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Peter Clayton
Peter James Clayton (25 June 1927 – 10 August 1991) was an English jazz presenter on BBC Radio, jazz critic, and author. From October 1968 until his death in August 1991, Clayton presented jazz recordings, interviews, studio performances, and live performances on BBC Radio 1, 2, and 3, as well as the BBC World Service. He co-authored several books about music and jazz with Peter Gammond and was a frequent contributor to jazz magazines. Early life The son of a railway clerk, Clayton was educated at Aske's School in South London. One day in 1942, "when I should have been doing my homework", he recalled hearing "broadcaster Spike Hughes playing jazz on the wireless and contracted chronic Boogie Woogie, an incurable condition whose twinges flair flair up even now in certain phases of the moon." After leaving school in 1945, he served three years in the RAF, serving mainly in Iraq and Kuwait. After demobilisation in 1948, Clayton was employed for a short while as a catering assist ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sydenham, London
Sydenham () is a district of south-east London, England, which is shared between the London boroughs of London Borough of Lewisham, Lewisham, London Borough of Bromley, Bromley and London Borough of Southwark, Southwark. Prior to the creation of the County of London in 1889, Sydenham was located in Kent, bordering Surrey. Historically, the area was very affluent, with the Crystal Palace being relocated to Sydenham Hill in 1854. Today, Sydenham is a diverse area, with a population of 28,378 (2011 census) and borders Forest Hill, London, Forest Hill, Dulwich, Crystal Palace, London, Crystal Palace, Penge, Beckenham, Catford and Bellingham, London, Bellingham. History Originally known as Shippenham, Sydenham began as a small settlement, a few cottages among the woods, whose inhabitants grazed their animals and collected wood. In the 1640s, springs of water in what is now Sydenham Wells Park, Wells Park were discovered to have medicinal properties, attracting crowds of people to the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Laurie Johnson
Laurence Reginald Ward Johnson, (born 7 February 1927) is an English composer and bandleader who has written scores for dozens of film and television series and has been one of the most highly regarded arrangers of instrumental pop and swing music since the 1950s with works often serving as stock production music. Career Johnson was born in Hampstead, England, and studied at the Royal College of Music in London, and spent four years in the Coldstream Guards before moving to the entertainment industry in the 1950s. One of his first major projects was as composer and music director in a musical adaptation of Henry Fielding's ''Rape Upon Rape'', entitled '' Lock Up Your Daughters'' (1959), which opened in Bernard Miles' Mermaid Theatre. The score, with lyrics by Lionel Bart, won an Ivor Novello Award. Johnson's stage work included music for the Peter Cook revue, ''Pieces of Eight'' (1959), and '' The Four Musketeers'' (1967), starring Harry Secombe. In 1961, Johnson entered the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Steve Race
Stephen Russell "Steve" Race OBE (1 April 192122 June 2009) was a British composer, pianist and radio and television presenter. Biography Born in Lincoln, Lincolnshire, the son of a lawyer, Race learned the piano from the age of five.Spencer Leig"Steve Race: Musician and broadcaster best known for his association with the programme 'My Music'" ''The Independent'', 24 June 2009 He was educated (1932–37) at Lincoln School, where he formed his first jazz group, which included a young Neville Marriner, later a major figure in the world of classical music. At sixteen, he attended the Royal Academy of Music, studying composition under Harry Farjeon and William Alwyn. After leaving the academy, Race (encouraged by the classical music critic of the ''News Chronicle'', Scott Goddard) wrote occasional dance band reviews for ''Melody Maker'' and, in 1939, joined the Harry Leader dance band as pianist, succeeding Norrie Paramor. Race joined the Royal Air Force in 1941, and formed a jaz ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
George Gershwin
