Henry Hall

When the discography of British Dance Bands On Record, by Brian Rust and Sandy Forbes, was published in 1987 one benefit was that collectors, including me, were able to appreciate properly the enormous contribution which had been made by hitherto neglected figures as Jay Wilbur. By rights, he should have been just as familiar as Ambrose, Jack Hylton and Jack Payne, all household names in the thirties. His recorded output was equally prolific, his choice of material just as discriminating and the results were issued on cut-price labels such as the 7-inch Victory and its successors the 8-inch Eclipse and the 9-inch Crown. Since these could be bought only in Woolworths, initially for sixpence a record (the equivalent of four for 10p in today’s currency!), it might have been reasonable to assume that they would be lacking in quality. Nothing could be further from the truth, as witness those who bought them then and those who search for them now.

His neglect is ironic because as a studio director he was able to call on the cream of London’s dance band musicians. Ambrose was one society bandleader who disliked his highly-paid personnel moonlighting (or more appropriately daylighting!) in this way, although there was nothing he could do to stop them. But because Wilbur’s personnel assembled for recording purposes only, and most of the sides appeared under a bewildering variety of pseudonyms, he did not establish himself as a competing force in his own right until the mid-thirties, by which time the pecking order was well established.

James Edward Wilbur was born in Bournemouth, the year being given as 1898. Both parents worked for Carl Rosa, Britain’s oldest opera company, which held a Royal Warrant from Queen Victoria. His father was a member of the orchestra and his mother was the wardrobe mistress. In his formative years Jay took singing lessons, became a soloist in the local church choir when he was 11, and began studying the piano. In his early teens he featured in Bluebell in Fairyland, a stage musical written by Sir Seymour Hicks in 1901 and revived regularly at Christmas. He was also involved in a vaudeville act called Casey’s Court, part of which required him to be wheeled on stage. It has been claimed that the lad pushing the soap box was none other than Charlie Chaplin. If so, this could not have been later than 1910, the year Chaplin went to America with Fred Karno’s company.

Young Jay Wilbur was stagestruck, and his seaside location presented a wide range of opportunities, from straight theatre to variety. He was much in demand as a boy soprano, particularly since he could accompany himself. When he was 16 and his voice broke he decided to concentrate on the piano. This was a fortuitous decision, because the movie business was developing rapidly, and silent films needed a separate musical accompaniment. According to one account, by 1912 Jay had been chosen to play the piano in some of London’s early cinemas, went on to form one of the first cinema orchestras and developed a system of cue sheets to ensure the music was consistent with the action. However, this seems inconsistent with his prior history, and raises the question whether his year of birth should be earlier than that normally quoted.

Whatever the truth of the matter, the need to concentrate from close range and for prolonged periods on the poor quality images projected on-screen by the early "flicks" was not beneficial to the eyesight. As a result, when conscription was introduced in 1916 to replace the volunteers who had been slaughtered in the trenches during the early part of the First World War, Jay was classified C3 and given the job of a coppersmith. The purpose of this eluded me, but my wife suggested that it involved making bullet casings, and that would seem an inspired guess. Although forced to abandon a burgeoning career in the cinema, he was still able to continue playing, albeit at fashionable parties and in restaurants after he’d finished work for the day.

In 1919, the year the Original Dixieland Jazz Band toured England, Jay formed his own small dance band, and worked on the Continent for a couple of years. When he came back to England he became the musical director for the Ashton & Mitchells Agency, and supplied dance orchestras for society venues. This led to a chance meeting with Edward, Prince of Wales, who was an active socialite and always keen to try his hand on the drum kit, often to the despair of the regular percussionist, to say nothing of the band. That encounter resulted in Jay playing at Buckingham Palace on several occasions.

After he left the agency he joined Emlyn Thomas’ London Band, and in September 1923 he participated in their first recording session, although the three titles cut that day were not issued. He then reformed his own band, and after various London venues including the Piccadilly and Savoy Hotels, he returned to the Continent and played at the Hotel Bristol in Oslo and the casino in Spa, Belgium. Following that, he was asked to provide the ship’s orchestra for a luxury cruise to the West Indies. When the liner berthed at New York he took the opportunity to meet as many of that city’s bandleaders and musicians as possible. They included Paul Whiteman and André Kostelanetz, and the experience brought home to him the growing importance of orchestration to successful dance band performance.

The next firm date is March 1926, when he recorded two sides with Van’s Ten, a numerically correct tag for Leon Van Straten’s Orchestra. He was involved in further recording sessions with them but only those for the cardboard-based Duophone label were productive. He was replaced during February 1927, and this was probably when he again assembled his own band, this time to play at the Tricity Restaurant in the Strand, where he took over from Ben Blue and his Band. He left in the autumn of 1928, and was succeeded by Joe Kosky (who later, as Joe Kaye, played violin in Nat Star’s band). The reason for his departure was to take up the post of musical director with Dominion Gramophone Records Ltd., a newly-formed company with a share capital of £150,000. This is perhaps a good point at which to mention the persistent rumour that Jay’s surname was actually Blinco, because whether or not that was the case, it is the name James Edward Wilbur that appeared in the list of the board of directors of the company.

The studio orchestra which he put together for Dominion featured a highly sought-after first trumpet in the person of Max Goldberg, with whom he had played previously, and who at that time was recording with Arthur Rosebery’s Kit-Cat Dance Band, Jay Whidden’s Band and Bert Firman’s various ensembles. Tony Thorpe who, like Max, later joined Ambrose’s band, was on trombone and the pianist was Billy Thorburn. Most of their recordings were issued under pseudonyms, no doubt to make it appear that Dominion was a larger enterprise than was the case. They also provided the musical accompaniment to various singers (including a risqué Elsie Carlisle, discreetly masquerading under the nom-du-disque of Amy Brunton). Unfortunately the label barely had time to establish itself before the Wall Street crash, and it was an early victim of the Great Depression. Having begun with high hopes, by mid-1930 the Dominion Company had ceased trading.

One door had shut but, true to the old saying, another one opened almost immediately. In July 1930 Jay Wilbur announced in The Melody Maker that he had accepted the position of musical director to the Crystalate Gramophone Manufacturing Co. Ltd. of Tonbridge, Kent. As established producers of the cut-price Imperial and Victory labels they were far better placed than Dominion had been to weather the economic storm. Furthermore they were keen to expand their British dance band output, rather than continuing to be dependent on American masters, and had just opened their new recording studios in Broadhurst Gardens, West Hampstead for that purpose. The colour of the Imperial label was changed from mauve to red to mark the new era, and Jay began an association that was to last for thirteen years.

One of his first credited sides, Adeline on Imperial 2355, is interesting, because two takes were issued. The first take employed the vocal trio of Al Bowlly, Les Allen and Jack Plant, but a later take 4 is purely instrumental, and both are well worth looking out for.

At the end of January 1931 the last Victory side was cut, and that label was superseded by Eclipse, together with a proliferation of the pseudonyms under which Jay’s recordings were sold in Woolworths. The Hottentots and The Biltmore Players were joined by The Ambassadors Twelve, The Connecticut Collegians and The Radio Serenaders to name but a few. As mentioned already, he appeared under his own name on Imperial, but towards the end of 1932 that practice ceased and the label became dedicated solely to Jack Payne before being phased out altogether at the beginning of 1934. His recordings continued to be released on Eclipse, still mainly under aliases, and were featured also on some Broadcast 4-in-1 sides but in mid-1933 he reappeared under his own name on the new Rex label (which was styled "The King Of Records").

The final stage of this revamp took place in mid-1935, just as the Eclipse label passed its one-thousandth issue, after which it was discontinued and replaced by Crown. This new entry (out of the same stable as Imperial and Rex) maintained the practice of cloaking Jay Wilbur’s identity. Even more pseudonyms were generated for the purpose, of which perhaps Manuel Espinosa and his Rumba Band was the most exotic! In 1937 Crystalate was acquired by Decca, at which point the Crown label was discontinued.

In the meantime Jay had secured his own radio programme on the strength of his recording success. Radio was not an entirely new medium to him, because he had begun broadcasting with small string orchestras in 1927, the year the BBC became a public corporation. Then however light music had been seen as a necessary evil, now it was de rigeur. As a result of the popularity of Melody From The Sky, which began in April 1936, Jay continued to broadcast - most memorably in the series Music While You Work and the wartime comedy series Hi Gang, which was broadcast from Bristol, whence the BBC Variety Department had been evacuated on the outbreak of hostilities.

The latter programme featured the American couple Ben Lyon and Bebe Daniels, who had settled in England, as well as Vic Oliver, the son of an Austrian baron, who had begun his career as a conductor and classical violinist. It was when the latter turned his talents to comedy that he met and married a young chorus girl, thereby becoming Winston Churchill’s son-in-law! The fast pace of the show was exemplified by its theme tune I’m Just Wild About Harry, and Wilbur was assisted by vocalists Sam Browne and The Greene Sisters. One measure of its success was that the cast starred in a 1941 film adaptation also entitled Hi Gang.

In May 1942 the series finished, after which he and his band toured extensively as part of the war effort. In consequence recording sessions, now with his Hi Gang Orchestra, became far less frequent, finishing in September 1943. The war was not without its tribulations; his son, an aerial photographer for the RAF, had been killed in 1940 at the age of 21. It seems probable that it was this loss, coupled with an unremitting work schedule, which led to a deterioration in his health and eventually he was ordered to take it easy.

That was the end of an era, not just for Jay Wilbur, but for dance bands generally. On his return he faced a very different scene, to which he adapted with typical resilience by carving out a new career in light orchestral music. He left England in 1946 for New Zealand, resettled in Australia in 1948, and broadcast regularly with his 18-piece orchestra in a programme called Music Hath Charms. But his wanderlust continued, and in 1958 he moved to Capetown, where he broadcast on Springbok Radio with his Firestone Strings. He died in Capetown in 1970.

Unlike some other band leaders, Jay Wilbur was very highly regarded by those who had the pleasure of recording under his direction. One of them recalled his efficiency; there were none of the usual tests or changing position for balance. He knew what he wanted and he knew how to get it. The musicians, whose studio work was sandwiched in between live evening appearances, knew that they could get on with the job in hand and not have to hang about unnecessarily. There were many bandleaders who insisted that their own name had to be carried on the label. Jay Wilbur knew that what mattered above all else was the music, and that is what he provided in abundance.

I know of only one LP devoted to Jay Wilbur, which was Hi! Gang on Decca Recollections RFL 21. Since the advent of CDs Vocalion has issued three volumes, namely Sing, Baby, Sing (CDEA 6016), We’ll Meet Again (CDEA 6071) which was centred on the Rex recordings and from my liner notes for which this article has been adapted, and Round About Regent Street (CDEA 6090) which concentrated on the Crown era. Timeless mine the same seam on CBC 1-047, which compilation comprises recordings by the Rhythm Rascals and The Swing Rhythm Boys, plus Sid Phillips. It’s also worth bearing in mind that Jay Wilbur directed the studio orchestra accompanying singers on the Rex roster, including Bebe Daniels and Elsie Carlisle. That is but a fraction of the enormous legacy of his recordings, yet they stand as testimony to his work as a true professional.

Almost everyone can remember the first time that they saw one of the great American bands in action in this country, when they were allowed to visit after the lifting of the notorious Anglo-American Musicians' ban in the 1950s. My recollection, although perhaps a little different than most, is every bit as relevant. In my case it wasn't so much the exciting prospect of seeing and hearing the great Count Basie orchestra in action, on a cold, wet and windy November night at the City Hall, Sheffield, in 1958, but more a question of whether or not I'd be able to get into this marvellous South Yorkshire venue. Also, it wasn't that I didn't have a front-stall ticket. I did. In fact, that night I had more tickets than I could handle. Intrigued? Then let me elucidate.

