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Jazz players

sospiri said:
Bob,

The Kenton arrangements - a great wodge of them as I have seen them with my own eyes - were given to Brian by Stan in the early 1960s during one of Stan's visits to Brum. The story of how this came about used to be on Brian's website, but alas that website is no more and there is just a rather dormant Facebook page with very little content. I don't have any contact details for Brian at all.

A lot of the jazz musicians made the bulk of their living from the large orchestras and session work, and the advent of sampling and people like Hans Zimmer have killed off all the music work in the film studios. Covid has put the final nail in the coffin, not that any of the guys you mentioned have been around for ten or more years.

John,

Humph had a darned good band on the few occasions that I went so see him, and he was a gentleman, no doubt about that.

Maurice :cool:
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I bet EDDIE is looking down smiling Huh! Maurice.
 

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I'm sure he is, John, telling all the drummer jokes, and meeting up with lots of other musicians that we've lost too. I still listen far more to 1950-80s jazz far more than I do the more modern stuff. That's the era we were playing in, John, so I guess that is understandable. It brings back the memories of the people I knew and met too, and good memories they were.

Maurice :cool:
 
sospiri said:
I'm sure he is, John, telling all the drummer jokes, and meeting up with lots of other musicians that we've lost too. I still listen far more to 1950-80s jazz far more than I do the more modern stuff. That's the era we were playing in, John, so I guess that is understandable. It brings back the memories of the people I knew and met too, and good memories they were.

Maurice :cool:
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ALL from BRUM to, Maurice. We all tried, to make our mark and be part of the history of Birmingham, that IS what this forum is all about, right. We all need to thanks the forum and the ones that have put all this together, so we can share the memories that we all enjoy so much. THANKS BHF a great place to be!!!!!
 
oldbrit said:
ALL from BRUM to, Maurice. We all tried, to make our mark and be part of the history of Birmingham, that IS what this forum is all about, right. We all need to thanks the forum and the ones that have put all this together, so we can share the memories that we all enjoy so much. THANKS BHF a great place to be!!!!!
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1602521591109.png
 
oldbrit said:
ALL from BRUM to, Maurice. We all tried, to make our mark and be part of the history of Birmingham, that IS what this forum is all about, right. We all need to thanks the forum and the ones that have put all this together, so we can share the memories that we all enjoy so much. THANKS BHF a great place to be!!!!!
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Here,here
Bob
 
Perhaps you can help me with what may, or may not be an accurate memory. Early in the 1950s at an exhibition (Ideal Home?) at the old Bingley Hall, I think I recall my parents taking me and my twin bro to see the Joe Loss band, which was playing as an add-on to the show. Does that seem possible to you?
 
It's certainly feasible, John, though proving it may be a different kettle of fish. I'll check the newspaper archives tomorrow as it might have got a mention there, though coverage after 1945 is only partial for Birmingham papers. There's also the possibility that there may have been a broadcast from there and it might have got a mention in the Radio Times, which you can check here if you have the patience:- https://genome.ch.bbc.co.uk/issues#decade-1950

I'll give this a bit more thought, though finding digitised proof via the internet is also a bit hit and miss.

Maurice :cool:
 
Thanks, Maurice.

Don’t waste your time ploughing through archives, the thought that it could have happened is good enough.
 
No problem, John, it took all of 5 minutes for a quick snapshot from the Birmingham Post dated 14 October 1954. Morton Fraser's Harmonica Gang were also there, but the advert was too big for the screenshot!

Maurice :cool:
 

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sospiri said:
No problem, John, it took all of 5 minutes for a quick snapshot from the Birmingham Post dated 14 October 1954. Morton Fraser's Harmonica Gang were also there, but the advert was too big for the screenshot!

Maurice :cool:
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Could not get to it as on the 14th of October I started my National Service.

Bob
 
Great stuff, thanks!

Sorry to say this, but my bro and I were six years old. Also, I see that admission for the four of us cost Dad all of 4/8d! No doubt my Mum would have made some butties, and with a couple of gallons of petrol for the Citroën Traction Avant a day out for four cost about £1/0/0d.
 
