Torrington Music

22/08/2024

Jack appeared at The Torrington about this time with Nucleus (augmented). This clip shows Art Theman (tenor), Harry Beckett (trumpet), Chris Spedding (guitar). Drummer, John Marshall not shown. Wonderful days.

17/08/2024

We remember Peter King best for his work with The Bebop Preservation Society.

Though jazz romantics like to portray the genre as the work of unkempt magicians conjuring sonic miracles out of the air, the music is as much a product of imagination corralled by obsessive diligence as any art.

The British jazz saxophonist Peter King was the kind of gifted obsessive who learned to do it brilliantly, as an internationally admired improviser and later as a player-composer bridging jazz, classical music and opera.

On the side, he also found fame for an equally disciplined approach to his aeromodelling hobby. As if mirroring his jazz life, King pursued the difficult art of free rather than radio-guided flight.

From beginnings as a nervous child and a troubled teenager, King became an exceptional Charlie Parker-inspired artist who shone in the celebrated 1960s British big bands of John Dankworth, Tubby Hayes and Stan Tracey, worked with indie pop duo Everything But the Girl in the 80s and Rolling Stones drummer Charlie Watts in the 90s and 2000s, and was the only Briton invited to play at the unveiling of a monumental Robert Graham bronze head of Parker in the legend’s Kansas City birthplace in 1999.

After the millennium – following his appearance as an actor in a West End production of Lenny, with Eddie Izzard playing the satirist Lenny Bruce – King turned to opera. With the encouragement of Peter Hall, Lenny’s director, and the play’s American author, Julian Barry, as librettist, King composed a full-length work, Zyklon, about the German-Jewish chemist Fritz Haber, and subsequently a mass for jazz quintet and cathedral choir.

Though King’s many admirers wanted nothing more than to hear him rip through fiercely graceful bebop sax solos, he chased tougher and more eclectic challenges – but they subtracted nothing from his reputation as one of the finest improvising soloists the British jazz scene has ever spawned.

The American saxophonist/composer Benny Golson wrote in his foreword to King’s autobiography, Flying High (2011): “Imagination is preceded by curiosity … Peter is not satisfied with endlessly serving the same warmed-over dish time and again. Thus, he walks with one foot in the present and the other in the future.”

Born in Kingston upon Thames, Surrey, Peter was the third child of Edward King, an advertising manager for Unilever, and Winifred (nee Baldwin). Both parents played the piano, and the boy learned the violin and the clarinet – discovering jazz by listening to the American Forces Network radio show. Though he attended Kingston grammar school with little distinction, hampered by diagnosed chronic anxieties, he was soon playing clarinet in local trad jazz bands, alongside a day job as a trainee cartographer.

But hearing Parker’s quicksilver improvising on record was a revelation. King switched to alto saxophone and figured out Parker’s byzantine innovations in bebop harmony for himself. “I could have winged it,” King told me in an interview for Jazz UK magazine in 2011, “but I could see the best players didn’t.

“Bird’s [Parker’s] solos have a formal perfection, they sound as if he knew their whole story before he started, even though they were totally spontaneous.” By the age of 18, King was jamming at the White Hart in Acton with such advanced young saxophone modernists as Hayes and Don Rendell.

A year later, in 1959, when Ronnie Scott opened his first club in Soho, the bill included “a young alto saxophonist, Peter King, and an old tenor saxophonist, Ronnie Scott”. The 19-year-old was too nervous to travel to the West End on his own, so his father drove him and stayed for the gig – where the teenager’s unmistakable command soon made the cognoscenti sit up.

Within months he had won Melody Maker’s New Star award, and the following year he was in Dankworth’s big band – an exhilarating experience, even if the still anxious King sometimes tested his employer’s patience with antics such as escaping over the side of a departing ferry at the prospect of crossing the Irish Sea.

In 1961 King played in Paris with Ray Charles’s band (the R&B star would later offer him a permanent job) and privately with Bud Powell, the piano pioneer of the 40s bebop movement. King marvelled at the American’s relaxed poise and timing (“that quality I only heard in the very best”) despite Powell’s desolate mental and physical state by then.