As a band-loving teenager, and living in a town that was starved of such attractions, I used to organise sold-out, 35-seat coach trips (charabancs as they were known in those days), to the various venues that were within easy reach - such as the Free Trade Hall and Belle Vue, both in Manchester and Sheffield's City Hall. These successful trips enabled my 'customers' to see, among others, stalwarts such as Stan Kenton, Woody Herman, Duke Ellington and Lionel Hampton. When it came to booking a coach to see Count Basie, it was a different story altogether.

For weeks in advance, many came and booked seats for the Sheffield show; nearer to the date, however, many dropped out for various reasons. On the night of the concert I realised that if things didn't improve I was going to be stuck with about fifteen, 30 bob (£1.50) tickets on my hands. Well, things didn't improve and I was, in fact, left with those tickets as we arrived in Sheffield.

Standing on the steps of the City Hall, with a fistful of unsold tickets made me look nothing more that a tout. However, on a more positive note, and as luck would have it, there were many enthusiasts who did turn up that night without tickets, and were only too glad to take them off my hands - even though I did have to reduce the price. In fact, those £1.50 tickets were given away at the ridiculous bargain price of ten bob (50p). Imagine seeing Count Basie for 50p! What a bargain, eh? And the upshot was that I managed to flog them off in time to see the concert commence.

There on stage at the piano, and fronting his legendary 17 piece orchestra, was one of the greatest pioneers of big-band music, William 'Count' Basie - a leading figure of the swing era who, alongside Duke Ellington, was a true representative of the genre. Born in Red Bank, New Jersey, on August 21, 1904, Basie was not only a pianist of the highest order but a bandleader who possessed an impeccable taste when choosing not only his personnel, but also his choice of musical programme.

As a young man, and after studying the piano with his mother, Basie went to New York where he met James P Johnson, Fats Waller and a host of other pianists who frequented New York's Harlem district. Basie joined Bennie Moten’s Kansas City Orchestra in 1929 and took over the band when Moten died. By the time he was 20 he was touring extensively as a solo pianist, accompanist and musical director for many blues singers, dancers and comedians. In 1936 he formed his first big band, and became contracted to Decca Records: a year on and Basie's outfit had become one of the leading bands of the swing era. By the end of that decade he had acquired international fame with recordings of One O'Clock Jump, Jumping At the Woodside and Taxi War Dance.

In 1952, after reorganising his big band, he undertook a long series of tours and recording sessions that eventually led to him becoming an elder statesman of jazz. He also took on board such sidesmen as Clark Terry, Buddy DeFranco, Serge Chaloff and Buddy Rich. As time went on however, Basie, for various reasons, often changed his personnel - not always his idea, but those such as Terry and Rich who had visions of their own. But the one obvious thing was that there was never a shortage of able musicians willing to step into their shoes; as Thad Jones, Eddie 'Lockjaw' Davis, Snooky Young, Wendell Culley, Frank Foster, Frank Wess, Freddie Green, Joe Newman and Sonny Payne were quick to illustrate.

In that year of 1958, Basie had arrived to tour this country following a Trans-Atlantic exchange deal with the Vic Lewis orchestra crossing over to America, with all these now-household star names sitting there in his employ. At the time the 'Count' also had the distinction of having a rare, and one of the most requested hit records of the day as part of his musical CV, -April in Paris.

But there was more - much more - to a Count Basie concert than April in Paris. Since the formation of his new band, Basie had also enlisted some of the best composers and arrangers around, all of which added up to an unequalled, relaxed precision and control of the new ensemble's exciting dynamics. These names included Thad Jones, Quincy Jones, Benny Carter and perhaps the most prolific of them all, Neal Hefti.

Evidence of the new band's prowess was reflected in the sales of the many albums that were produced. Two especially, The Atomic Mr Basie and The Chairman of the Board helped to illustrate just how much Basie's new line-up (both on and off stage) had grabbed the imagination and attentions of the swing-loving public; as a result, both albums hit the top of the charts. At a later date these aforementioned albums were reissued in a single, double-format release as The Atomic Mr Chairman. Once again this winning formula reached the pinnacle of the LP charts.

As in most of his UK concerts, great emphasis was placed not only on Basie's highly personal, laconic and blues-oriented style as a formidable jazz pianist, which sometimes bordered on laziness, but on the output of the band's rhythm section. This supported the interplay of brass and reeds, and served as a backdrop for the unfolding of solos - all of which Basie was able to firmly control from the keyboard.

Interesting, too, was the musical programme which Basie had formulated for the tour. For most of the numbers revolved around the release of the two albums, which served to give them a timely and well-deserved plug, while at the same time illuminating the expertise of Thad Jones, with scores such as The Deacon, Mutt and Jeff and Speaking of Sounds. But more than that it helped to underline the invaluable contributions which Neal Hefti made to the Basie organisation, by way of his arrangements and compositions, during that particular period. Evidence of this was well to the fore with such numbers as Splanky, Whirly Bird, The Kid From Red Bank, Flight of the Foo Birds, Fantail, Midnight Blue and Li '1 Darling.

There are those who have later said that on that particular tour Basie could easily have got away with playing a whole programme of Jones and Hefti numbers, with no-one probably batting an eyelid. More to the point, there are also those who maintain that with the odd exception, such as April in Paris, that's exactly what he did do! But the 'Count' was indeed a wily old bird, for when you threw in the immense talents of the powerful blues singer Joe Williams, you realised that there was much more to Basie's outfit than met the eye. Between them, Basie and Williams added a whole new dimension to the ensemble, and they reshaped the role of the big band singer without sacrificing their innate taste and musical imagination.

Although Count Basie died in April 1984, at the age of 79, his musical library containing all those classic Jones and Hefti scores has been lovingly protected over the years since his death.

Although since the band's halcyon days there has inevitably been many personnel changes, it's interesting to note that when the band came to this country three years ago, apart from Mitchell it contained five other members who had played under the sadly-departed 'Count'. These were drummer Butch Miles, who took over from Sonny Payne, trombonists Clarence Banks and Bill Hughes, tenor-saxist Kenny Hing and baritone-saxist John Williams. For reasons which are self-explanatory, and even after all these years, the sounds and the music of Count Basie will forever be around. Just as on April in Paris, those immortal words, 'one more time' will always serve to remind us of one of the truly great swing bands of the century.

Top of page

Valaida Snow

By Barry McCanna.

Many centuries ago Juvenal wrote "Travel light and you can sing in the robber’s face", a saying Valaida would have done well to take to heart. She travelled extensively, and as a result was as well known in Europe and the Far East as she was in America. She also sang, danced and played several instruments, chief amongst them the trumpet. Before we go any further, we need to start at the very beginning, but exactly when that was is in doubt.

It seems clear that her birthday was the 2^nd 0f June, but which year? There are varying dates on record (1900, 1901, 1903, 1905 and 1907) but she is supposed to have left high school in 1920. Her African American mother Etta was an accomplished musician who had been educated at Howard University, Washington DC. That city has been claimed as Valaida’s place of birth, but it vies with Chattanooga, Tennessee, which has the edge. According to Valaida her father John V. Snow was white, and that seems borne out by her features which displayed the stunning beauty typical of a mixed race. She had several younger brothers and sisters, the closest in age being Alvaida and Lavaida. Here again there is some confusion, it having been assumed that both were girls, but more recently reference has been made to Alvaida as a boy.

Her mother was an entertainer and music teacher, who taught her daughter to play a number of instruments, but the trumpet won out over the more ladylike choices of piano, violin or harp. Her father had showbiz connections, and at an early age Valaida and Alvaida were part of the vaudeville act "Snow’s Gold Dust Twins", which raises the question of whether they actually were. It’s even possible – given the anagrammatic nature of their names – that the three eldest were triplets, but that is mere speculation on my part. In her late teens, Valaida appeared in vaudeville as part of Gonzelle White’s team. In 1919, whilst on tour, she married dancer Nappy Brown (which sits oddly with her reported year of graduation) and during 1920 her act could be seen in Philadelphia and Atlantic City.

She was part of Will Mastin’s troupe in 1922 for the revue Holiday In Dixieland, and later that year joined Barron Wilkins’ popular Harlem cabaret. In 1923 she was back on stage, first in a revival of a musical farce called The Man From ‘Bam, then in a revue called Ramblin’ Around, of which Blanche Calloway was the star. Follow Me, starring Mamie Smith, opened at the Lafayette Theatre in late 1923, and Valaida was in the cast when the show went on tour. In 1924 she was featured in the Noble Sissle and Eubie Blake show Chocolate Dandies which toured for six months before opening on Broadway in September. Elisabeth Welch was in the cast, and Josephine Baker and Lena Horne were in the chorus.

Following an unsuccessful audition for Lew Leslie’s Blackbirds of 1926, Valaida presented herself again during its London run and was then taken on as understudy to Florence Mills. However, she turned down the opportunity of taking over the role when Florence quit. The reason was that she had the chance to front Jack Carter’s band which was set to tour the Far East, and this she did for the next two years. Carter was a drummer who subsequently played with Noble Sissle, and at some stage he married Lavaida, thereby becoming Valaida’s brother-in-law.

It was probably on this extended tour that Valaida polished her routine. She would be featured singing with the band, then she would play trumpet and finally she would perform a dance routine, which entailed several changes of shoes, each dance being appropriate to the footwear. Paradoxically, it seems to have been that versatility which held her back. Reminiscing about her, Mary Lou Williams wrote "She was hitting those high C’s just like Louis Armstrong. She would have been a great trumpet player if she had dropped the singing (and by implication the dancing) and concentrated on the trumpet."

Valaida returned to the USA in 1929, where she worked in Chicago with Earl Hines at the Sunset Café (she recorded the song "Maybe I’m To Blame" with him in February 1933), then appeared at the Apollo in Harlem. However, the effects of the Great Depression were making themselves felt and before the year was out she had returned to Europe. According to the Chicago Defender she played Paris and Russia with Louis Douglas and his Black Flowers revue, but that is contradicted by other reports that the Paris show was Lew Leslie’s Blackbirds and the Eastern European tour was with the show Louisiana. Those reports are not necessarily incompatible, since she could have set off with Louis Douglas and switched en route, particularly given her earlier association with Lew Leslie.

On her return to America in 1930 she participated in a short-lived revival of Shuffle Along, then co-starred with Ethel Waters in Lew Leslie’s revue Rhapsody in Black, but despite the star-studded cast, including the three Berry Brothers, the show did not break even. As a result the two stars were subjected to Leslie’s machinations, which were aimed at persuading one of them to quit. Neither would budge but Waters took a cut, after which the show began to show a profit. According to a contemporary report, in mid-September 1931 Valaida tried to commit suicide by drinking iodine, but within three weeks she had rejoined the show.

Three months later she married Ananias "Nyas" Berry, who at 19 was some years her junior. He was an integral part of the Berry Brothers’ act, but the newly-weds set up their own act, which did not endear them to Mr. Berry Senior. Matters were complicated further because her first husband claimed (allegedly with some encouragement from her new father-in-law) that they had not been divorced. Initially she was able to fend off the charge, and a New York court acquitted her in late 1933, but in March 1934 a court in Pennsylvania found her guilty, although she avoided imprisonment. Just to back-track a little, in October 1932 she recorded under the aegis of the Washboard Rhythm Kings, standing in for Taft Jordan on six numbers for Vocalion.

If things were difficult in her private life (her mother had died in September 1933), professionally she was riding high. The cabaret pianist and singer Bobby Short recalled that she "travelled in an orchid-coloured Mercedes-Benz, dressed in an orchid suit, her pet monkey rigged out in an orchid jacket and cap, with the chauffeur in orchid as well". Together with her two siblings, she and Nyas starred in the Grand Terrace revue, fronting their 12-piece Sepia Syncopaters. In the summer of 1934 Lew Leslie arranged for her to star in Blackbirds of 1934, which opened at the London Coliseum on 25^th August, and was such a successful production that its run was extended in December by the simple expedient of changing 1934 to 1935. At the beginning of March the show went on tour to Manchester, Glasgow, Edinburgh and Streatham.

