Denys Justin Wright (6 May 1924 – 8 February 1992), known professionally as Denny Wright, was a British

jazz Jazz is a music genre that originated in the African-American communities of New Orleans, Louisiana in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, with its roots in blues and ragtime. Since the 1920s Jazz Age, it has been recognized as a m ...

guitarist. A

session musician Session musicians, studio musicians, or backing musicians are musicians hired to perform in recording sessions or live performances. The term sideman is also used in the case of live performances, such as accompanying a recording artist on a ...

for many years, Wright frequently acted as arranger and "fixer" for recording sessions. He was a prolific jazz and orchestra composer. He led many bands, from small ensembles to night club bands to orchestras. He worked with Latin American and Jamaican bands, including Kenny Graham's Afro-Cubists and

Mike McKenzie (jazz musician) Oscar Grenville Hastings McKenzie (17 September 1922, British Guiana – December 1999, Spain), known as Mike McKenzie, was a Guyanese jazz pianist, bandleader, vocalist, composer and arranger, who performed in London from the 1950s to the 1980s. ...

's Quartet. He played with the

Carl Barriteau Carl Alrich Stanley Barriteau (7 February 1914 – 24 August 1998)Val Wilmer, "Barriteau, Carl Aldric Stanley (1914–1998)", ''Oxford Dictionary of National Biography'', Oxford University Press, 2004; online edn, May 201accessed 15 January 201 ...

orchestra, the

Decca Records Decca Records is a British record label established in 1929 by Edward Lewis. Its U.S. label was established in late 1934 by Lewis, Jack Kapp, American Decca's first president, and Milton Rackmil, who later became American Decca's president. ...

house band under Phil Green, and occasionally the

Glenn Miller Alton Glen Miller (March 1, 1904 – December 15, 1944) was an American big band founder, owner, conductor, composer, arranger, trombone player and recording artist before and during World War II, when he was an officer in the US Army Air Forc ...

band. Wright was voted the 1980 BBC Jazz Society Musician of the Year. During his career, he worked with

Stéphane Grappelli Stéphane Grappelli (; 26 January 1908 – 1 December 1997, born Stefano Grappelli) was a French jazz violinist. He is best known as a founder of the Quintette du Hot Club de France with guitarist Django Reinhardt in 1934. It was one of the fi ...

Lonnie Donegan Anthony James Donegan (29 April 1931 – 3 November 2002), known as Lonnie Donegan, was a British skiffle singer, songwriter and musician, referred to as the " King of Skiffle", who influenced 1960s British pop and rock musicians. Born in Scot ...

, Johnny Duncan,

Digby Fairweather Richard John Charles "Digby" Fairweather (born 25 April 1946) is a British jazz cornetist, author and broadcaster. Biography Before becoming a professional musician, Fairweather was a librarian and has retained an interest in jazz bibliograph ...

Ella Fitzgerald Ella Jane Fitzgerald (April 25, 1917June 15, 1996) was an American jazz singer, sometimes referred to as the "First Lady of Song", "Queen of Jazz", and "Lady Ella". She was noted for her purity of tone, impeccable diction, phrasing, timing, in ...

, Ken Snakehips Johnson,

Billy Eckstine William Clarence Eckstine (July 8, 1914 – March 8, 1993) was an American jazz and pop singer and a bandleader during the swing and bebop eras. He was noted for his rich, almost operatic bass-baritone voice. In 2019, Eckstine was posthumously ...

Fapy Lafertin Fapy Lafertin (born 20 November 1950) is a Belgian guitarist in the Belgian-Dutch gypsy jazz style. Lafertin was born in Kortrijk, Belgium in the Manouche Romani community and took up guitar at the age of five. After performing in a family band ...

Russ Conway Russ Conway, DSM (born Trevor Herbert Stanford; 2 September 1925 – 16 November 2000) was an English popular music pianist and composer. Conway had 20 piano instrumentals in the UK Singles Chart between 1957 and 1963, including two numbe ...

Biréli Lagrène Biréli Lagrène (born 4 September 1966) is a French jazz guitarist who came to prominence in the 1980s for his Django Reinhardt–influenced style. He often performs in swing, jazz fusion, and post-bop styles. Biography Lagrène was born in ...