Though King was a he**in addict in the 60s and often lived a chaotic life, he mostly held his work together – latterly with the crucial support of Linda Froud, whom he married in 1969 (a previous marriage to Joy Marshall had ended with her death in 1968). Often playing tenor saxophone in that decade, King led a group at singer Annie Ross’s club Annie’s Room (1963-65), recorded with Hayes (1964), and worked with the former Miles Davis drummer Philly Joe Jones, the trumpeter/bandleader Maynard Ferguson and British drummer Phil Seamen in 1968.

The 70s were a bleak time for those who disliked electric jazz and fusion, but King survived in Mecca ballrooms dance-bands, occasional gigs with showbiz stars including Marlene Dietrich and Liberace, and through the Bebop Preservation Society, co-founded by King and the pianist Bill Le Sage. The BPS was a beacon for straightahead jazz fans, but its musical class put it way outside the nostalgia bracket. The group recorded for Tony Williams’s new Spotlite label, and the former Parker trumpeter Red Rodney joined it for a memorable session in 1975.

In the next decade, King frequently worked with the popular singer-pianist Georgie Fame, returned to the alto sax to lead his own groups (including one that made four fine albums for Spotlite), ventured into free-improvised jazz, and maintained his long association with the constantly creative Tracey.

Rekindling a childhood fascination with aerodynamics, he also became the British champion in aeromodelling’s F1B free-flight category in 1989 – and began writing technical articles that were even respected by experts in the world of full-sized aircraft.

In the 90s King also worked with another virtuosic Parker devotee in American altoist Phil Woods, and in bands led by the composer Colin Towns, Watts, and the instrumentalists Don Weller and Julian Joseph – the latter association being a significant support as King worked to broaden his improvising language beyond bebop into modal music.

King made a sequence of fine albums as leader in his middle years, from Brother Bernard (1988) to the wider-ranging and evocative Tamburello (1994). Janus: Live At The Purcell Room (1997) and Lush Life (1998) explored Bartók-inspired collaborations with the Lyric String Quartet, and Footprints (2002) was a superb live recording from the Pizza Express jazz club in Soho.

In the early 2000s, King played London, Tokyo and New York with Charlie Watts’ new Tentet, successfully toured Russia in 2002 and 2003, composed the two-act opera Zyklon (2004), and in 2005 won the BBC’s Musician of the Year award and revisited Parker’s 1950 Bird With Strings repertoire at a concert in Paris. Though devastated by the death of Linda in March 2007, he premiered his mass for jazz quintet and choir at Newcastle Cathedral in May of that year.

King’s always fragile health declined in his 70s, but he performed whenever he could – notably in a John Coltrane-galvanised set alongside the American vocal legend Sheila Jordan at Ronnie Scott’s in 2014, and at Fulham’s 606 Club for a combined 75th birthday concert and benefit gig the following year.

Source: John Fordham, The Guardian

17/08/2024

Churchie One Over we called it. Fun but dangerous

14/08/2024

I never saw him live, so take this chance to capture the great musical eccentric.

14/08/2024

Even if you're not a jazz nut, give this a listen. It's one of the very best.

Saxophonist Oliver Nelson's 1961 masterpiece 'The Blues and The Abstract Truth' has stood the test of time as a true pioneering jazz classic.

09/08/2024

Saw Jack with Miles at Antibes. He was magnificent. Alan Walsh hosted the Melody Maker trip; got me a seat on the bus. I played footy with Nina S's band & had a ball

Today I’m wishing a happy 82nd birthday to my friend and colleague of many years, the great Jack DeJohnette.
Jack and I first recorded together in 1966, on Herbie Hancock’s film soundtrack for the movie Blow Up. Since then, we’ve played together dozens of times… Including, most recently, on Gonzalo Rubalcaba’s 2021 album “Skyline.”

Give us a listen on Skyline here: https://ow.ly/91k850SQlaJ

And find all of my collaborations with Jack on www.roncarteruniverse.com

Happy birthday, Jack DeJohnette!

📸: Manolo Nebot Rochera

09/08/2024

You couldn't make it up.