Just prior to that she made the first recordings under her own name, cutting ten sides with Billy Mason & his Orchestra, of which eight were released on the Parlophone label. One was her own composition Imagination, but the seller seems to have been I Can’t Dance (I’ve Got Ants In My Pants) which was coupled with I Wish I Were Twins. On 11^th May the cast left Liverpool bound for New York City, and on her return she appeared first in Manhattan, at the Club Ubangi, then at the Club Delissa in Chicago. She also visited Los Angeles, where she and Nyas took part in two film shorts, Take It From Me and Irresistible You. However, all was not well in their marriage and in 1936 they divorced, doubtless to the great relief of the two other Berry Brothers, whose act Nyas rejoined.

Valaida returned to Europe, and sometime during 1936 appeared in a French movie called L’Alibi. By September 1936 she was again in London, where she recorded a further ten sides for Parlophone, accompanied by the Six Swingers, albeit they were uncredited on the label. A further three of her own compositions were included, namely High Hat, Trumpet And Rhythm, I Want A Lot Of Love and Take Care Of You For Me.

According to an article in Storyville by Derek Neville, a band was assembled in London by John Pillitz for a Continental tour, probably in early 1937. It included Johnny Claes on cornet and Reg Dare on tenor sax, Derek being summoned at short notice as replacement on alto after they had opened at the Tabaris Club in The Hague. He recalled that she was an exceptionally good show-biz personality. He wrote "She had a very good voice and was a superb trumpet player; just a little slip of a girl, yet the volume of sound she could get out of a trumpet was fantastic, she had a real Armstrong style". Amongst the audience at the Tabaris was Coleman Hawkins.

In May 1937 they moved on to a four-week booking at the Sihlporte in Zurich, were lavishly toasted at the local Hot Club, and retained for a further two weeks. She returned to London in July 1937 and recorded her last twelve sides for Parlophone, with swing accompaniment provided by virtually the same musicians with whom she had toured, before crossing back to the Eden Bar in Vienna. In March 1938 she returned to America, but although she found work in New York and Chicago she was still footloose. June 1939 found her back in Europe, where she again put in a film appearance with "Pièges" (also released as "Snares"). Europe was now in turmoil, but despite being warned of the dangers, and urged to return to the USA, she headed north from Paris in her Mercedes, and finished up in Denmark.

At which point it becomes extremely difficult to separate the facts from the myth that has grown up around her arrest during the Nazi occupation. At its most extreme, legend has it that she was charged with theft, the possession of drugs, spying and playing decadent music, confined in a concentration camp for anything up to three years, suffered starvation and torture, and weighed only 68 pounds and bore many scars at the time of her release. Let us examine the facts. According to Rust, she was in Stockholm at the end of August 1939, where she recorded four sides with Lulle Ellboj’s Orchestra for the Sonora label. Miss Valaida (as she was then styled) cut six sides in Copenhagen during 1940, all for the Tono label. Four were with Winstrup Olesen’s Swingband in July, the other two with "Matadorerne" (The Matadors?) in October. The Germans occupied Denmark in April 1940, which was a tactical manoeuvre designed to forestall the Allies’ use of that country as a base for operations, rather than a hostile invasion.

In other words, for at least six months after the Germans had occupied Denmark, Valaida remained at liberty, which runs counter to the received wisdom. I suspect that this situation would have continued but for the fact that in December 1941 America entered the war against Germany, at which point Valaida’s status would have changed from being a citizen of a neutral country to that of an enemy alien. That would be entirely consistent with internment, just as innocent Germans and Italians were interned in Britain during the period of the conflict. The fact that she was imprisoned in Copenhagen rules out a concentration camp because these were located further east. It seems more likely that it was a POW camp, because she is supposed to have been repatriated as part of an exchange deal for German POWs.

If that was the case, then what gave rise to the rumours, and how explain the condition in which she was repatriated? I’ve come to the conclusion that Valaida’s release handed the Americans too good a propaganda weapon for them to pass up. She herself had nothing to thank the Nazis for, not least because all her jewellery, costumes, car and other valuables had been confiscated by them. Thus there was no reason for her not to co-operate in the claim, given also that the publicity generated was certainly helpful to her career. The public had only her word to go on, and who in that climate would have dared challenge it? As to the matter of her weight, she was only five feet tall and extremely slender, and someone so diminutive in stature would not have weighed very much to begin with.

That is not to say that her health did not suffer in consequence; indeed, she is reputed to have spent six months in a sanatorium recovering. The Chicago Defender reported that she reappeared first on 24^th April 1943, fronting a band at the Apollo Theatre. Thus it seems logical to conclude that her internment lasted for about ten months, from December 1941 to October 1942. In 1945 she recorded with the Buzz Adlam Orchestra and the session was reissued on Gold Star 5657. During 1946 she toured the USA and Canada, and on 7^th February 1948 she appeared on Paul Whiteman’s radio show "On Stage America". In 1950 she recorded with Jimmy Mundy, the result being issued on Halo LP-50280.

Sometime after her repatriation she had married producer Earle Edwards, and they settled in New York City where she based her work, alternating with the Catskills during the summer season. In 1965, to mark its return to a vaudeville policy, she was booked into the Palace Theatre, New York for the first week in May. After the final show she suffered a cerebral haemorrhage, and died in hospital on 30^th May 1956.

The thirty sides which Valaida recorded for Parlophone between 1935 and 1937 were reissued by EMI in 1979 on two World Records label LPs, SH 309 (High Hat, Trumpet and Rhythm) and SH 354 (Swing Is The Thing). I can’t help feeling that a CD release is long overdue.

© BMC May 2005

"A singer whose voice over the air or on the records is heard by millions – but whose personality is known to few." These are the words that introduced a Pathé film clip in 1935. And I believe it is an accurate assessment of the career of Jack Plant, the singer featured in the film. If you possess 78rpms of the English dance bands, you are certain to have encountered this vocalist with almost perfect diction on records by top West End bands including Roy Fox, Ray Noble, Savoy Hotel Orpheans, Jack Hylton, Sydney Lipton, Teddy Joyce, Hal Swain plus less famous or local bands such as those led by Bertini, Harry Bidgood, Howard Godfrey, Tommy Kinsman and many others. However, frequently his name is not given label credit, or if it is, it would be a pseudonym.

Although he did not make as many records as Sam Browne he almost certainly would be in the top ten of British vocalists of the 1930s. Bandleader Sydney Kyte was another to record the voice of Jack Plant with his band and later recalled in an interview that Jack was a quiet unassuming man but lacking in personality. Perhaps this may explain why he never made to the top with a regular long-lasting engagement with a West End band. He seems only to have stayed a matter of months with each band he joined. Maybe he was a shy man, not very ambitious and certainly never got the attention from the musical press accorded to his "rivals" such as Al Bowlly and Sam Browne. It has been estimated that he made around 1,000 recordings, which does put him on a par with Al Bowlly. I have heard Jack Plant singing on a number of records but I had not previously realised how prolific his output was. But the more I hear him, the more I consider he had his own charm and style.

Jack Plant was born in Partington, near Manchester on 26^th August 1896 and began his working life as a clerk with Co-operative Wholesale Society salt works in Irlam. His first singing of note was as a member of the choir at the Congregational Church in Partington. Jack was called up in 1914 and served in the newly-formed Tank Corps and spent three-and-a-half years in France. It was whilst in the army that he began to sing entertaining fellow servicemen in Concert Parties.

Following the war, Jack re-joined the CWS and also became a member of the Manchester Bloom Street Choir and even appeared in an Eisteddfod near Pontypridd in the Rhonda Valley where he won a prize. Ivor Novello’s mother exclaimed" What a beautiful voice". Jack managed to get an introduction to Webster Miller, a leading tenor at the Beecham Opera House, who brought him to London and gave him singing lessons, whilst his secretary trained him in elocution. However, his voice did not develop as expected and as it was not considered strong enough for grand opera so he took up chorus work and toured with musical comedy companies up to 1928. He appeared in many musical comedies such as The Beggar’s Opera.

Around this time renowned singer Maurice Elwin was beginning to become well-known with the bandleaders in London and introduced Jack to the world of the dance bands. He must have made a good impression because in late 1929, having apparently abandoned an operatic career, he was singing with the Savoy Orpheans with whom he was to become resident vocalist. He appears on a number of the band’s records, even duetting with Jessie Matthews on a 12 inch 78rpm, The Cat And The Fiddle selection (Columbia DX348). Jack also broadcast with Carroll Gibbons from the Savoy Hotel in London.

In 1930 he was hired by Jack Hylton to supplement his regular vocalist Pat O’Malley, although he was never a regular member of the band. The first record Jack made with Hylton was Far Away which dates from February 1930. Jack appeared with Jack Hylton at the London Palladium. During the early 1930s, Jack Plant recorded with both these bands. In fact, he took part in the historic Hylton live broadcast to America on 15^th December 1931. Jack sang the opening number, a concert arrangement of My Sunshine Is You.

During 1930, Jack Plant was being engaged by Ray Noble regularly to sing with his New Mayfair Dance Orchestra. In one notable recording session Ray Noble booked him to record his own composition I’ll Be Good Because Of You. A classic recording. An observer at the time could be forgiven for thinking that Jack was going to become Ray’s regular singer. But Ray had used another singer a couple of times by then and by February 1931 this other singer had become Ray’s regular vocalist virtually excluding Jack. The other singer, by the way, was until shortly before an out-of work vocalist named Al Bowlly.

When Lew Stone took over the Monseigneur Dance Band from Roy Fox, the latter had to form an almost entirely new band for his new contract with the Café Anglais in Leicester Square. Roy had met Jack in a club and remembering him from his Savoy Hotel days hired him as vocalist. Jack Plant sang on most of Roy’s records from October 1932 to the end of 1933 when Denny Dennis joined the band. Jack appeared with the Fox band in concerts in Holland and back home at the Palladium. Among the titles recorded by Jack with the Fox band were Love Me Tonight, My Romance, Please, Here Lies Love and Isn’t It Romantic.

Jack’s next engagement was with Canadian Teddy Joyce’s band which he joined in September 1934 and sang on most of Joyce’s records for the rest of that year. By January 1935, Eric Whitley had taken the vocalist’s role. However, this was not before Jack had made some fine records with the orchestra including Then I’ll Be Tired Of You, Lost In A Fog, I Never Slept A Wink Last Night and London On A Rainy Night.

From January to July 1935 Jack Plant was the principal vocalist with Sydney Kyte and his Piccadilly Hotel band. Jack went on tour with Kyte. A number of records were made for the Panachord label and today these are in the main rare collectors’ items. If you are lucky enough to hear any of them, good examples of Jack’s singing can be heard on such titles as Stars Fell On Alabama, Dancing With My Shadow and The Oregon Trail.

During the 1930s, Jack could be heard with many bandleaders with whom he sung on records in a free-lance capacity. But he also recorded prolifically as a soloist on the more obscure labels, mostly using pseudonyms. Jack himself reckoned that he made nearly 400 records as a soloist. He recorded as Jack Gordon on Imperial and some of his 1930/31 sides for this label include: Dream Lover/You're Always In My Arms, What Have I Done, Meet Me In My Dreams Tonight, Horatio Nicholls Gypsy Melody, Say A Little Prayer For Me, Ma Cherie, Heartaches, Faithfully Yours, Vienna City Of My Dreams, Time Alone Will Tell, Sally and Kiss Me Goodnight, Not Goodbye. It should be noted that not all records on Imperial shown as by Jack Gordon are by Jack Plant. Some are by Val Rosing or Billy Scott-Coomber! One wonders what the record-buying public thought – or indeed, whether they even noticed! One interesting record on this label is Imperial Revels Parts 1 and 2 (Imperial 2359). This features many artistes and they all signed the 'wax', including Elsie Carlisle, Wag Abbey, Len Fillis and others including Jack. On the record Jack is introduced as Jack Gordon, and in the 'wax' he signed his name as Jack Gordon.