Humphrey Lyttelton Humphrey Richard Adeane Lyttelton (23 May 1921 – 25 April 2008), also known as Humph, was an English jazz musician and broadcaster from the Lyttelton family. Having taught himself the trumpet at school, Lyttelton became a professional ...

Nigel Kennedy Nigel Kennedy (born 28 December 1956) is an English violinist and violist. His early career was primarily spent performing classical music, and he has since expanded into jazz, klezmer, and other music genres. Early life and background Kenn ...

, and

George Shearing Sir George Albert Shearing, (13 August 1919 14 February 2011) was a British jazz pianist who for many years led a popular jazz group that recorded for Discovery Records, MGM Records and Capitol Records. Shearing was the composer of over 300 ...

. Although best known as a guitarist, his favourite instrument was piano, the only musical instrument he would play at home. ''Travellin' Blues'' by Johnny Duncan and the Bluegrass Boys feature Wright's piano playing.

Early life

Wright was born in

Deptford Deptford is an area on the south bank of the River Thames in southeast London, within the London Borough of Lewisham. It is named after a Ford (crossing), ford of the River Ravensbourne. From the mid 16th century to the late 19th it was home ...

, London, and grew up in

Brockley Brockley is a district and an electoral ward of south London, England, in the London Borough of Lewisham south-east of Charing Cross. History The name Brockley is derived from "Broca's woodland clearing", a wood where badgers are seen ('' ...

with frequent forays to the Old Kent Road and the

Elephant and Castle The Elephant and Castle is an area around a major road junction in London, England, in the London Borough of Southwark. The name also informally refers to much of Walworth and Newington, due to the proximity of the London Underground stati ...

. His father was Joseph William Wright, a wireless telegraphist for the

General Post Office The General Post Office (GPO) was the state postal system and telecommunications carrier of the United Kingdom until 1969. Before the Acts of Union 1707, it was the postal system of the Kingdom of England, established by Charles II in 1660. ...

who served with the

Royal Engineers The Corps of Royal Engineers, usually called the Royal Engineers (RE), and commonly known as the ''Sappers'', is a corps of the British Army. It provides military engineering and other technical support to the British Armed Forces and is head ...

World War I World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was List of wars and anthropogenic disasters by death toll, one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, ...

. His mother was Selina Elizabeth Stewart, who was born in Hampstead. Wright's paternal family came from Polstead and Boxstead in Suffolk, although they moved to Deptford by 1881. Wright's first instrument was the piano. His older brother, Alex Wright, was a semi-professional guitarist before the war and Denny Wright, ten years younger, was soon trying to play his brother's guitar. He began playing professionally before World War II while at school. He nearly always used his thumb on the top E string and could only play as fast as he could sing. He often sang along as he played a solo, as on Donegan's No 4 UK hit "Don't You Rock Me Daddy-O" recorded in 1957.

Career

Wright spent the first part of World War II playing in jazz clubs in the

West End of London The West End of London (commonly referred to as the West End) is a district of Central London, west of the City of London and north of the River Thames, in which many of the city's major tourist attractions, shops, businesses, government build ...

, doing session work and performing in bands on radio shows. He worked with Grappelli for the first time in London around 1941. At school Wright served with the Auxiliary Fire Service in Brockley. He was classified medically unfit to serve due to a childhood injury in a road accident in 1930 that cost him his spleen and half of his liver. He joined Entertainments National Service Association (

ENSA The Entertainments National Service Association (ENSA) was an organisation established in 1939 by Basil Dean and Leslie Henson to provide entertainment for British armed forces personnel during World War II. ENSA operated as part of the Navy, ...

), entertained the troops, and at the end of the war was stationed in

's-Hertogenbosch s-Hertogenbosch (), colloquially known as Den Bosch (), is a city and municipality in the Netherlands with a population of 157,486. It is the capital of the province of North Brabant and its fourth largest by population. The city is south of ...

, Netherlands. In 1945 he started the first

bebop Bebop or bop is a style of jazz developed in the early-to-mid-1940s in the United States. The style features compositions characterized by a fast tempo, complex chord progressions with rapid chord changes and numerous changes of key, instrumen ...

club in London. At the Fullado in New Compton Street he played piano and guitar. In the late 1940s he toured Italy and the Middle East with the Francisco Cavez orchestra and performed in

King Farouk Farouk I (; ar, فاروق الأول ''Fārūq al-Awwal''; 11 February 1920 – 18 March 1965) was the tenth ruler of Egypt from the Muhammad Ali dynasty and the penultimate King of Egypt and the Sudan, succeeding his father, Fuad I, in 1 ...