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John,

I can't remember much family stuff and costs from way back then, but I can recall the names of a few of the people I worked with. When I wasn't working, I was spending hours doing piano practice.

Maurice :cool:
 
The admission costs were on the ad, 1/6d (7.5 new pence) for adults and 10d (4 new pence) for kids.

I have clear memories of Dad moaning when petrol got to cost 5/- (25 new pence) per gallon, and a small crusty loaf was the equivalent of about 2p. My first wage was £416 per annum but that was in 1965.

More apposite to this thread, a 78 rpm single record was 34 new pence, and cheapo lps called “Golden Guinea“ we’re £1.05, but fairly awful.
 
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sospiri said:
John,

I can't remember much family stuff and costs from way back then, but I can recall the names of a few of the people I worked with. When I wasn't working, I was spending hours doing piano practice.

Maurice :cool:
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My Dad was a concert pianist, he had a Bluthner Grand piano in the front room. He wanted me to follow him, playing piano he locked me in the room to practice I hated it. I think that is why I started playing woodwinds instruments. But it did help me reading music cords etc. I can still hear my Dad playing the Warsaw bloody Concerto one of his favs.
 
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oldbrit said:
My Dad was a concert pianist, he had a Bluthner Grand piano in the front room. He wanted me to follow him, playing piano he locked me in the room to practice I hated it. I think that is why I started playing woodwinds instruments. But it did help me reading music cords etc. I can still hear my Dad playing the Warsaw bloody Concerto one of his favs.
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Came from a great film, always had my mum in tears and now the tune is stuck in my head.

Bob
 
John,

When I was 7 years old, I didn't want to practice either, but when lesson time came, I always managed to play the required piece to the teacher's satisfaction. That annoyed my mother because she thought I was wasting her hard-earned money and after a year, she stopped the lessons. I started again on my own, and then I couldn't get enough. The only problem then is that you tend to pick up bad fingering habits, and years later there were a few phrases I found very difficult because I was using the wrong fingering. Much later in life it is not so easy to kill bad habits, but I got by as I wasn't playing concertos or really difficult stuff.

But reading all that stuff - I was down at the music library several times a week borrowing 5 or 6 books of sheet music - really gets your reading up to scratch. That was something I found a great asset when I was backing cabaret singers with no chance of a rehearsal beforehand in the first half of the 1960s. But jazz gave me far greater satisfaction - every time you play a tune, even though you play it umpteen times, it is different each time.

Maurice :cool:
 
Bob Davis said:
Came from a great film, always had my mum in tears and now the tune is stuck in my head.

Bob
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Dad Came over to visit us in USA several times, His first request, was always to go visit Piano stores. Then, in Denver Colorado USA there where several (NONE NOW) Dad would go into each store, sit down at a grand piano and play YOU GUESSED IT "The Warsaw Concerto!!!" Of course the sales person very impressed. But of course, he could play others as well Another thing that comes to mind is, Dad had a piano tuner, who was blind, he would come over to the house on the 17B bus, the stop was right outside our house, Dad would then walk him back across the street, to get the 17b bus back to Brum. Not sure what Dad paid him, but amazing what people do if they have to. (Google street view, shows the bus stop is still there, 126 Moat Lane Yardley Brum 26) wonder if the blind piano tuner still goes there HaHa!!!
 
oldbrit said:
Dad Came over to visit us in USA several times, His first request, was always to go visit Piano stores. Then, in Denver Colorado USA there where several (NONE NOW) Dad would go into each store, sit down at a grand piano and play YOU GUESSED IT "The Warsaw Concerto!!!" Of course the sales person very impressed. But of course, he could play others as well Another thing that comes to mind is, Dad had a piano tuner, who was blind, he would come over to the house on the 17B bus, the stop was right outside our house, Dad would then walk him back across the street, to get the 17b bus back to Brum. Not sure what Dad paid him, but amazing what people do if they have to. (Google street view, shows the bus stop is still there, 126 Moat Lane Yardley Brum 26) wonder if the blind piano tuner still goes there HaHa!!!
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we had a blind tuner come to our school, brill. my mom played the joana :grinning:
 