On Eclipse he recorded as Carol Porter. Some 1931/32 sides include: I Surrender Dear/Rose Of Old Japan, Lonesome, For You, Just A Song Called Home Sweet Home, Would You Take Me Back Again, Dreamy Egypt/Gipsey (sic) Moon, and This Love In My Heart For You, While We Danced At The Mardi Gras.

On Victory, Jack seems to have started in 1930 as Don Davies, examples including Dream Mother and When The Organ Played At Twilight. He then becomes G. Jack, and recorded among others Will The Angels Play Their Harps For Me, Molly, Two Dark Red Roses, After Your Kiss, Meet Me In My Dreams Tonight and Happy Days Are Here Again.

Other pseudonyms he used were G Jack, Vernon Wallace, Al Terry, Percy Clifford, Albert Carr, Don Davis and the Velvet Voice. He also supplied the vocal refrain for many accordion band records. Most of Jack’s records were made using an assumed name or as a un-named singer with a band. But on Columbia, Jack Plant did record under his own name in the early 1930s with piano accompaniments by Arthur Young, or Harry S. Pepper and sometimes with an orchestra conducted by Len Fillis. Among the titles he recorded were Absence Makes The Heart Grow Fonder, My Heart Belongs To The Girl Who Loves Somebody Else, When You Were My Sweetheart, You Were The Kid Next Door, Underneath The Lover's Moon, I Surrender Dear, It Must Be True, Just Two Hearts and Lovely Lady.

In the 1933/34 period American organist Jesse Crawford made a number of records in London on HMV and Jack Plant provided the vocal refrain on 6 of them, the titles being My Love Song, The Old Spinning Wheel, Drifting Down The Shalimar, Hold Me, Friends Once More United and In The Valley Of The Moon. An interesting aside, these recordings were made at the console of the Empire Wurlitzer in Leicester Square. Jesse Crawford was uncomfortable when the HMV engineers hooked up one small microphone to record the Empire organ. In fact, he protested. Victor Record engineers in the United States had told him that large theatres simply swallowed up the sound. The HMV engineers assured him that one microphone would be adequate. The results bore them out. Sound recording in England was clearly more advanced than in America! The first of these records revealed this, and Crawford was extremely pleased. Jack also recorded with other famous organists including Reginald Foort and Sandy McPherson.

Also in 1934, we find Jack’s solo records on Decca, among the titles recorded were Wagon Wheels, Beside My Caravan, Ol' Pappy and Let's Fall In Love.

Jack also recorded as vocalist with what might be called "light orchestras", rather than dance bands, for example the Splendide Hawaiian Quartette and The New Mayfair Orchestra both conducted by Ray Noble; the Columbia Light Opera Company and Alfredo and his Orchestra. In 1938 he was accompanied by Felix Mendelssohn and his Orchestra on Decca F6832 which was their second "Singers on Parade" release. On this Jack sings Time And Time Again .

Pathé filmed Jack Plant in 1935 in their series Pathé Pictorial. Dressed in black tie and dinner jacket, Jack stands before a microphone on a set made to look like a radio studio. He sings The Isle of Capri accompanied by piano and Hawaiian style guitar played on the lap. Jack is interrupted by a radio announcer (also in black tie and dinner jacket) who says they have a few minutes until they go on air. He asks Jack how many times he has broadcast and Jack replies he has lost count. When asked which bands he has sung with he says "Nearly all the leading broadcasting bands". Asked which is his favourite number, he says The Isle Of Capri and sings the refrain. The announcer says "Quiet boys" then steps up to the microphone. He announces Jack, who then sings What A Difference A Day Makes.

Jack also appears on two Mantovani Pathétone shorts made in 1939. Jack is featured with Stella Roberta in both and sings Violin In Vienna and Hear My Song, Violetta. Having viewed all these films, I think Sydney Kyte was being a little unkind when he saw Jack as lacking in personality. In these films at least, Jack comes over as an accomplished and relaxed performer.

By 1939, Jack was Mantovani’s regular vocalist making records and personal appearances with the orchestra. In 1939 Billy Butlin booked Mantovani for the Summer Season alternating between the holiday camps at Clacton-on-Sea and Skegness. Jack Plant shared the vocalist’s duties with Mantovani’s sister Stella Roberta.

In 1942, Jack joined Henry Hall’s orchestra with which he had previously recorded and stayed for a short period. With Henry, Jack could be found entertaining the troops including an ENSA tour and broadcasting on the Forces Programme from places like Wrexham and Bristol. Worthy of note was that on one such broadcast on 5^th February 1942, one of Jack’s songs was Some Chicken, Some Neck. The story behind this song was that Winston Churchill addressed the Canadian Parliament in Ottawa and mentioned that the French generals had prophesied that Britain would get its neck rung like a chicken. Back in Britain, an enterprising songwriter got to work and the song was quite popular for a few weeks, although it was never recorded.

Among his other more notable engagements around this time was a broadcast as guest singer with Ambrose And His Orchestra from the Regent Cinema, Marble Arch. He sung Humpty Dumpty Heart on this broadcast.

Post war he broadcast regularly into the 1950s. His professional career ended around 1960 following a broadcast in Henry Hall’s Guest Night and an appearance in Variety Bandbox with Frankie Howerd and Derek Roy. His last broadcast was as a pianist duetting with Billy Mayerl. Not many people knew that he was a talented pianist although he seldom played in public.

In retirement he used to entertain the other pensioners in the Evelyn Norris House, just off the sea front in Worthing, a Harmony Trust Home for retired show-biz folk where he lived for the last three years of his life. Memory Lane correspondent Doug Wilkins visited him there. Doug recalls "It was infuriating. Several times I tackled him, trying to discover details of his earlier life – but to no avail. His memory was very poor and he constantly "drifted" away from anything I asked him. However, his last few years were happy and enjoyed in reasonable health up until his final illness. He was overjoyed that people still remembered him, although he had previously suffered a period of hardship and even despair including a broken leg which failed to heal properly making walking difficult. He did marry and I believe to a Roman Catholic. (I also believe he, himself, was half Jewish.) Jack had one son who came from Nottingham. As far as I know, the cause of death was heart attack whilst in Southlands Hospital, Shoreham-by-Sea. I was present when it happened. During the last couple of years of Jack’s life, I got to know him quite well, entertaining him at home and the occasional visit to the local pub. Jack did manage to recall that he had recorded a series for Radio Nottingham about his life under the title Music From The Thirties but I do not know if they were ever broadcast."

Doug Wilkins unearthed a tape of a talk Jack gave in 1972. On the tape inlay card it mentions that it was recorded at Penlee House, although Doug is unable to say where that is. Jack gives a rather sketchy outline of his career but says nothing of his family life. It was always his ambition to make records, he recalls and ends up by saying that he broke his leg in 1958 which finished his career.

Jack died on Tuesday, 21st August 1973, having been hospitalised as an emergency a week earlier. The funeral took place on 24^th August 1973 at the Downs Crematorium in nearby Brighton. Doug Wilkins recalls that there were not many mourners present and the floral tributes were small in number. A full obituary appeared in the local newspaper, but the only nationals to report it were the Evening Standard and the Daily Telegraph which both gave Jack just minimal coverage.

Jack Plant was a small man, always neat and well dressed, with a voice which has been described as "plaintiff". One can detect his "operatic" background quite easily. Chris Hayes recalled "he never earned what he deserved, because he didn’t ask the fees to which he was entitled with his enormous versatility and soft warm voice." Jack had a great love of life , of nature and birds. As a young man he was a good athlete, able to run 100 yards in 10.2 seconds and an excellent sportsman; in 1920 he actually had a trial for Manchester United!

I would like to thank Terry Brown and John Wright for most of the discographical information in this article. Most of the biographical material came from the previous short pieces in previous issues of Memory Lanes, Chris Hayes’ book Voices In The Air and from Doug Wilkins and Peter Bone. Gordon Howsden supplied the younger photograph of Jack, Doug Wilkins the one of Jack as an older man.

It is a fact that some bandleaders donned the mantle of a more flamboyant personality by means of their music. Geraldo and Felix Mendelssohn are obvious examples, but with Roberto Inglez what began as a simple name embellishment went on to embrace the South American lifestyle.

His real name was Robert Inglis, and he was born at Elgin, Morayshire on 29^th June 1913. He displayed early proficiency on the piano, and by the age of 15 was leading his own dance band, reputedly earning £10 a week in the process. It was hardly surprising therefore that music won out over attempts to point him towards a career as a dental technician. By the mid-thirties he was leading a semi-pro five piece band which supplied the music for dancing at a roadhouse called The Oakwood, two miles out of Elgin on the Inverness road. In 1935 they won the Melody Maker Dance Band competition for the North East of Scotland, and he took the prize for best musician. His band were called the Melodymakers, which title may well have originated from their triumph. It seems also to have encouraged him to head south, leaving the band in the lurch – minus not only pianist but also transport.

In 1937, studying at the Royal Academy of Music, he met Edmundo Ros, then newly arrived in England. Subsequently Ros joined Don Marino Barreto’s Cuban Orchestra, and when he left to form his own outfit he recruited Bertie (as he was then known) as the pianist. Edmundo suggested that being the only British player in the group, he should adopt a Spanish persona by the simple expedient of adding one letter and altering two others. Ros opened on 8^th August 1940 at the Cosmo Club in Wardour Street, but his music proved such a draw that the audience outgrew those premises. He relocated to the nearby St. Regis Club, but that was soon demolished by a German bomb, so the band kept moving!

Roberto was ambitious, and within a relatively short space of time he left to form his own small group, somewhat to Edmundo’s consternation. In early 1944 he was involved with Paul Adam (a well-known society bandleader) in taking over at the Milroy Club while Harry Roy took his own band off on an extended tour. According to the Radio Times, in 1945 he was playing at the Berkeley Hotel, part of the Savoy chain. The band began broadcasting regularly on the BBC, and in 1946 he secured a residency at the Savoy Hotel itself, which was the domain of that doyen of the keyboard, Carroll Gibbons.

He began recording in late 1945, using an augmented line-up, and his records were issued in England by Parlophone, and on the associated Odeon label in Spain and South America. Overseas sales figures were sensational (one release was said to have sold 10,000 per day) thereby confirming the authenticity of his interpretation of the Latin-American idiom. Not that he was confined to it, and in 1950 he accompanied Steve Conway on six sides that were recorded for Columbia.

"The Melody Maker" was a composition written by Noel Gay, and it was the natural sobriquet for Roberto Inglez, who subsequently adopted it as his signature tune. In August 1952 the Melody Maker magazine informed its readers that following repeated approaches from a Brazilian impresario, Roberto Inglez had agreed to visit that country and lead a 30-piece local orchestra. The fact that he would receive a net fee of £1,000 per week net of Brazilian tax and expenses seems to have clinched the deal. The tour began on September 11^th, and they played for four weeks in Rio at the Casablanca nightclub, followed by two weeks at the Hotel Lord in San Paulo, with broadcasts from both venues by the local radio stations.

That trip was a resounding success, and he returned to England in triumph. Later that year one of Brazil’s most popular female singers, Dalva de Oliviera, came to London and undertook a two-week engagement at the Savoy, backed by his band. They also recorded seventeen titles together, thirteen of which were released in Brazil, including the Christmas song "Noite de Natal" (Silent Night).