THESE ARE ACTUAL COMPLAINTS RECEIVED BY "THOMAS COOK VACATIONS" FROM DISSATISFIED CUSTOMERS:
1. "They should not allow topless sunbathing on the beach. It was very distracting for my husband who just wanted to relax."
2. "On my holiday to Goa in India, I was disgusted to find that almost every restaurant served curry. I don't like spicy food."
3. "We went on holiday to Spain and had a problem with the taxi drivers as they were all Spanish."
4. "We booked an excursion to a water park but no-one told us we had to bring our own swimsuits and towels. We assumed it would be included in the price."
5. "The beach was too sandy. We had to clean everything when we returned to our room."
6. "We found the sand was not like the sand in the brochure. Your brochure shows the sand as white but it was more yellow."
7. "It's lazy of the local shopkeepers in Puerto Vallartato close in the afternoons. I often needed to buy things during 'siesta' time -- this should be banned."
8. "No-one told us there would be fish in the water. The children were scared."
9. "Although the brochure said that there was a fully equipped kitchen, there was no egg-slicer in the drawers."
10. "I think it should be explained in the brochure that the local convenience store does not sell proper biscuits like custard creams or ginger nuts."
11. "The roads were uneven and bumpy, so we could not read the local guide book during the bus ride to the resort. Because of this, we were unaware of many things that would have made our holiday more fun."
12. "It took us nine hours to fly home from Jamaica to England. It took the Americans only three hours to get home. This seems unfair."
13. "I compared the size of our one-bedroom suite to our friends' three-bedroom and ours was significantly smaller."
14. "The brochure stated: 'No hairdressers at the resort.' We're trainee hairdressers and we think they knew and made us wait longer for service."
15. "When we were in Spain, there were too many Spanish people there. The receptionist spoke Spanish, the food was Spanish. No one told us that there would be so many foreigners."
16. "We had to line up outside to catch the boat and there was no air-conditioning."
17. "It is your duty as a tour operator to advise us of noisy or unruly guests before we travel."
18. "I was bitten by a mosquito. The brochure did not mention mosquitoes."
19. "My fiancée and I requested twin-beds when we booked, but instead we were placed in a room with a king bed. We now hold you responsible and want to be re-reimbursed for the fact that I became pregnant. This would not have happened if you had put us in the room that we booked."

27/07/2024

In depth feature on Barbara, who was often featured at The Torrington, N.Finchley. One night we had Barbara, Art Themen, Dick Heckstall-Smith each playing tenor & soprano simultaneously à la Roland Kirk. Tried to get him but couldn't make the fee.

The early 21st century’s fast-moving story of genre-fluid, culture-crossing musical innovation nowadays takes for granted the contributions of a growing cohort of powerful female saxophone players. But not so long ago, a woman was a startling rarity on an instrument whose evolution in modern music, from the 1920s onwards, had been almost exclusively driven by men. Barbara Thompson was one of the most inspirational exceptions.

Thompson’s formidable instrumental skills encompassed a tenor-saxophone voice that could range from the sensuous lyricism of Coleman Hawkins or Stan Getz to the power of John Coltrane’s turbulent soliloquies; nimble bebop fluency on the alto sax; and a dulcet-to-abstract tonal range on the flute. As a prolific composer, she wrote classical concertos and choral works, TV themes (including A Touch of Frost) and settings for poetry. She made friends and fans all over Europe (particularly in Germany), and across generations. The composer and trumpeter Yazz Ahmed, as part of her Polyhymnia project for International Women’s Day in 2015, composed a suite simply entitled Barbara in tribute to her formidable elder’s work and influence.

Barbara was born in Oxford, to Dick Thompson, later registrar of the court of criminal appeal, and Joan (nee Gracey), who had been a fellow Oxford University student before their marriage. The child was raised in London, first at Lincoln’s Inn Fields, and then in Notting Hill, where she attended the Fox primary school, and learned to play the recorder. Her parents separated when Barbara was six, and her refuge from loss and conflict was to study the fine details of musicmaking for hours.

At Queen’s College school in Harley Street (1955-62), she learned the clarinet and piano, and played for five years in the London Schools Symphony Orchestra. Then she spent a season with the Ivy Benson All Girl Band, having taken up the alto saxophone on hearing Johnny Hodges playing with Duke Ellington. At the Royal College of Music (1962-65), she studied the flute, piano, clarinet and composition while also taking private saxophone lessons.

In 1965, Thompson joined the New Jazz Orchestra (NJO), an adventurous big band led by Neil Ardley, and formed the previous year at the Green Man pub in Blackheath. Her jazz experience was still limited, but she learned fast and enthusiastically, especially in contact with the new music of such original local composers as Ardley, Michael Gibbs and Michael Garrick. Thompson and the NJO drummer, Jon Hiseman, began a relationship that became a marriage in 1967.