George Gershwin (; born Jacob Gershwine; September 26, 1898 – July 11, 1937) was an American composer and pianist whose compositions spanned popular, jazz and classical genres. Among his best-known works are the orchestral compositions ''Rhapsody in Blue'' (1924) and ''An American in Paris'' (1928), the songs " Swanee" (1919) and "Fascinating Rhythm" (1924), the jazz standards "Embraceable You" (1928) and "I Got Rhythm" (1930), and the opera ''Porgy and Bess'' (1935), which included the hit " Summertime". Gershwin studied piano under Charles Hambitzer and composition with Rubin Goldmark, Henry Cowell, and Joseph Brody. He began his career as a song plugger but soon started composing Broadway theater works with his brother Ira Gershwin and with Buddy DeSylva. He moved to Paris, intending to study with Nadia Boulanger, but she refused him, afraid that rigorous classical study would ruin his jazz-influenced style; Maurice Ravel voiced similar objections when Gershwin inq ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sarah Vaughan
Sarah Lois Vaughan (March 27, 1924 – April 3, 1990) was an American jazz singer. Nicknamed "Sassy" and "Jazz royalty, The Divine One", she won two Grammy Awards, including the Lifetime Achievement Award, and was nominated for a total of nine Grammy Awards. She was given an NEA Jazz Masters Award in 1989. Critic Scott Yanow wrote that she had "one of the most wondrous voices of the 20th century". Early life Vaughan was born in Newark, New Jersey, to Asbury "Jake" Vaughan, a carpenter by trade who played guitar and piano, and Ada Vaughan, a laundress who sang in the church choir, migrants from Virginia. The Vaughans lived in a house on Brunswick Street in Newark for Vaughan's entire childhood. Jake was deeply religious. The family was active in New Mount Zion Baptist Church at 186 Thomas Street. Vaughan began piano lessons at the age of seven, sang in the church choir, and played piano for rehearsals and services. She developed an early love for popular music on records and th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Oscar Peterson
Oscar Emmanuel Peterson (August 15, 1925 – December 23, 2007) was a Canadian virtuoso jazz pianist and composer. Considered one of the greatest jazz pianists of all time, Peterson released more than 200 recordings, won seven Grammy Awards, as well as a lifetime achievement award from the Recording Academy, and received numerous other awards and honours. He played thousands of concerts worldwide in a career lasting more than 60 years. He was called the "Maharaja of the keyboard" by Duke Ellington, simply "O.P." by his friends, and informally in the jazz community as "the King of inside swing". Biography Early years Peterson was born in Montreal, Quebec, to immigrants from the West Indies (Saint Kitts and Nevis and the British Virgin Islands); His mother, Kathleen, was a domestic worker and his father, Daniel, worked as a porter for Canadian Pacific Railway and was an amateur musician who taught himself to play the organ, trumpet and piano. Peterson grew up in the neighbourh ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mike Westbrook Orchestra
Michael John David Westbrook (born 21 March 1936) is an English jazz pianist, composer, and writer of orchestrated jazz pieces. He is married to the vocalist, librettist and painter Kate Westbrook. Early work Mike Westbrook was born in High Wycombe, Buckinghamshire, England, and grew up in Torquay. After a spell in accountancy and his National ServiceThe Wire, 1985 (some of it in Germany) he went to art school, studying painting, in Plymouth. There he also began his first bands in 1958, soon joined by such musicians as John Surman, Lou Gare and Keith Rowe. After moving to London in 1962, Westbrook led numerous bands, large and small, and played regularly at the Old Place and the Little Theatre Club at Garrick Yard, St Martin's Lane. Together with Chris McGregor's Brotherhood of Breath, Westbrook shared the role of house-band at Ronnie Scott's Jazz Club. He became a key figure in the development of British jazz, producing several big-band records for the Deram label, with t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Kenny Baker (trumpeter)
Kenny Baker (1 March 1921 – 7 December 1999) was an English jazz trumpet, cornet and flugelhorn player, and a composer. Biography Baker was born in Withernsea, East Riding of Yorkshire, England. He joined a brass band and by the age of 17 and had already become a professional musician. After leaving his home town of Withernsea, in Yorkshire's East Riding, for London, he met and began performing with the already well-known jazz musician George Chisholm. While serving in the Royal Air Force during the Second World War, Baker was called up to do forces programmes. Baker was first heard on record in a British public jam session in 1941 and quickly established a strong reputation in London clubs. He was brass band trained and had faultless technical command. The young Baker was lead trumpeter with Ted Heath's post war orchestra, with "Bakerloo Non-Stop" recorded for the Decca record label in 1946. He played a tenor saxophone solo on "Johnny Gray", the piece recorded by both Bake ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Jeanie Lambe