Given that he seemed at the peak of his career, there was something of a mystery about his abrupt decision to sever his connection with the Savoy Hotel in early 1954. Carroll Gibbons was ill at the time and he died in May, added to which there were problems with the Musicians Union. The deciding factor was probably rather more personal, because he had met and married Patricia Palma, a Chilean who worked at the American Embassy in London. In any case, it was to her home country that they emigrated in March 1954.

There he styled himself as Roberto Inglez y sua Orchestra Romanza, and featured a vocal sextette known as the Choro Brasileirinho. He broadcast regularly and toured the sub-continent, but did very little more in the way of recording. He also undertook a year-long tour of the USA, which included an engagement at New York’s Waldorf-Astoria Hotel (whose resident bandleader for many years was Xavier Cugat) and gave a concert at the Pasapoga Hall in Madrid in 1956.

Roberto Inglez believed that the Scots had a natural affinity with Latin-American rhythms. That may well be because many of the crews of the defeated Spanish Armada were shipwrecked on the north-west coast of Scotland after Philip the Second’s fleet was scattered in the English Channel in 1588. Certainly his dark good looks could well have attested to a Latin ancestry. If so, he found his roots both in the music he produced and in his choice of Santiago as his home, where he died on 4^th September 1978.

Vocalion have produced two CDs devoted to Roberto Inglez; the first is entitled "Come Closer To Me" (CDEA 6062) and the second, from the liner notes for which this article has been adapted, is called "The Melody Maker" (CDEA 6095).

Top of page

Rex Owen, the well-known dance band musician is profiled here for Memory Lane by his daughter June

My father Rex Owen was born in Canning Town, East London in 1905. He was an only child. His mother wanted him correctly brought up and he went to work in a bon-bon (i.e. Christmas crackers) factory for extra money needed for education and music lessons. Rex learned to play the piano from the age of 5 and his mother made him practice for half an hour each day,

His parents were educated in school locally in Canning Town and surprisingly both learned to read and write beautifully. His father’s writing was "Copperplate" as they called it in those days and he became a printer.

Before Rex started school the family moved to East Ham and rented a house near Goosely Park by the side of the Southend Road. Rex was educated at the local school in Vicarage Lane, and later went on to Technical College. His mother wanted him to be an engineer and apprenticed him to a firm in Stanford- le-Hope in Essex. But Rex hated this.

In his teens he decided he wanted to be a musician and went to Holland. I believe he started to play the saxophone there. He came back to England and started to play with bands all over the British Isles, as he became well known.

It was in large restaurant in Cardiff while performing on stage in a small band, that he met my mother Kathleen Williams. She was a waitress. They were married in 1929, bought a semi-detached house not far from his parents, nearer Goosely Park. They had two children, Myself June born in 1930 and in 1931 my brother Barry.

In1933 the family moved to North West London and bought a house from George Scott Ward, the well-known musician of that time. They lived in the same road as Charlie Kunz the pianist who had a wife and two sons.

Around this time my father joined Roy Fox and his band. Roy and his wife came to partied held at the house hosted by Kitty and Rex. Other guests were Al Bowlly, Denny Dennis, Peggy Dell, Hughie Tripp, Bill Apse and many others.

Rex toured the country with Roy’s band and played soprano sax, alto, tenor and baritone as well as the clarinet. Rex also sang did comedy sketches. They made many records.

Rex did write for a magazine and advertised the saxophone.

In 1939 he wanted to join the forces but was unable to do so because of stomach ulcers. He also could not join ENSA because of this. However he continued to work in the West End during the war, through all the air raids, doodlebugs and rockets. Nothing put him off.

Rex played with the well known bands – Geraldo, Ted Heath, Ambrose and others. He did recordings with Ann Shelton, Dorothy Squires and Vera Lynn. He did film music with Jessie Matthews, George Formby, Will Hay and Kitty McShane with Old Mother Riley.

I remember on one record Rex sang The Hawaiian War Chant. This fascinated my brother Barry and I and I thought it was a strange language. Dad, for want of an explanation, said it was "scat" which was popular at the time. However we never really knew how they managed it.

Towards the end of the war my father joined Carroll Gibbons at the Savoy Hotel in London. At the time I was at boarding school in Golders Green. We used to socialise with the musicians in the band and had some good times with their families.

I can remember one time going with my father to a BBC broadcast when he played the baritone sax with Fred Elizalde. It was mostly 20’s jazz.

Around 1947 the family went to a broadcast of Take It From Here. I believe Charlie Shadwell did the music. Jay Nichols, Dick Bentley and Jimmy Edwards did the show. My father played alto sax and clarinet.

In the late 40’s Rex developed a serious skin problem, similar to Dennis Potter as was portrayed in the TV presentation The Singing Detective. This was how it affected him.

He became restricted in the work that he could do. He started his own band in a Piccadilly club but when his skin was bad he was unable to appear on stage. It was this that decided Rex and Kitty to buy a small hotel in Brighton. He did a few small gigs in there. However the skin problem became worse, so he had to give up. His lips became dry and cracked as well as his hands. It was impossible to play anymore. Specialists were unable to offer a cure or even find the cause.

In 1976 he decided to move to Swindon to be near my family and me. He bought a bungalow and enjoyed woodwork and gardening He socialised with musicians in Swindon and he was delighted when Harry Gold and his Band came to the Art Centre. My dad was invited to go on stage where he was introduced to the audience and received a standing ovation. He was quite shocked.

Sadly he died suddenly in 1985, his wife Kitty in 1988.

Of all the distinctive musical sounds which emanated from the 1960s, none can be more so described than that associated with the orchestra of the late Bert Kaempfert. As connoisseurs of good music will readily testify, it was one of those rare, compulsive and instantly-recognisable sounds, with its main emphasis being on a swinging beat and underscored by an air of rich quality, plus many shades and facets - all of which had the mark of the Hamburg-born master stamped all over them.

Records by Bert Kaempfert, who tragically died in 1980 at the age of 56, sold in their millions: Bye, Bye Blues, Wonderland By Night, Snowbird and Swingin' Safari were merely the tip of his orchestra's iceberg, while his prowess as a songwriter saw him pen L-O-V-E for Nat King Cole and Wooden Heart for Elvis Presley, while Spanish Eyes and Strangers In the Night proved to be the biggest hits that A1 Martino and Frank Sinatra respectively recorded.

It doesn't end there either, for artists of the calibre of Peggy Lee, Ella Fitzgerald, Shirley Bassey and Vic Damone all benefited by recording his songs. To add a further string to his bow - and despite the claims of about a hundred others in the music business - it was Kaempfert who first discovered the talents of the Beatles, when they were working in a rather downbeat club in Hamburg called the Top Ten.

After his death it appeared that eventually the famous Kaempfert sound would fade away to become just another musical memory, to be heard intermittently. But in 1993, Tony Fisher, one of this country's most respected and experienced musicians, who was Kaempfert's former lead trumpet throughout the 1970s, teamed up with Bert's daughter Marion, a record producer. Their liaison led to a new musical era.

Between them they recovered Kaempfert's priceless arrangements from their safe hiding place, blew away the dust and the cobwebs and then set about assembling a new orchestra. Their partnership proved to be a success from the start: Marion for her foresight in bringing her father's original sound back to life, and Tony for his powers of persuasion in getting her to agree to what was his idea in the first place.

But then it's difficult to imagine any musician, other than Tony Fisher, who would have dared to suggest a relaunch of the orchestra at a time which coincided with Kaempfert being posthumously inducted into the world-renowned Songwriters Hall of Fame. Taking on the prime role of keeping the sound of Bert Kaempfert alive, Tony said at the time: 'In my 30 years' experience, playing in almost every orchestra in England - and indeed Europe - I thought it tragic that all that high-quality music was left unheard or performed. So I got together with the Kaempfert family and we jointly decided to relaunch the whole thing.'

In so doing, he proved to be the ideal man for the job of reforming the Kaempfert orchestra, which comprises 24 of Britain's finest musicians, plus singers. To further underline his credentials, Fisher has, during his extensive career, played in the bands of, among others, Oscar Rabin, Eric Delaney, Ken Mackintosh and the great Ted Heath. Tony is also the regular lead trumpet in the Don Lusher Big Band, and can frequently be seen in Laurie Holloway's studio band on the BBC's Parkinson show. He has also done extensive studio recording work in the orchestras of Nelson Riddle and Henry Mancini, and backed singers as diverse as the Beatles, Tom Jones and Frank Sinatra.

But it is towards the Bert Kaempfert orchestra that most of Manchester-born Tony Fisher's energies are directed, guaranteeing that the sound of Bert Kaempfert lives on. Evidence of his commitment to the legacy is apparent to all who attend the concerts of this great musical institution. For apart from the faultless style and the faithfully reproduced Kaempfert sound, in all its glory, the whole musical adventure provides another insight into what makes Fisher's musical and versatile inheritance tick.

Not content with pleasing his audiences with a programme of that renowned and melodic wonderland-by-night style, the other side of Bert Kaempfert's scoring prowess is demonstrated. And, as a leader with that top big-band pedigree to his credit, Tony Fisher relishes pulling out all the stops to help illustrate his former boss' versatility. From within the ranks of this very fine orchestra there is the scope and ability to expound not only some excellent Kaempfert big-band arrangements, but also a clear demonstration of how much he was equally at home producing, arranging and recording this highly popular sound.

As a result, the big-band sound, via numbers such as Take the A Train, Jumpin' at the Woodside, Two o'C1ock Jump, Apple Honey, Airmail Special, Tuxedo Junction (with strings) and Mr Anthony's Boogie, among others, come across like a breath of fresh air. In summary, then, and with so many variants to the programme, fans of Kaempfert and his music can relax: his delightful sounds rest in the capable hands of Tony Fisher - a man who knows exactly what is required and, more importantly, also knows how to deliver the goods.

By Richard Ives

At first glance to include Spike Hughes in a series of articles about British dance bands on record might seem rather singular, after all he only made 44 records under his own name and 7 of these were made in America. But, as I hope to show his influence on the dance band scene was far reaching, not only for the small number of recordings he made, but by his astute criticism and enthusiasm of the bands that made up the popular music field of the 1930's. So how did Spike Hughes, who was later to become a respected critic and author of books on Mozart and Glyndebourne, become embroiled in the world of popular music?

Patrick Cairns Hughes was born on October 19^th 1908 to an English mother and Irish father. The name "Spike" was a generic name, much the same as all Clarks are called "Nobby" and Whites are "Chalkey". Actually he came to dislike the nickname which probably came about not from Naval tradition but because being a double base player his spike on the instrument indented the floors. His father Herbert Hughes was a successful composer and musician having written and set a collection of Irish folk songs amongst other works. He later became a respected music critic for the Daily Telegraph. His mother had studied piano at the Royal Academy so obviously music was going to play a part in the Hughes household, which could be described as being comfortable middle class. Unfortunately for one reason or another the marriage began to break up when the young Hughes was only four and he ceased to know anything about a normal family life after that. His mother decided that an everyday life with its boredom and routine were not for her and young Spike, so began a childhood which could only be described a Nomadic.