Thompson’s career gained momentum, both as a composer (her first published piece, for flute and piano, was written while she was still at college), and as a freelance. Between 1967 and 1971, she played in the all-female group She Trinity (playing the hefty baritone sax with them as the support act on some gigs by the Who), co-led a quintet with the saxophonist Art Themen, and worked with John Dankworth and Cleo Laine, Gibbs and Don Rendell. In 1972, Thompson formed the genre-splicing band Paraphernalia, with Hiseman joining later in the decade – changing incarnations of the group would continue as a vehicle for her composing for the next 40 years.

Thompson played saxes and flute alongside Hiseman’s jazz-rock quintet, Colosseum, on Andrew Lloyd Webber’s 1978 classical crossover album Variations, and she subsequently collaborated with Lloyd Webber on the musicals Cats and Starlight Express. From 1973 until 1980, she led Jubiaba, a nine-piece Latin-jazz group, and in the late 80s launched the big band Moving Parts. Throughout these years, she was also regularly a member of the international United Jazz and Rock Ensemble, a powerful outfit with a Europe-wide audience, and a lineup including the UK trumpeters Ian Carr and Kenny Wheeler, the German trombonist Albert Mangelsdorff, and the US saxist Charlie Mariano.

In 1992, to mark European Union Year, Thompson formed the all-acoustic sextet Sans Frontiers, which featured the Italian trumpet star Enrico Rava and the Polish violinist Michael Urbaniak.

She was appointed MBE in 1996. The following year, following concerns about her fi*****ng, she was diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease. She continued to work, tour and record for the next four years, but was eventually forced to retire from active performance. In 2001, she told the Observer jazz writer Dave Gelly that, although medication could probably help her through a few years more: “I won’t play below my best.”

But medication improved, and Thompson did return to the stage for a 2003 tour with Colosseum, and for Paraphernalia gigs in Europe in 2005, recorded as Paraphernalia Live ’05. In 2007, she and Hiseman released the studio album Never Say Goodbye. By the end of the decade, Thompson was working on a piano concerto, the four-movement Quantum Leaps suite for the flautist Shona Brown, and the single-movement Perpetual Motion, for a 12-piece saxophone ensemble, and more. A BBC documentary directed by Mike Dibb, Playing Against Time, a sensitive study five years in the making and released in 2011, portrayed Thompson’s artistic and physical battles.

Thompson contributed to Colosseum’s swansong album, Time on Our Side, and toured again with the band in 2015. She finished work on Paraphernalia’s eclectic final album, The Last Fandango, with the Apollo Saxophone Quartet and Shona Brown guesting, and her own lyrically shapely and storytelling improv muse on both soprano and tenor saxes.

In 2018 Hiseman died following surgery to remove a brain tumour. Thompson witnessed a heartfelt celebration of the couple’s achievements at Shepherd’s Bush Empire the following year, featuring members of Paraphernalia and Colosseum, and their daughter, Anna (the singer-songwriter Ana Gracey). The National Youth Jazz Orchestra’s collaboration with the remaining active players of Paraphernalia on 10 Thompson originals was released in 2021 as the studio album Bulletproof.

Source: John Fordham, The Guardian

19/07/2024

A magnificent discovery from the BBC vaults. Graham, Dick, John, Jack & Ginger with vocalist Bobby Breen and Duffy Power. At The Torry we saw wee Bobby with Dick Morrissey, Jack with Nucleus, Dick H-S with Barbara T and Graham with Pete Brown.

Graham Bond Quartet with Bobby Breen, BBC Jazz Club, 25th April, 19631. Bluesology2. I'm Gonna Move To The Outskirts Of Town3. Hello Little Girl4. Spanish Bl...

18/07/2024

A stunning performer, he often played The Torry: Assegai, Spear, Zila & B.of Breath.

Dudu Pukwana (18 July 1938 – 30 June 1990) grew up studying piano in his family but in 1956, he switched to alto sax after meeting tenor sax player Nick Moyake. In 1962, he won first prize at the Johannesburg Jazz Festival with Moyake's Jazz Giants (1962 Gallo/Teal). Chris McGregor then invited him to join the Blue Notes; the in*******al sextet, increasingly harassed by authorities, went into exile in 1964, playing in France, Zurich, and London.

