer newspaper hired him as its first ever pop critic. He had been hostile to the form but had come to appreciate its cultural and social importance. It is reputed that on one occasion Mick Jagger was trying to insist that his wrinkles were laughter lines, Melly replied Nothing s that funny, Mick His columns acted as the basis for his book Revolt Into Style (1970). At the paper, he also wrote on television and film. The Mellys settled in Gloucester Crescent in Camden Town. They were surrounded by media types. (In 1980 he co-authored The Media Mob with Barry Fantoni.)

In 1971 Melly was a defence witness at the Oz trial.

In 1973 Melly started performing again, appearing with John Chilton & Wally Fawkes s Footwarmers at The New Merlin s Cave pub in King s Cross. (Fawkes subsequently left the band.) Derek Taylor, the former Beatles publicist, signed the band to Warner Brothers. The label released the albums Nuts (1972), which featured versions of Count Basie Fats Waller songs, and Son of Nuts (1974), which included the Chiltern original Good Time George, which became Melly s signature tune. In late 1973 the band went professional. Melly resigned from The Observer. He took to wearing loud 1930s-style striped suits and fedoras. The suits acquired monikers such as Murphy s Mistake and Mad Scotch Corner. For many years the band played an annual Christmastime season at Ronnie Scott s club. The book Mellymobile (1982) was a collected of journalism that Melly wrote about his again working as an itinerant musician.

During the early 1980s he switched from drinking a bottle of brandy every night to just drinking a bottle of wine. His act remained unpredictable. In later years his conversation continued to contain baffling non-sequiturs. Some attributed this to his remaining true to Surrealism, while others believed it derived from his having become almost totally death after years of having stood in front of trombones and trumpets. In 2002 Chilton decided to retire. The pair performed together for the last time in 2003. Melly continued to perform, working with the cornetist Digby Fairweather. In 2005 Melly was diagnosed first with lung cancer (he continued to smoke) and then vascular dementia. A month before his death, he played his final gig at the 100 Club in London.

Normality Parr

Frank Parr was the trombonist in The Mick Mulligan Band. Prior to joining the unit, he had been a professional cricket player. He had kept wicket for Lancashire and on a number of occasions he had been considered by the England selectors for inclusion in the national side.

Mr Parr had a liking for fried food, preferably bacon and eggs. He regarded the likes of cheese and soup as being pretentious bollocks . He held himself to be the only normal member of the group. Whenever he had engaged in a particularly dissipated act, Mr Mulligan would subsequently inquire of him Feeling normal again Frank?

 

Nucleus

The trumpeter Ian Carr (1933-2009) was an ardent admirer of Miles Davis. He developed an interest in combining ostinato bass patterns with jazz improvisation. In 1969 he formed the band Nucleus. This became a renowned jazz rock band. The unit influenced the likes of Herbie Hancock. In 1988 Carr disbanded Nucleus. The band had recorded thirteen albums during its life. These included Elastic Rock (1970) and Flagrante Delicto (1978). Subsequently, Carr led Orchestra U.K.. Those who performed in the band included Evan Parker and Stan Tracey.

 

The Pizza Express All Stars

The Pizza Express All Stars played residencies in the Dean Street Club from the early 1980s through to the late 2000s. They were assembled by Peter Boizot. The musicians included the clarinettist Dave Shepherd (1929-2016).

In 2018 Pizza Express announced that it was going to stage live music at 50 of its restaurants.

Location: 10 Dean Street, W1D 3RW (red, turquoise)

Website: www.pizzaexpresslive.com/whats-on/chris-ingham-dean-street-all-stars

 

Ronnie Scott

In 1995 dental trouble forced Ronnie Scott to stop performing.

Location: 47 Frith Street, W1D 4HT (pink, yellow)

 

The Ronnie Scott Legacy Band

The Ronnie Scott Legacy Band seeks to keep Scott s musical legacy alive.

 

Spontaneous Music Ensemble

In 1958 the trombonist Paul Rutherford (1940-2007), the drummer John Stevens, and the saxophonist Trevor Watts met in the Royal Air Force band college at Uxbridge. They were required to participate in an hour-long band practice each day and were then at liberty to pursue their own musical interests - in the trio s instance jazz. In the mid-1960s, inspired by the work of the trombonist J.J. Johnson, they were at the core of the free improvising group the Spontaneous Music Ensemble. The group performed regularly at the Little Theatre Club in St Martins Lane. Its albums were released by Eyemark Records.

 

Stan Tracey

Stan Tracey (1926-2013) was raised in Tooting. He was a self-taught pianist. While working in non-jazz dance bands he came to know a number of aspirant jazz musicians, notably Ronnie Scott and Laurie Morgan. In the early 1950s he worked in ship bands that played on Cunard s transatlantic liners. This enabled him to watch American jazz musicians perform in New York. The style he developed was informed by the chord voicings of Duke Ellington and the angular phrasing of Thelonius Monk. In 1957 he became a member of Ted Heath s orchestra. It was the jazziest of the dance bands. Tracey termed Heath s music as being a jazzy rather than jazz. The band leader allowed him to write arrangements just so long as they fell within the overall formula. Every so often the pianist would entertain his fellow band members by playing subversive Monk-derived piano licks. He was once asked how he had gotten away with such behaviour. He replied that Heath was partially deaf. Years later, during a conversation Tracy was asked how he had been able to endure working in the band. Pride in the job , he replied.