At the age of 6 whilst in Cape Town, music, that is "classical", first influenced him. Although he had been having violin lessons for a while the enthusiasm which was to later shine was still remarkably absent but he was keen enough to try and bang out tunes on his mother's piano. The trouble was that in the lifestyle he was living it was almost impossible to give a serious study to anything and given that his mother was highly irrational at best did not help. Unfortunately, his father's influence ended when he was only 16 even though his input in previous years had been largely ineffective. It was whilst on a holiday in Vienna in 1923 music took a serious hold when he went to the opera to see Wagner's Lohengrin. What such a profound work must have had on a boy of 14 one can only guess but he had already seen Faust, Falstaff, La Traviata and many more; but it was Lohengrin which created a new world and was a catalyst in that he at last started to take both himself and music seriously. Although he had dabbled in composing he must have realised that a more academic approach was needed and to this end his mother thought he should go and study with Dr Egon Wellesz (1885-1974) who was both an authority on the history of music and teacher, also composer of a vast number of works, although these are seldom heard today. From Wellesz, who was very much an avant garde figure, the young Hughes was coached in all aspects of music making, composing, playing (he had taken up the violin again) and performance. It was around this time, he thought it would be rather fun to be a music critic, "I had no ambition to be a particularly distinguished one, though I hoped at least to be an important one whose presence at concerts would be pointed out in hushed tones". Some aspiration for a 15 year old! Nothing daunted he attended the premiere of Alexander Zemlinksy's one act opera based on Wilde's Birthday Of The Infanta. After making copious notes during the performance he typed up a review and sent it to the offices of "The Sackbut" in London. This was a monthly magazine which had as a previous editor the composer Peter Warlock, who, years later Hughes got to know quite well until Warlock's suicide in 1930. In order that his father might not know what he was getting up to in Vienna, Spike called himself Patrick MacHugh. Anyway, this led to other assignments most notably in The Times who commissioned him to report on other musical events in Vienna, so his precociousness was given a terrific boost when these reports were published with the legend "from a Vienna Correspondent". He even had the audacity to have some visiting cards printed "Mr Patrick Hughes - contributor to The Sackbut, The Musical News and Herald etc". This, of course, led to free seats at the opera like all other critics.

In 1924 two piano pieces were published, Grotesque and Noon By The Sea At Taorminn. These were not too technically difficult because Hughes was not much of a pianist and had already determined to play the piano for his own amusement only. There was very little of what could be called music in the second piece as the dynamics never rose above pp and as a consequence was all but inaudible! These were published in London and the news arrived the day before his sixteenth birthday, surprisingly to date (1946)

Hughes informs us that 33 copies had been sold. Encouraged by the perceived success more works were to follow, for example a ballet named The Secret of the Goddess in which the lead was to appear entirely nude except for the prerequisite G string. An opera was planned out and actually started but it was surprisingly a sonata for solo 'cello that was successful both in private performance and publication.

It can be deducted from the foregoing paragraphs that popular music in the 1920's meant nothing to Spike Hughes. That indeed was the case, his one aim, if it can be said to be an aim, he imagined would be fulfilling his life either as a composer or critic, that was until early 1925 when he heard a Negro jazz band led by Arthur Briggs in a small night club in Vienna. It fell on Briggs to try out Hughes first attempts to write in the popular field. These can said to be of questionable value as the pained look on the faces of the dancers showed, probably the arrangements and not tight corsets and bad ventilation as Hughes says. He arrived back in English in late spring of 1925 to take up his lapsed academic studies at Cambridge, this was to last two years. This time was not wasted as he got valuable experience conducting. He admitted to being a very bad conductor mainly, it seems, from an inability to concentrate, time was also spent trying out instruments and of course arranging. The inability to concentrate also led to a bemusing number of exploits during the national strike of 1926, as along with some 2,000 young men of Cambridge Spike offered his services to the Government to help keep the railways running, obviously something a young lad would jump at. He had duties as a guard, then signalman where the temptation proved too great to send trains in different directions to the allotted ones. Still great fun was had in the secure knowledge they had helped the country keep going.

The summer holidays were spent in Salzburg during the music festival where celebrities like Bruno Walter and Richard Strauss conducted, he also arranged to meet influential people and gain admittance to extravagant parties where he indulged in his taste for liquor. There were also the mad love affairs started in committed faith but somehow unenduring. Back in England and by 1927 Hughes was writing more music, some of it was performed, some was unheard because of various reasons. The aforementioned 'cello sonata was played at the International Society of Contemporary Music where it gained polite and encouraging reviews in The Times, The Daily Telegraph, Observer and strangely The Christian Science Monitor. It was left to the high-brow Musical Times to describe it as "modern stuff" on its publication. Looking back Hughes said "…..I might be justified in regretting that I should have done so little to fulfil what promise I did show as a composer of seventeen, but I have no regrets". Other commissions, although not of a musical nature came. He was asked to translate a large volume in German by Paul Bekker titled Richard Wagner: His Life in his Work. He got paid £60 for his work although he says neither he or anyone else could make head or tail if it.

Something else happened in the summer of 1927, Spike renewed his interest in jazz. He visited the London Pavilion which was showing Blackbirds but he found the star Florence Mills too refined, preferring the raucous blues singer Edith Wilson who was also appearing. He did, however, admire the remarkable orchestra in the pit, the Pike Davies band. Something like the sound heard at the Blackbirds revue can be heard on Columbia 4185 and 4238 under the name The Plantation Orchestra. Its appropriate here to mention the effect Blackbirds had on an other English composer, Constant Lambert, who attended several performances and when Florence Mills died he wrote a short piece in her memory called Elegiac Blues. There was perhaps an even more important reason that rekindled Hughes interest in jazz and that was the appearance of some hot records pressed over here but recorded in America by "Red" Nichols and his Five Pennies. Washboard Blues was one such "....was tuneful and well formed......had an atmosphere of chamber music….not hitherto encountered in jazz at all". This can be heard on English Brunswick 3407 or 01801, the latter is quite easy to find. The personnel are Red Nichols - cornet; Jimmy Dorsey - clarinet and alto sax; Arthur Schutt - piano; Eddie Lang - guitar and Vic Berton -drums. It was recorded in New York December 8^th1926.

You can imagine the impact this music must have had to somebody who had only known jazz from what he had seen personally and from Negro bands. He was by now, of course, well aware of dance bands and the popular repertoire. From Red Nichols he went on to discover other luminaries who were having a potent influence on the popular music front. People like Fletcher Henderson, (Duke Ellington had only started recording in 1924 and until 1927 his records would have been only available in America), Bix Beiderbecke,

Eddie Lang, Joe Venuti and Adrian Rollini. Hughes said "These players….brought a new charm to jazz, a technical dexterity". He thought that they were also "uncommercial" which appealed and they were playing for the fun of it. This could not apply to Henderson who ran a commercial band but the small groups formed by people like Frankie Trambauer did so because they loved what they were doing, away from their steady and restrictive work in the larger bands. I think the chamber music quality of so many of these smaller groups appealed because mainly it appeared spontaneous and was not cluttered up like so many bigger bands e.g. Whiteman, and they were tuneful. Digressing slightly, Hughes has some salient remarks about later music and especially "swing" bands. "Your modern swing band makes a noise fit only for morons and obsessional adolescents, for the essence of swing is the repetition of an imbecile phrase starting fortissimo and getting louder from there" sic. He goes on but we get his meaning, writing in 1946 he looked back on 1927 and the following few years as a golden age in popular music, never to be seen again and who are we to disagree?

In part 11 we will see how Spike Hughes entered the Dance Band world and went on to make some classic recordings.

"Among those who take jazz seriously……. it is considered that the only True Jazz is that which is entirely improvised; to write it down is to forego all claims to sincerity or spontaneity. This strikes me as absolute nonsense". So wrote Spike Hughes in 1946. As we learnt in the previous article the new jazz he heard in 1927 made a deep impression, but it was still a few years before this bore fruition. It was in 1927 he got his first proper job, as a secretary in a psychoanalyst surgery; he met William Walton and the now forgotten English composer Walter Leigh, these were to have a lasting impression on him. Tiring of things he went to Berlin in January 1928 but found it unrewarding and was glad to return in June when he applied for a job at the BBC as a concert producer! Being turned down was the best thing to happen to me, he says, nothing daunted he continued to lead a topsy turvey existence.

The International Contemporary Music Festival at Sienna was visited where the lively programme produced a minor riot. One of the works was Walton's Façade and the Tarantella caused the Italians to revolt; even shoes were thrown at the performers. The other work was Webern's String Trio and the demonstration that produced was pure entertainment. Back in London he found himself in serious financial difficulties and had to make do with the small reward of concert notices. As he now had a wife to support things were looking decidedly difficult when one day looking at a discarded instrument in the corner of the room that had been put aside by an erstwhile lodger, he thought he should learn to play it, the instrument was a double bass.

There was, of course, simplicity involved in Hughes taking up the double bass (so named because it is actually pitched an octave down from the bass clef in music) because he found it relatively easy to pick out the bass chords of any modern popular piece of music. I think he does himself an injustice because in 1931 he was voted Britain's Best Bassist in a Melody Maker poll. Anyway he thought that by playing bass it would open up a new future playing in dance bands, so we find him in the Spring of 1929 assiduously finding work. He did get a job, of sorts, however not playing but by offering to arrange some popular works of the day for, well Hughes just says for a band that played nightly in a Very Smart Hotel led by the Immaculate Aristocrat of Society Music; a subtle hint that it was Ambrose and his May Fair Orchestra. On the appointed evening Hughes, complete in evening attire, presented himself and his arrangement at the Very Smart Hotel and introduced himself to Ambrose by saying "Your office said I was to bring this arrangement down this evening to try over, it’s a new tune - Cole Porter". Ambrose replied "O.K. Mr Porter after the cabaret", Hughes: "I arranged it, Cole Porter's the composer".

Well after that it can be imagined what happened, the band faced with a hand written score they had never seen before, let alone had a chance to run through, but it was the first Hughes arrangement to be heard in England. Of course it was a near disaster as Hughes complicated writing had made it very difficult, and as he observes British Dance Band musicians are not the best sight-readers. There were moments of almost total silence because parts had been written for solo guitar and with no microphone, unlike in a studio, these were lost in a ballroom. His three minute arrangement lasted five minutes before it ground to a halt, much to everyone's relief. The dancers clapped and Hughes escaped through the kitchens and out. At least he had started at the top! Luckily he met quite by chance Bill Harty the drummer who suggested he came along the next night to the Piccadilly Hotel and met Al Starita.

This led to Hughes being commissioned to write a number of arrangements for the Piccadilly Players. Not, however, the work he had hoped for, instead of interesting material for which he could gain experience, he was given the mundane task of arranging dull stuff like Twenty One Today, a flashy waltz and unbelievably the National Anthem! This sort of material is usually left to any "hack" orchestrator. Further similar tunes followed Happy Birthday, the wedding march from Lohengrin etc., just the sort of thing to pacify the dinner/dance clientele. In between time he filled in writing articles and concert notices for The Musical Times and Monthly Musical Record; it should be said that in the 20's and 30's there was not the sharp dividing line between Classical and Popular music that there has been in subsequent decades. However, he did wonder if he would ever perform in a dance band on bass, and thoughts were being kindled that he might have to form his own band.

However, by chance, as frequently happens in life, he did get a job as bassist in a band called "The Night Watchman" that played in a Restaurant in Westminster named St Ermin's. It was only a small band but it included Philip Buchel who played the piano (black notes only), saxophone and danced. The band was really made up of gifted amateur performers, half of which Buchel included, could not read music but Hughes was paid a weekly wage of £10 so they could not have been too inadequate. They then became very lucky to get the relief band job at the Café de Paris, the main band being the Blue Lyres, Hughes enjoyed this as he could study "….the sex life of London Society as easily as if I had had my ear and eye to a Mayfair keyhole", So now at least he had a full job and a regular income to finance his drinking.

A chance meeting up with William Walton led to an introduction to Phil Lewis who was the recording manager of the newly formed Decca Record Company. Lewis who had been an orchestral player with the London Symphony Orchestra but latterly had been directing pit bands at London shows. Under him Decca had made quite a stir by recording Walton's Façade suite with Constant Lambert and Edith Sitwell as the reciters. Anyway, this chance meeting did give Hughes the opening he had been hoping for, Lewis said he was looking for a new band to expand his fast growing catalogue, but Spike said he did not actually have a band, "Then get a band of your own together and bring them down", Lewis replied. Of course this was to be only a test recording but in Hughes eyes it was a gift from the gods, as he later stated he could already see the headlines in the Melody Maker and the sleek motor car. Here at last was a chance to prove his arrangements were just not the work of a gifted amateur but a real working musician.