Pukwana's fiery voice was heard not only in the Blue Notes and in McGregor's Brotherhood of Breath, but in many diverse settings ranging from the Incredible String Band to improvising with Misha Mengelberg and Han Bennink (Yi Yo Le, ICP 1978). As a composer, Pukwana wrote "Mra," one of the best-loved tunes by the Brotherhood. His own groups, Assagai and Spear, which recorded a few albums in the early '70s, blended kwela rhythms, rocking guitars, and jazz solos.

With Mongezi Feza, Elton Dean, Keith Tippett, and Louis Moholo, Pukwana recorded two masterful acoustic tracks on the mostly electric album Diamond Express (Freedom 1977). His presence was also hugely felt in Moholo's Spirits Rejoice!, and in Harry Miller's Isipingo. Several African leaders invited him into their groups, including Hugh Masekela and trombonist Jonas Gwangwa's African Explosion (Who, Ngubani 1969).

In 1978, Pukwana founded Jika Records and formed his own band, Zila, featuring South Africans Lucky Ranku on guitar and powerful vocalist Miss Pinise Saul. Zila recorded Zila Sounds (1981), Live in Bracknell and Willisau (1983), and Zila (1986), the last with keyboardist Django Bates and Pukwana increasingly using soprano sax. In duo with John Stevens, he recorded the free session They Shoot to Kill (Affinity 1987), dedicated to Johnny Dyani. Dudu Pukwana died of liver failure in June 1990.

Source: Francesco Martinelli, All Music Guide, photo by Jak Kilby

16/07/2024

Joe was a startlingly good player. David and I used to put him on regularly. Almost always in attendance was our good friend and neighbour, keyboardist Rod Argent.

Joe Harriott's music goes virtually unheard today, yet the alto saxophonist exerted a powerful influence on early free jazz in England.

The Jamaican-born and raised Harriott (15 July 1928 – 2 January 1973) played with his countrymen, trumpeter Dizzy Reece and tenor saxophonist Wilton "Bogey" Gaynair, before emigrating to England in 1951. In London, Harriott worked freelance and in the band of trumpeter Pete Pitterson. In 1954, he landed an important gig with drummer Tony Kinsey; the next year he played in saxophonist Ronnie Scott's big band. His first album as a leader was 1959's Southern Horizon.

Originally a bop-oriented player, Harriott gradually grew away from the conventions of that style. During a 1960 hospital stay, Harriott envisaged a new method of improvisation that, to an extent, paralleled the innovations of Ornette Coleman. Harriott was initially branded a mere imitator of Coleman, but close listening to both men reveals distinct differences in their respective styles. Harriott manifested a more explicit philosophical connection with bebop, for one thing, and his music was more concerned with ensemble interaction than was Coleman's early work. The 1960 album Free Form, which included trumpeter Shake Keane, pianist Pat Smythe, bassist Coleridge Goode, and drummer Phil Seaman, illustrated Harriott's new techniques.

Beginning in 1965, he began fusing jazz with various types of world folk musics. He collaborated with Indian musician John Mayer on a record -- 1967's Indo-Jazz Suite -- that utilized modal and free jazz procedures. The album's traditional jazz quintet instrumentation was augmented by a violin, sitar, tambura, and tabla. Harriott's recorded output was scarce and virtually none of it remains in print.

Source: Chris Kelsey, All Music Guide

11/07/2024

Henry still sparkles - saw him recently with Nicky Iles Jazz Orchestra at the RNCM.

HAPPY 83rd BIRTHDAY to Henry Lowther!!!

Thomas Henry Lowther (born 11 July 1941) is an English jazz trumpeter who also plays violin.

Biography
Lowther was born in Leicester, England, and his first musical experience was on cornet in a Salvation Army band. He studied violin briefly at the Royal Academy of Music but returned to trumpet by 1960, though he sometimes played violin professionally. In the 1960s, he worked with Mike Westbrook (beginning in 1963 and continuing into the 1980s), Manfred Mann, John Dankworth (1967–77), Graham Collier (1967), John Mayall (1968), John Warren (1968 and subsequently), Neil Ardley (1968), and Bob Downes (1969). Many of these associations continued into the 1970s.