's palace. Throughout the 1950s Wright provided guitar accompaniments for

, Johnny Duncan,

, and

Marie Bryant Marie Bryant (November 6, 1919 – May 23, 1978) was an American dancer, singer and choreographer, described as "one of the most vivacious black dancers in the United States". Biography Bryant was born in Meridian, Mississippi, moving with her f ...

, as well as appearing on ''Guitar Club'' on the BBC. In 1952, he accompanied

Tex Ritter Woodward Maurice Ritter (January 12, 1905 – January 2, 1974) was a pioneer of American country music, a popular singer and actor from the mid-1930s into the 1960s, and the patriarch of the Ritter acting family (son John, grandsons Jason and ...

for a season at the ''Texas Western Spectacle'' at the Haringey Arena. With Digby Fairweather, Roy Williams, Johnny Van Derrick, Jack Fallon, Tony Crombie, and Jack Fallon, Wright accompanied Joel David on ''Old Bones'' and added a guitar solo to Joel David's song "Be My Valentine Tonight". The Denny Wright Trio with violinist Bob Clarke took

skiffle Skiffle is a genre of folk music with influences from American folk music, blues, country, bluegrass, and jazz, generally performed with a mixture of manufactured and homemade or improvised instruments. Originating as a form in the United Stat ...

and jazz to the

Soviet Union The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen nationa ...

in 1957 for the

6th World Festival of Youth and Students The 6th World Festival of Youth and Students was held from 28 July to 5 August 1957 in Moscow, capital city of the then Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. The festival attracted 34,000 people from 130 countries. This became possible after the po ...

. From 1940 until the early 1980s, Wright worked as a session musician, playing guitar for

Mary Hopkin Mary Hopkin (born 3 May 1950), credited on some recordings as Mary Visconti from her marriage to Tony Visconti, is a Welsh singer-songwriter best known for her 1968 UK number 1 single "Those Were the Days". She was one of the first artists ...

Dusty Springfield Mary Isobel Catherine Bernadette O'Brien (16 April 1939 – 2 March 1999), known professionally as Dusty Springfield, was an English singer. With her distinctive mezzo-soprano sound, she was a popular singer of blue-eyed soul, pop and dram ...

and

Tom Jones Tom Jones may refer to: Arts and entertainment *Tom Jones (singer) (born 1940), Welsh singer *Tom Jones (writer) (1928–2023), American librettist and lyricist *''The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling'', a novel by Henry Fielding published in 1 ...

. His improvisational style came to the forefront in his work with Donegan. Drawing on jazz, blues, and Django Reinhardt, Wright played acoustic

archtop An archtop guitar is a hollow electric or semi-acoustic guitar with a full body and a distinctive arched top, whose sound is particularly popular with jazz, blues, and rockabilly players. Typically, an archtop guitar has: * Six strings * An ar ...

and electric guitar. With Bill Bramwell, Les Bennetts, and Jimmy Currie, he helped inspire the next generation of British guitarists working with blues in a rock context. George Harrison tried to play Wright's solo from "Last Train to San Fernanado". In the 1960s, in addition to session for

and Jones, he and Keith Cooper produced ''Tribute to the Hot Club'' as The Cooper-Wright Quintet. Wright also worked extensively with folk singer Steve Benbow and the record company

Rediffusion Rediffusion was a business that distributed radio and TV signals through wired relay networks. The business gave rise to a number of other companies, including Associated-Rediffusion, later known as Rediffusion London, the first ITV ( commer ...

. During the 1970s, he and record producer Anton Kwiatkowski worked on albums for EMI's Music for Pleasure label. He accompanied Grappelli at the

Cambridge Folk Festival The Cambridge Folk Festival is an annual music festival, established in 1965, held on the site of Cherry Hinton Hall in Cherry Hinton, one of the villages subsumed by the city of Cambridge, England. The festival is known for its eclectic mix o ...

and for some years after. In 1978, he formed the band Velvet with Ike Isaacs, Len Skeat, and

. After Velvet, he formed a band with

Don Harper Don Harper (192130 May 1999) was an Australian composer. Born in Melbourne in 1921, Don Harper showed an interest in music from an early age, learning to play the violin as a child. His formal study began at the New South Wales Conservatorium ...

before reforming the Hot Club of London with Johnny Van Derrick (violin), Gerry Higgins (double bass), and his protégé Robert Seaman (guitar). Wright played with the Hot Club of London across the UK, as well as at jazz festivals in Eindhoven, London, and Cork. His last performance was at The Grapes in

Shepherd Market Shepherd Market is a small business-lined precinct featuring two small squares, one with a northern recess in Mayfair, in the West End of London, built up between 1735 and 1746 by Edward Shepherd on the open ground then used for the annual fair ...