He quickly got some people together including Philip Buchel, on sax; Stanley Andrews, on violin and Val Rosing from the Night Watchman, the rest of the band comprised of Leslie Smith guitar and on piano Eddie Carrol, and naturally Hughes on bass. The only "mystery" musician was the phenomenal American trumpet player Sylvester Ahola whose identity had to remain a close guarded secret as he was under contract to Ambrose. The group presented themselves at Decca Chenil Galleries on the 18^th February 1930. Their chosen titles being Can't We Be Friends? and Futuristic Rhythm. The nervous tension that preceded the warning buzzes and the red light were terrifying but not nearly as terrifying as the play back! Hughes was dumbstruck and wished he had never entered into the fray. However, the Decca engineers were delighted as was Phil Lewis who wanted to release them.

Unfortunately, we shall never be able to hear what these two sides sounded like as the publishers had issued an injunction against their performance as the tunes had been illegally imported from American shows. So three weeks later Hughes again took his band into the studio to record five sides that infringed no copyright. These were It's Unanimous Now, Body and Soul, A Miss is as good as a Mile, Crazy Feet and Moanin' Low. The last named was rejected. The other four were issued on Decca F1690 and F1703. One problem remained, however, what to call the band. The typed white label on the test pressing said "Patrick Hughes and his Orchestra", this sounded far to mundane and dull, so in a whimsical moment Hughes suggested "Spike Hughes and his Deccadents". This was agreed on but the whole effort was ruined by the label printers who altered it to "Spike Hughes and his Decca-Dents"! It was the first time in England that a band was let lose in a studio to record and play however they wanted to. So what did these first efforts sound like?

MB-1057-2 A Miss Is As Good As A Mile. Decca F1703 After a short 4 bar introduction Buchel states the main theme for 8 bars this is then embellished by Ahola, a short solo by Andrews leads to the vocal by Val Rosing which is sung in a laid back fashion ending on a (too) high A, Ahola takes over with a good hard solo, Andrews shines with his reworking of the tune and it all leads to a complete circle and ends. It has a lovely bassy sound provided by Hughes. This is a typical performance of the early sides. They make Body and Soul on the reverse side, sound fresh although Rosing is no match for Sam Browne with Ambrose also on Decca M118.

After the session in March the Melody Maker reviewed them with enthusiasm, here at last was a group who were not afraid to go off in an entirely different way to the run of the mill commercial dance band, and although it lacked the polish of there American counterparts i.e. Red Nichols, Joe Venuti etc., they showed by their recordings that a British band could pass muster. I am not saying that these recordings emulate those from America because they don't. They all have a very distinct individualism which is unique. Anyway the upshot of the sessions at Decca were that Hughes was sacked from the Night Watchman but then offered a job by Lewis to play in the Decca House Orchestra and write arrangements. He also played with Roy Fox, Henry Hall and in October 1932 - Jack Hylton. All Decca artists, at that time.

The next session a fortnight later produced four more sides - The Boop-Boop-A-Doop-A Doo Trot, The Man From The South, What Wouldn't I Do For That Man? and Fascinating Devil. These were issued on F1709 and F1710 respectively. The only difference between this and the previous session was that Max Goldberg - trumpet, replaced Sylvester Ahola who was forbidden to do any more free lance work (he was anyway under contract to Ambrose) by the Ministry of Labour.

MB1124-2 The Main From The South Decca F1709 After a slow introduction (these introductions as with the bridge passages and modulations and codas were always written out in full by Hughes) the band heads off at a cracking pace, after 4 half tempo bars Rosing sings the chorus, after which Buchel improvises then Goldberg takes the lead, another half tempo break before the band go headlong to the ending which recalls the beginning. Impossible to dance to but great to listen to. By the time the next session, April 16^th, the band had been increased by an extra Clarinet doubling Alto Sax, and Jack Jackson replaced Goldberg. In MB1203-1 A Ship Without A Sail Decca F1748 we start to see the Hughes band formulating the style that would culminate in the USA recordings exactly three years later. The coarseness has been smoothed out, the sharp edges removed, a slightly softer approach is adopted. Listen especially for the fine trumpet of Jackson.

By June the band got bigger still, I'll list it in full:- Norman Payne - trumpet; Jock Fleming - trombone; Harry Hines - clarinet, baritone; Philip Buchel - alto; Buddy Feastherstonhaugh - tenor; Stan Andrews - violin; Eddie Carroll - piano; Alan Ferguson - guitar; Spike Hughes - bass; Bill Harty - drums. Quite an impressive line-up. It was basically this line up that remained for the rest of the recordings, although other musicians were added later on. The session in June produced some good sides amongst the titles were Dancing Time on F1816 and two numbers from the Paramount film The King of Jazz with Paul Whiteman, these were I Like To Do Things For You and Happy Feet both issued on F1844.

Space forbids a full listing of all the recordings so I am picking out the ones that will probably appeal most to Memory Lane readers. I Like To Do Things For You is very satisfying with plenty of inventive solo work while not being outlandish in any way. In July Cinderalla Brown by Jimmy McHugh was committed to disc, this is the only (English) recording of this number and has an unusual opening, as with most Hughes arrangements there is one foot in the "classical" camp. The whole number is very relaxed and on the reverse is a good version of Bessie Couldn't Help It Decca F1880.

Hughes has some interesting comments. "The music we created at Chenil Galleries was primitive; we were experimenting with a language we liked the sound of but which we did not yet speak fluently…… We had no rehearsal until we entered the studio for our three-hour session, during which time we were expected to record four numbers". But he goes on to say that as the arrangements grew more complex more time was needed, but it says a lot for the standard of musicianship that these sides, which are complex and difficult to bring off, mostly were accomplished in 1 or 2 takes. It must also be borne in mind that these recordings were alien to most British band leaders at that time, but the musicians loved it! As time went on it occurred to Hughes to write some of his own tunes, why should he "……..let some unknown composer, whose tune we rendered entirely uncommercial by our methods, draw the royalties". Why indeed.

….."the tunes we chose to record had little or no merit of their own, and their creators were colourless minor composers whose names were scarcely known to anybody…." So wrote Spike Hughes way after he had put to disc his famous versions of some of these tunes. Not unsurprisingly Hughes and his Decca-Dents found their fame spreading to Europe, for in the Summer of 1930 they were invited by the Decca agent in Holland to appear in person.

Hughes was doubtful at the outset but reluctantly agreed to a week’s tour. Unfortunately, it got off to a dubious start as Henk, the Dutch agent, had asked for a photograph of the band for advance publicity, and to comply Decca arranged for 10 of the office staff to hold the instruments they were supposed to play as nobody in the real Decca-Dents wanted to be photographed! As it happened only four of his regulars travelled with him to Holland, the five others were picked up musicians who were most certainly not conversant with the Hughes arrangements.

The first engagement was at Scheveningen for a Sunday tea dance where mostly stock arrangements were played and Hughes was kept busy giving the dancers excuses why they could not play the hot numbers on Decca F1690 and F1709. A lot of "hot" music fans must have been very disappointed, but worse was to follow. Three of his regulars had to return to England straight after the engagement which left him short of a trumpet, saxophone and violin, and a concert at the famous Concertgebouw (Concert Hall) in Amsterdam later in the week.

Fortunately, a good trumpet player was cajoled into joining plus a couple of other unlikely players, so the concert went ahead. Even by the end of the first half the repertoire ran out, so after an interval lasting longer than the first half, the second half was made up with individual members busking choruses with the rest of the band filling in…."who had only the haziest idea of the key we were supposed to be playing in". Hughes filled in with some piano improvisation and somehow the audience was kept from falling asleep and were persuaded that they were listening to a new form of modern jazz. Actually the press next day were not unduly unkind, so Henk arranged another concert a couple of days later. This was a happier affair, taking in audience participation as well as a better prepared programme. The rest of the time in Holland was taken up with a broadcast from Hilversum Radio and a dinner dance at a university. It must have been sheer relief when Hughes set foot back in Harwich a week later.

The untimely death of Phil Lewis in 1931 robbed Hughes of a dependable and likeable colleague as well as a good friend. Life in 1931 was not easy, the depression was beginning to bite and work was getting hard to come by, after all even four records a month would hardly pay much more than the basic rent. Fortunately, he was beginning to be in demand as a double bass player so quite a lot of time was taken up playing in various bands, this with a steady trickle of arranging saw him through a period which, for others, were very difficult times.

I should just mention the instrument that Spike played, unlike the normal wooden double bass, was made of tin! This probably accounts for the rather penetrating tone which can be heard clearly, and also it was ideal to transport around being impervious to the rough treatment that was meted out. He was lucky, however, to get a job in a pit orchestra that was playing for CB Cochran's 1931 Revue, first in Manchester and then London.

The show did well in Manchester but completely misfired in London so once more he had missed out on a regular job, but things again turned around and he was appointed a record critic to the Melody Maker. It was under the pseudonym of "Mike" that he wrote for the paper for the next thirteen years. Of course he reviewed his own records but tried not to abuse his position, but he raised many hackles when reviewing the more commercial output of most of the main bands, perhaps not unsurprisingly.

Meanwhile back at Chenil Galleries Hughes band continued to record four sides at three monthly intervals, GB1059 Moanin' Low coupled with GB2544 Button Up Your Overcoat are interesting as Betty Bolton sang the vocals, her deep rasping voice suitably blending with the orchestration. There are good solos on both sides, Moanin' Low perhaps the best and is really sung with feeling, and all through there is the driving bass playing of Hughes, one of his arrangements on top form. It was issued on F2217.

It was about this time that Hughes thought of writing his own tunes, to this end he took his material from four spirituals, these were Joshua fit de battle ob Jericho, Is there a Place Up There For Me? , Witness and I've been in the Storm So Long. The first issued on Decca F2373, the second and third on F2649 and the last on F2936. They all have vocals sung in a very individual style by Joey Shields, a Harlem lad who Hughes had met during the 1931 Revue. Although he treated the subject reverently the BBC saw fit to ban all four records without ever hearing them.

The interesting thing is the trio of Joshua which Hughes later expanded to make up the theme of Nocturne on F3563, a poignant and nostalgic tune. Commissions came from the BBC (a body of people Hughes does not always sympathize with) for a musical programme, it was also at this time he wrote his first film music, albeit for a documentary. Actually, he wrote quite a lot of music for film e.g. the BTF Lancaster Coast and full length films, perhaps the best known being Fiddlers Three released in 1944 starring Tommy Trinder.

By the Autumn of 1931 Hughes brought to fruition the idea that he should be writing for his own orchestra, after all given his band consisted of some of the cream of London's musicians he would be a fool not to. The idea of writing a short Jazz inspired symphony had obviously occurred to him for a long while but when he came to writing he was forced to compose a work which would fit on two sides of a 10 inch record. This became A Harlem Symphony, one side slow the other fast. Issued on F2711 it was a good seller, over 5,000 copies, not perhaps in the Ellington class of say Creole Rhapsody on HMV C4870 but is remarkable for the development of basic ideas with the theme stated at the outset and developed with solo work always keeping the theme not far out of sight, a key change lifts the last 12 bars.

Side two is very much up-tempo giving the main theme a more optimistic character with further development to a rousing finish. Another good recording came out about the same time (November 1931) F2735 I Can't Believe She's Mine has a vocal by Joey Shields and the reverse is Hangin' on to that Man on which for the first and last time Elsie Carlisle had the vocal, actually this was made first in June of that year but rejected. GB3601-2 is quite hard driving with Elsie giving her pulsating best, solos on trombone and tenor sax are excellent.