Lowther appeared for some time with the Keef Hartley Band, playing with him at Woodstock, the music festival held in New York in August 1969. In the 1970s he worked with Mike Gibbs (1970–76), Kenny Wheeler (from 1972), Alan Cohen (1972), Michael Garrick (1972–73), Kurt Edelhagen (1974), John Taylor (1974), Stan Tracey (1976 onwards), Tony Coe (1976), Graham Collier (1976–78), Jubiaba with Barbara Thompson (1978) and Gordon Beck (1978), in addition to his own ensemble, Quaternity. Lowther played the trumpet solo for Elton John on "Return to Paradise" for John's 1978 album, A Single Man.

He worked with Buzzcocks in 1980, Talk Talk from 1983 to 1991, with Peter King from 1983, and with Gil Evans in 1984. He was featured in a profile on composer Graham Collier in the 1985 Channel 4 documentary Hoarded Dreams. In 1986 he worked with Humphrey Lyttelton in his reconstruction of the John Robichaux Orchestra for a documentary film on Buddy Bolden. He played with Charlie Watts's band in 1986–87, then led his own band, Still Waters, in 1987. From the late 1980s he did much work in big bands, such as the Berlin Contemporary Jazz Orchestra (1989–93), the London Jazz Composers Orchestra (1989–96), Kenny Wheeler's group (1990), The Dedication Orchestra (1994), the London Jazz Orchestra (1994), George Russell's Living Time Orchestra, the Creative Jazz Orchestra (1996) and Jazzmoss.

Source: Wikipedia

08/07/2024

And all we could provide for him was the Balham Alligators. However we did have John Cleary's piano solo spot at the interval. Thirty years later John Cleary became Doctor John's widely recognised successor as the authority on New Orleans music.

29/06/2024

One of the great jazz records. Freddie Hubbard & Eric Dolphy are exceptional.

29/06/2024

Never got to see him except on TV. Did any of you guys see him live?

Chuck Berry is perhaps the defining musician of the early rock & roll era. A guitarist who wanted to play like T-Bone Walker & croon like Nat King Cole, Berry married these two styles to a swinging beat that spliced jump blues with juke joint R&B and hillbilly boogie -a blend that arrived nearly fully realized with his 1955 debut single "Maybellene," a record that topped the R&B charts and crashed into the pop Top Ten.

He quickly followed "Maybellene" with a series of fleet-fingered, quick-witted singles like "Roll Over Beethoven," "Sweet Little Sixteen," and "Johnny B. Goode" that constitute one of the richest and deepest American songbooks of the 20th century, a collection of tunes that captures the exuberance of post-war popular culture, a period filled with automobiles, teenagers, and rock & roll music. It was also a period of great racial strife, something he alluded to in his work -- witness the Black pride of "Brown Eyed Handsome Man."

His prison sentence for violating the Mann Act coincided with a cooling of rock & roll's commercial fortunes in the early 1960s. When he was released, the Beatles and the Rolling Stones had revived rock & roll, an opening he seized with a series of terrific hit singles: "No Particular Place to Go," "You Never Can Tell," and "Nadine."

During the late '60s, he became the only one of his rock & roll peers to actively court a younger audience of hippies, a move that eventually paid off in 1972 when the ribald "My Ding-A-Ling" gave him his only number one hit.

Berry effectively retired from active duty after 1979's Rockit, but continued to play regular gigs with pickup bands and experienced the occasional revival, such as Taylor Hackford's 1987 celebratory concert film and documentary Hail! Hail! Rock 'N' Roll.

During his later years, he retired to his hometown of St. Louis, playing regular gigs at Blueberry Hill until the late 2010s. Upon his 90th birthday in 2016, Berry announced the release of his first album in decades but he would not live to see the release of Chuck in 2017; he passed on March 18, 2017.
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26/06/2024

Always a big draw and a great performer over many years at The Torrington N12.

HAPPY 81st BIRTHDAY to Georgie Fame!!!

Born Clive Powell on June 26, 1943 in the English industrial town of Leigh, Lancashire, Georgie Fame’s interest in music initially grew out of his family entertaining in the home and musical evenings in the church hall across the street, where his father also played in an amateur dance band. Although young Clive began piano lessons at age seven, he didn’t stick too long with the formal training. But when rock and roll started to be broadcast on the radio during the mid-fifties, a then-teenage Clive began to take the piano more seriously, playing piano in various pubs and with a local group, “The Dominoes.”