Jeanie Lambe (23 December 1940 – 29 May 2020) was a Scottish jazz singer. She was married to jazz tenor saxophonist Danny Moss. Biography Lambe was born on 23 December 1940 in Glasgow, Scotland. Her mother was a singer and her father, Lyston Morven Lamb (also known as Tony), was the son of a Church of Scotland minister in Inverness who played the accordion in the musical act Douglas, Nicol & Lamb. Lambe's first public performances were with her parents. When she was seventeen, she was a member of the Clyde Valley Stompers. She was the female vocalist with the Alex Sutherland sextet at Elgin's Two Red Shoes Ballroom, referred to as the 'Glitterball of the North' run by Albert Bonici where she helped kick off the Two Red Shoes dances, aged 19, on 28 January 1960 with their “Gala Opening And Carnival Night". Lambe moved to London in 1960 and worked with a variety of jazz bands in that area, including those led by Alex Welsh, Kenny Ball and Charlie Galbraith. She married tenor s ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Danny Moss
Dennis Moss (16 August 1927 – 28 May 2008) was a British jazz tenor saxophonist. He performed with many figures in British jazz, including Vic Lewis, Ted Heath, John Dankworth, Alex Welsh, and Humphrey Lyttelton. Biography The son of a toolmaker, Moss was born in Redhill, Surrey in 1927. His childhood was spent on the south coast, in the Brighton-Worthing area, and he attended Steyning Grammar School. At the age of thirteen, he saw a jazz band appear briefly in a Bowery Boys film on a family cinema visit, and was so inspired by the clarinet playing that he swapped his most valued possession, his ice skates, for a second-hand instrument of his own. He was self-taught on both this and the tenor saxophone, which he took up at school. A spell of National Service at the age of eighteen saw Moss performing for three years in a Royal Air Force regional band. After leaving the forces he joined the Vic Lewis Orchestra, and in the next few years moved around various bands, especial ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Brian Lemon
Brian Lemon (11 February 1937 – 11 October 2014) was a British jazz pianist and arranger. Biography Lemon was born in Nottingham, England. After leaving school in the 1950s, he began playing professionally at Nottingham's Palais de Danse and other local venues. He moved to London, aged 19, in 1956 to join Freddy Randall's group. After that he worked with George Chisholm, Kenny Baker and Sandy Brown. Over the years, he also worked with Benny Goodman, Charlie Watts, Scott Hamilton, Buddy Tate, Milt Jackson, Ben Webster, and Digby Fairweather. From 1961 to 1963, he led his own trio at the comedian Peter Cook’s club, The Establishment, in Soho, London. He led an octet which played songs by Billy Strayhorn. Lemon worked as a regular session musician with many groups which were recorded at the BBC's Maida Vale Studios in London for broadcast on Sunday night's BBC Radio 1's ''Sounds of Jazz'' introduced by Peter Clayton in the early 1970s. Lemon recorded a sequence of 27 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Colin Purbrook
Colin Thomas Purbrook (26 February 1936 – 5 February 1999) was an English jazz pianist and Songwriter. He also played double-bass and, occasionally, trumpet. Early life Purbrook was born in Seaford, East Sussex and learned piano from the age of six from his father, who was also a professional pianist. As a young boy aged just 11 in 1947 he won three Challenge Cups at the Brighton Music Festival. He then studied music at the Fitzwilliam College, Cambridge. As well as playing piano, Purbrook also played on the trombone with the Cambridge University Jazz Band which featured in the Rank film Bachelor of Hearts from 1958. Career He left Cambridge in 1957 and joined Sandy Brown's quintet on double bass for a six-month period at the popular 100 Club in Oxford Street, London. He played piano for three years with Al Fairweather's All Stars, and also played with Kenny Ball, both as a pianist and on trumpet and double bass. In the early 1960s he worked with Kenny Baker, Ian ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