In 1960 Tracey was hired to be the house pianist at Ronnie Scott s. The musician was appreciated by numerous American performers. Sonny Rollins felt moved once to exclaim Does anyone here realise how good he is? Backed by Scott, he felt at liberty to challenge the visiting musicians with unexpected interjections and unusual harmonies. Not all of them appreciated these.

He played on Rollins s soundtrack for the movie Alfie (1966).

Dylan Thomas s verse radio play Under Milk Wood (1954) was used as the basis for Jazz Suite Inspired By Dylan Thomas s Under Milk Wood (1965). Much of it was composed during his nightbus journeys back to Streatham. He recorded it with the tenor saxophonist Bobby Wellins.

Tracey s health broke down. He left Ronnie Scott s in 1967. By then he had developed a heroin habit. He began to explore free improvisation. He confessed retrospectively that upon one occasion he played God Save The Queen without anyone noticing that he had done so.

In the 1970s jazz-rock emerged, freelance straight jazz work largely disappeared. Tracey considered becoming a postman. His third wife Jackie Buckland (d.2009) and Hazel Miller, the wife of the South African bassist, Harry Miller (1941-1983), set about creating work opportunities for their husbands. The Grass Roots co-operative was established in South London. He proved to be able to secure grants of public money. They were successful. In 1973 he staged a concert at the Queen Elizabeth Hall to mark his 30 years as a working musician. The occasion sold-out.

When composing he wrote for individual musicians rather than for instruments.

In 1975 Tracey and the saxophonist Art Themen started working together in a relationship that lasted for 22 years. The following year the pianist set up the Steam Records label to re-release the Under Milk Wood suite. Tracey was given to referring to non-electric keyboards as steam pianos .

In 1978 his son Clark, a drummer, started working with him. The association endured.

In 1986 he was awarded an O.B.E.. He claimed he received it for his steadfast working in battling bad pianos .

In 1990 he filled St Paul s Cathedral with an audience that came to hear his reappraisal of Ellington s sacred music.

In 2008 he was awarded a C.B.E..

Stan Tracey had a sardonic sense of humour. A young jazz musician once asked him what he should expect as jazz musician. Tracey put his mouth up to the youth s ear and in a loud stage whisper declared You can expect to be extremely rich!

 

Visiting Musicians

The Ministry of Work's had limitations on American jazz musicians working in the U.K..

Louis Armstrong

In 1956 Louis Armstrong played in London for the first time since 1933.

Sidney Bechet

In 1949 Sidney Bechet ignored the ban on American jazz musicians performing in Britain and played a concert with Humphrey Lyttleton.

Ornette Coleman

The avant-garde saxophonist (Randolph) Ornette Coleman (1930-2015) played the Fairfield Hall in defiance of restrictions that had been by the Ministry of Labour at the Musicians Union behest.

John Coltrane

John Coltrane played his first London Walthamstow Working Men s Club.

Miles Davies

In 1968 the 21-year-old double-bassist Dave Holland was performing at Ronnie Scott s. Miles Davies was present but seemed indifferent to the musical performance. Holland was hired. He performed on x.

The guitarist John McLaughlin

Ray Ellington

In 1933 Duke Ellington toured Britain for the first time. He discovered that the royal princes were enthusiastic jazz fans. He appreciated the fact that music critics were approving of his work. This experience gave him the confidence to start to write longer and more complex pieces. Two years later he wrote the seventeen-minute-long Reminiscing In Tempo. He declared that he had written it for the English critics, however, some of them regarded it as being too long and repetitious.

In summer 1947 Ellington and his trumpeter Ray Nance were able to circumvent the Ministry of Work's limitations on American jazz musicians working in the U.K.. This was done by claiming that Ellington was a 'variety artist' because Nance also sang and danced. The pair were backed by the British musicians the drummer Tony Crombie and the guitarist Malcolm Mitchell and the U.K.-resident Canadian bassist (Patrick) 'Jack' Fallon (1915-2006).

Dave Tough

In the 1930s the Prince of Wales liked jazz. He played drums and sometimes would sit in with the professionals. Upon one occasion the Chicagoan drummer Dave Tough (1907-1948) was asked what sort of musician the royal was. Someday he might make a good king came the reply.

 

George Webb s Dixielanders

George Webb worked for Vickers-Armstrong. He based his piano playing style on that of Jelly Roll Morton.

In 1947 Lyttleton joined George Webb s Dixielanders, who had a residency at The Red Barn pub in Bexleyheath. At the start of 1948 Lyttelton set up his own band. The cartoonist and clarinet player Wally Trog Fawkes became a member as did Webb eventually.

 

The Mike Westbrook Concert Band

Mike Westbrook formed his first band in 1962. The line-up included: the trombonist Malcolm Griffiths, the trumpeter Dave Holdsworth, the saxophonist Mike Osborne (1941-2007), the saxophonist John Surman. The unit became known as The Mike Westbrook Concert Band and usually had 10-12 members.

David Backhouse 2024