In July 1959, he joined up with Rory Blackwell, the resident rock and roll bandleader and his band Rory and the Blackjacks In October of that year, the Marty Wilde Show was performing at the Lewisham Gaumont and Rory Blackwell arranged for Clive to audition “live” for impresario Larry Parnes, who after hiring him, he renamed “Georgie Fame,” and the name has stuck to this day. By the age of 16, Billy Fury selected four musicians, including Fame, for his personal backing group and the “Blue Flames” were born. At the end of 1961, after a disagreement, the band and Fury parted company.

Another gloomy out-of-work period finally ended in March 1962, when Georgie Fame and the Blue Flames took up what was to be a three-year residency as the house band at the Flamingo Club in London’s Soho district. In 1963 their first album, “Rhythm and Blues at the Flamingo” was recorded live at the club. Georgie also pursued his interest in jazz, recording the milestone album, “Sound Venture,” with the Harry South Big Band. This led directly to successful tours of the UK and Europe in 1967 and 1968, which found Georgie singing with the Count Basie Orchestra.

From 1970 to 1973, Georgie Fame worked almost exclusively in a partnership with fellow musician Alan Price (former keyboard player for The Animals). Their partnership came to a close several years later, but the television exposure had made Georgie Fame a household name in Britain.

In 1974, Georgie reformed the Blue Flames and they continue working with him (in one form or another) to this day. At that time, Georgie also began to regularly step away from the keyboards to sing with Europe’s finest orchestras and big bands, a musical tradition he still currently pursues

In 1981, Georgie co-produced and performed with jazz vocalist, Annie Ross, on the album “In Hoagland”, which featured the music of the legendary Hoagy Carmichael. A similar tribute to Benny Goodman, “In Goodmanland,” recorded in Sweden with vocalist Sylvia Vrethammar, followed in 1983. In 1988, during one of his regular visits to Australia, Georgie produced the album, “No Worries,” with the Aussie Blue Flames. And in 1989, the album, “A Portrait of Chet,” dedicated to jazz trumpeter Chet Baker, was recorded in Holland.

It was in 1989 that Georgie Fame joined forces with Van Morrison, after having been invited to play Hammond organ on Van’s “Avalon Sunset” album the previous year. He continued to record and tour with Morrison throughout the nineties. During that time, he and Van co-produced and performed on the Verve albums, “How Long Has This Been Going On,” (’95) and “Tell Me Something: The Songs of Mose Allison.” (‘96)

In 1990, Georgie Fame signed with producer Ben Sidran’s Go Jazz Records and cut “Cool Cat Blues,” in 1991. The follow-up albums were , “The Blues and Me,” (91) “Endangered Species,” (’92) and “City Life,” (’93) featuring Fame, Madeline Bell and the BBC Big Band. was released.

A unique album by Three Line Whip (featuring Georgie’s sons, Tristan and James), Three Line Whip/Will Carling, was released in the UK in May 1994, followed by another Three Line Whip album, “Name Droppin',” was released in 1997, after being recorded live in true Blue Flames style at Ronnie Scott’s Jazz Club in London during one of their annual residencies. A second album, “Walking Wounded,” from the same sessions, was released the following year.

Also in 1997, bassist Bill Wyman began forming his new band The Rhythm Kings and Georgie Fame became a founding member. Since that time, there have been five CDs and several tours, and The Rhythm Kings "reform" periodically to tour and record to the present day. During 1999, Fame presented several radio programs on BBC Radio, including his own six-week series featuring The Blue Flames plus special guests, including Madeline Bell, Bill Wyman, Zoot Money, Peter King, Steve Gray and Claire Martin.

In the year 2000, Georgie’s critically-acclaimed CD, “Poet in New York,” was voted Best Jazz Vocal Album by the Academie du Jazz in France. In 2001, the latest Three Line Whip CD, “Relationships,” was released, which included some of Georgie Fame’s finest songwriting to date. In the same year, a compilation CD, “Funny How Time Slips Away: The Pye Anthology,” was released.

Throughout his 40-year career, Georgie Fame has recorded over 20 albums and 14 hit singles. He is equally at home in the company of jazz groups and big bands, orchestras, rock groups and his own band, The Blue Flames.

Ever on the road, Georgie Fame continues to perform his unique blend of jazz/rhythm and blues for live audiences at clubs and music festivals throughout Europe.

Source: All About Jazz