, Mayfair in late 1991 with van Derrick. Wright gave private lessons and at London

comprehensive school A comprehensive school typically describes a secondary school for pupils aged approximately 11–18, that does not select its intake on the basis of academic achievement or aptitude, in contrast to a selective school system where admission is re ...

s, and he lectured at the

Royal College of Music The Royal College of Music is a conservatoire established by royal charter in 1882, located in South Kensington, London, UK. It offers training from the undergraduate to the doctoral level in all aspects of Western Music including perform ...

on the life of a session musician.

Personal life

Wright married Barbara, a lyricist and actress, in 1961. Their son, St. John, was born while Wright was on stage in Leeds with Donegan in 1963. Barbara died on 16 February 1989 after an eight-year battle with breast cancer. They were married for 27 years. Wright died on 8 February 1992 in London after a nine-year battle with bladder cancer.

Awards and honors

In 1980, Wright was voted BBC Jazz Society Musician of the Year.

Discography

As leader

* 1971 ''Mr. Guitar''

As sideman

With

* 1956 ''Lonnie Donegan Showcase'' * 1957 ''Lonnie Donegan Live, 1957'' With Johnny Duncan * 1957 ''Johnny Duncan's Tennessee Song Bag'' * 1996 ''Last Train to San Fernando'' With

* 1973 ''Live in London'' * 1974 ''I Got Rhythm'' * 1975 ''Fascinating Rhythm'' * 1988 ''Menuhin & Grappelli Play Berlin, Kern, Porter & Rodgers & Hart'' * 1988 ''Menuhin & Grappelli Play Gershwin'' * 1997 ''Sweet Georgia Brown'' * 1998 ''Fit as a Fiddle'' * 1998 ''Live in Europe'' * 2000 ''Live at the Cambridge Folk Festival'' With others * 1955 ''Barrel House'' Johnny Parker's Washboard Band * 1969 ''Tribute to the Hot Club'', Cooper-Wright Quintet * 1972 ''Friendly Folk'',

Steve Benbow Stephen George "Steve" Benbow (29 November 1931 – 17 November 2006), was a British folk guitar player, singer and music director, who was influential in the English folk music revival of the 1960s. His obituary in ''The Times'' described hi ...

* 1978 ''Combo''

* 1979 ''Velvet'',

, Ike Isaacs, Len Skeat * 1981 ''Solo Flight'', Wild Bill Davison * 1993 ''Running Wild'', Wild Bill Davison * 1993 ''Songs of Ireland'',

* 2008 ''The Early Years'',

Singles

* "Georgia", Marie Bryant with the Mike McKenzie Quartet (1954) * "Lost John", (Trad. arr Donegan) Lonnie Donegan (1956) (2) * " Stewball", (Trad. arr Donegan) Lonnie Donegan (1956) (2) * "Bring a Little Water, Sylvie", (Trad. arr Ledbetter, Donegan, Campbell) Lonnie Donegan (1956) (7) * "Don't You Rock Me Daddy-O", (Varley, Whyton) Lonnie Donegan (1956) (4) * "

Cumberland Gap The Cumberland Gap is a pass through the long ridge of the Cumberland Mountains, within the Appalachian Mountains, near the junction of the U.S. states of Kentucky, Virginia, and Tennessee. It is famous in American colonial history for its r ...

", (Trad. arr Donegan) Lonnie Donegan (1957) (1) * " Last Train to San Fernando", Johnny Duncan (1957) (2)

References

* *

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Wright, Denny 1924 births 1992 deaths English jazz guitarists English male guitarists People from Brockley Musicians from Kent 20th-century English musicians 20th-century British guitarists Deaths from cancer in England Deaths from bladder cancer 20th-century British male musicians British male jazz musicians British firefighters