oldbrit said:
Dad Came over to visit us in USA several times, His first request, was always to go visit Piano stores. Then, in Denver Colorado USA there where several (NONE NOW) Dad would go into each store, sit down at a grand piano and play YOU GUESSED IT "The Warsaw Concerto!!!" Of course the sales person very impressed. But of course, he could play others as well Another thing that comes to mind is, Dad had a piano tuner, who was blind, he would come over to the house on the 17B bus, the stop was right outside our house, Dad would then walk him back across the street, to get the 17b bus back to Brum. Not sure what Dad paid him, but amazing what people do if they have to. (Google street view, shows the bus stop is still there, 126 Moat Lane Yardley Brum 26) wonder if the blind piano tuner still goes there HaHa!!!
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i listened to the music and then posted it on good music to listen to
 
John,

He's certainly not known to me, and I'm struggling to find more than Harry Engelman and Charles Shadwell who worked with him for short periods. I had heard Harry play many times on what was then the Midland Home Service during and after the war and, it must have been in the 1950s, I seem to remember he made a guest appearance on Lunch Box. Jack seems to have been with Charles Shadwell in Coventry well before the war, but the only piece recorded by Shadwell from that period doesn't give a list of players.

He doesn't get a mention in the surviving copies of Crescendo Magazine, but I don't think that started until 1962. The fact that there is/was an American pianist of the same name and a British photographer too, doesn't help with searches.

Then I turned to the newspapers, but his last appearance seems to have been with his old pal Harry Engelman as guests on a Midland Region programne called "Buttons and Bows" in 1956, and then he disappears. And that appearance was after a period of retirement. Most of his post-war work seems to be with his own Versatile Five and he toured a lot. The clip below came from the Coventry Evening Telegraph dated 22 September 1949.

Maurice :cool:
 

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Thanks again.

I have a CD, he seems to have been a very accomplished pianist, if a bit flowery for my taste, there’s a track where he plays “Mighty lak a Rose” very old fashioned. It’s a bit late for me. More tomorrow.

Cheers
 
And a bit early for me, John, in the sense that I was doing my National Service when Jack Wilson finally retired. I came out in May 1957 and had moved south to Dorset by January 1961. So it's a wonder that I met so many Midland musicians at all ! Here's a drummer, John Gibson, who worked with me at the Parkstone Jazz Club in Poole in the 1970s, then moved to one of the Manchester orchestras before moving to Birmingham, where he now lives and still plays. Cass Caswell runs a number of bands in the Bristol area and has several videos on YouTube.

Maurice :)
 
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Lots of good musicians coming out of Brazil these days so here's one, pianist Eliane Elias with her husband Marc Johnson (late of the Bill Evans Trio) on bass, Graham Dechter on guitar & Brazilian drummer Rafael Barata with Desafinado

Maurice :cool:
 
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I'm sad to announce the death of Gene Wright, bass player for many years with the Dave Brubeck Quartet, at the grand age of 97. He will long be remembered as the bass player on all of the Quartets many albums and, of course, Take Five. He was, of course, the last surviving member of the Quartet,
RIP Gene.

Maurice :cool:
Gene Wright.jpg

 
Jazz, but a bit London oriented.

Four of us had booked a jolly boys day out at a Lord’s test match. Good seats, excellent lunch and a day’s enjoyment in prospect. We had arranged to meet a couple more at the Clissold Arms in Fortis Green for a cooked breakfast, followed by a stretch limo to take us to the cricket. After breakfasting on bacon eggs and Marston’s Pedigree (!) the limo turned up, we climbed in, and the driver said “Pop music or Jazz?” He put on the requested cassette, (this was a long time back) and we were treated to a stretched version of “Take Five” that was almost as long as the journey.

Excellent!
 
Glad you enjoyed it, John. Gene was for many years head of the Jazz Department at Cinncinnati University. He always struck me as very evenly tempered and happy sort of guy, and I've read heard of anyone speaking ill of him.

Maurice :cool:
 
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