Sirocco on F2844 is a Hughes original and nicely conveys the atmosphere of the hot south winds which blow across the Mediterranean from the Sahara desert. It is mood music, no solos everything being played from the full score. It was one of Hughes’ favourites. The reverse is the well known Six Bells Stampede on which he collaborated with the moonlighting Billy Munn (Jack Hylton's pianist and arranger), and nicely sums up the anticipated rush to get out of the studio and into the nearest public house. That record was one of his most successful, good copies are easily found.

One rather amusing episode occurred early in 1932. Hughes got a commission to supply the music for dancing at some up-market venue in Huddersfield; how he got the job remains a mystery. After engaging ten musicians, most of whom had not played with him, he discovered just before leaving London that he had no music! After scouring some publishers around Charing Cross Road he got a library together and headed north. The engagement was a flop, the dancers were there in white tie and tails, Hughes is bitingly critical of the way ladies dress up however, saying that "….the English woman is at her best only when she is dressed for the company of those horses and dogs which she so much resembles." At the dance instead of what happened in Holland, the reverse came true, people kept asking not the "hot" number on Decca F2611 but Polkas, Strauss Waltzes and to add insult to injury Barn Dances!

After the interval Spike retired to the bar with most of the band not to emerge again, they left it all to the pianist and rhythm section! After that episode Spike only fulfilled two more "gigs". "On a personal note, it is a sad fact that having had eight years of playing in a modern Big Band the public were never more happy when we played the dross of the repertoire. There was, however, one time when the audience were unrestrained with enthusiasm and that was at a dinner-dance for visiting American tour operators."

Unlike some of his colleagues Hughes was rather fond of the Chenil Galleries as a recording venue, the dead sound actually helping the band, however there is no doubt that as time went on the quality and clarity did improve. In June 1932 he got a commission for a ballet to be performed at the Savoy Theatre, this was called High Yellow and what emerged was a jazz score for orchestra and dance band. Critically it was an ephemeral piece but not without a certain chic. In July Hughes received his first really important assignment, he was to orchestrate Noel Coward's new revue Words and Music. Coward was 32 and the two got on well together. The work progressed steadily although it took up an enormous amount of time. He even conducted some of the performances in Manchester where it opened for a three week run before coming down to London's Adelphi Theatre. He was paid £500 for his work, quite a sum in 1932.

The end of March produced four great sides, Buddy's Wednesday Outing clearly shows the emerging influence of Duke Ellington being used to good effect in another Hughes composition. The familiar chase sequences showing off the fine playing of Buddy Featherstonhaugh on tenor sax. Long Night Scamper also by Hughes is the reverse - on F3089. The other two sides are Limehouse Blues, treated in a very laid back fashion and Hughes’ own Elegy which is more like a funeral wake passing and going out of earshot, the ending just fades away, these two numbers were issued on F3004. It was not until November that Hughes recorded his last four sides for English Decca, perhaps the most interesting being Siesta dedicated to Noel Coward and is a gentle acknowledgement in music to the master. Then in January 1933 Hughes sailed to America.

Although Hughes only hints at it, I think the real reason he went was simply that he had gone as far as he could at that time and he did not go with the intention of making further recordings, what transpired was completely unexpected. He had already met Irving Mills in London and he had introductions to Archie Selwyn and Irving Berlin. So nothing daunted he sailed away on Cunard's Aquitania. His first contact in America, and also the most productive, was John Hammond who turned out to be both a wealthy and influential lover of jazz, Spike had met him also in London in 1932.

It was through John's contacts that he met Benny Carter, a man who was familiar with Hughes' work and a great admirer. It’s nice to think that great American musicians were aware of what was going on in England, its so often the other way around. Anyway, Hughes was captivated by the Carter band "….(they)….produced a sound brilliant and incisive as a diamond; in England it had been paste".

It was not long before Hughes came up with the idea of recording some numbers, so Brunswick, who had an arrangement with Decca of London, were put to the task. Benny Carter got the band together and so began the seven classic records known as Spike Hughes and his Negro Orchestra. They were recorded between April and May 1933. Hughes decided not to play the bass but preferred to stand giving the beat, actually as it happened Spike did play on one side, Sweet Sue - Just You Decca F3972. Interestingly all the records were one take issues and seven out of the fourteen were Hughes original compositions.

Without exception the recordings are superb, listen to the pathos and longing in Nocturne F3563; the joy of Music at Sunrise F3836; the exuberance of How Come You Do Me Like You Do? F3972; the precision of Firebird F3717. With musicians like Henry Allen, Chu Berry, Coleman Hawkins, Wilbur de Paris, these are records which all collectors should be proud to have adorn their shelves.

Something should be said about the prices of Hughes 78's. The later American recordings are readily available and should cost no more than £3 at a fair or £5 in auction. Most of the later British recordings are rarer and in fact a sliding scale is appropriate. The very early ones command high prices, at auction £30 up but you can find them at fairs where condition might not be too good for £5 up, but some are very hard to find anywhere. For a modest outlay all his output is available on CD's 1930 -32 on Kings Cross Music KCM 003/004. The American output being available on Retrieval - Spike Hughes/Benny Carter, HMV list this as a stock item at £10.99.

At the end of May he sailed back to Southampton turning his back on ever being a jazz performer again. It is strange that someone who had obviously so much talent in writing and arranging music should not have gone on to even greater heights but he had done, as far as jazz was concerned, all that he wanted to do. Benny Carter said on a radio interview in August 2002 about the American recordings, "that Hughes could have achieved total perfection if he had been left to get what he wanted, as it was it achieved as near as anyone ever got".

Edgar Jackson wrote in The Gramophone that Hughes was one of the cleverest and most original dance musicians and arrangers we have in this country (March 1931). Constant Lambert in Music Ho! (1934) wrote of the highbrow jazz of Milhaud, Kurt Weill, Copland, Schulhoff and Spike Hughes, quite exalted company. After America he became music critic for the Daily Herald as well as broadcasting about music matters. In 1938 he wrote an opera for television Cinderella (after Perrault), another opera St Patrick's Day was broadcast in 1947, a musical Frankie And Johnny was televised in 1950.

His post-war fame rests, however, on several books, some about travel , others on music from Great Opera Houses 1956 to Famous Verdi Operas 1968. Talking on Television in 1970 Hughes was critical of some of the band leaders who jumped on the "Hot Music Bandwaggon" without having a talent or love for it. Well he certainly had talent, but I will leave the last words to Spike Hughes. "That faith (in his music) has prevailed over the years, but with a diminishing strength……until I feel that I should now start a legend about myself as one of the greatest might-have beens in the business".

References: Opening Bars Spike Hughes Pilot Press 1946

Second Movement Spike Hughes Museum Press 1951

Constant Lambert Richard Shead Simon Publications 1973

Jazz on Record Brian Rust Storyville Publications 1970

A backward glance at the outstanding career of the young London University Economics Student cum ace trumpet player who became leader of one of Britain’s top swing bands in the early forties and who turned down a promising film opportunity in favour of his love for music.

By Bert Booth

Johnnie Claes was born in London in 1916, his mother was Scottish and his father came from Belgium. From an early age he and his mother travelled extensively and his schooling ranged from Brussels to the South of France, Italy, London and on to the Lord William’s Grammar School in Oxford. Whilst not an outstanding scholar he was a good rugby player, a keen swimmer and always popular amongst his classmates. It was during his final terms at Oxford that he bought his first trumpet and with little musical background began the challenging task of mastering the instrument. Master it he did, sufficiently well to be able to play as a semi-pro around London during his time at university.

Whilst playing in the band at the Tufnell Park Palais he was spotted by Billy Mason and invited to join his band at the ‘De Cabin’ night spot in Shaftsbury Avenue. This turned out to be a rather unfortunate move, the club closed within three weeks and Johnnie did not get paid. His first professional engagement turned out to be somewhat of a disaster.

Undeterred he joined Victor Collins at the Nest in the West End, long hours midnight to 5-30am, seven days a week, all for the sum of £4.00. However the atmosphere at the ‘Nest’ was terrific, visiting coloured artists and musicians gathered there after hours and young Johnnie Claes was learning fast and associating with many of the greats including The Mills Brothers, Jimmie Lunceford, Benny Carter, Fats Waller and Valaida.

Buck Washington of Buck and Bubbles fame, who also played trumpet and piano was able to guide Johnnie along the righteous jazz path. Swing music was not yet in vogue in England at that time and often attempts to play ‘hot’ were rebuffed. However this was not the case at the ‘Nest’ and with the introduction of trombonist George Chisholm the band improved greatly backing the all-coloured cabaret artists. The Nest became the ‘Hot Centre’ attracting an ever increasing clientele.

Having heard Johnnie Claes play at the Nest cabaret star the delightful dusky vocalist / trumpet player Valaida invited him to join her band for an engagement at the Tabaris Dance Hall in the Hague. The band also included Derek Neville, Reg Dare on reeds and Gunn Findley quoted to be a phenomenal boogie-woogie pianist and arranger. The band was highly acclaimed by the Dutch audiences as they appreciated jazz to a greater degree than many did in this country. The show moved on to Zurich to perform at the Café Shilporte where once again the audience approval was highly responsive. The band returned to London and recorded for the Columbia label before Valaida returned to the States and the band’s contract terminated.

Earlier Johnnie had met Coleman Hawkins who was now fronting an out-and-out swing group in Holland. When invited to do so he had no hesitation in joining the ‘Hawk’ at the Mephisto Negro Palace in Rotterdam. Johnnie Claes was indebted for the experience the Hawkins experience gave him; it was the start of a lengthy spell of playing with top continental bands throughout Europe.

But there were bad times ahead and as high standard swinging engagements became scarcer and as Johnnie would not readily accept a reduced standard of remuneration, he found himself at a low ebb, roughing it and almost penniless.

He joined a band in Switzerland but they only played sugary commercial dance music which was not really his scene. However his fortune did change in the September of 1938 when he joined the Dutch tenor saxist Johnny Fresco who was leading a band at the Tabaris Dance Hall. Johnnie Claes was once again happy to be part of the swing scene on the continent. Incidentally, featured with the band was Max Geldray, the Dutch jazz harmonica player who later was to play a part in the Goon Show along with the Ray Ellington Quartet.

Within a year, Europe was in turmoil, borders closed and the threat of war was on the horizon. The future seemed very uncertain and thus reluctantly Johnnie listened to his father’s advice that he should abandon music and join one of his father’s companies in Belgium. Starting at the bottom as a trainee crane driver, he was soon operating the sixteen ton monster without his workmates knowing he was the boss’s son.

But the draw of music was too great and soon Johnnie Claes was playing at weekends and occasionally on one night stands with Jack Kluger’s Band. This was one of Belgium’s top broadcasting and recording bands who were chosen to play opposite the Jimmy Lunceford Orchestra at the Zurich Exhibition.

Late 1939 Johnnie was set to go on a six week vacation to New York and he arrived in London to collect his U.S. visa, only to find that Germany had invaded Poland and consequently all visas were cancelled. He stayed for a month in London but was forced to abandon his trip to America and return to Brussels once again to work in one of his father’s factories. He returned to England on a business trip during March 1940 where he was forced to remain as the Nazi forces had invaded the Low Countries.

Returning to his first love, the music scene, he played with various pick-up groups at the Boogie-Woogie Club in Denman Street before joining Teddy Joyce and His Band. Billed on the variety hall circuit as the ‘Canadian Stick of Dynamite’ the Joyce band included future prominent musicians Duncan Whyte, Reg Dare and Bobby Midgely. When Teddy Joyce died suddenly in February 1941 Johnny returned to London

Johnnie was immediately approached by club owner Jack Leon of the Beach Underground in Wardour Street to form a swing band that could also play for dancing. Grabbing the chance to form his own band, an achievement he had eagerly longed for, he gathered around him musicians of high standing. The eventual line-up of the Clae Pigeons included Reg Dare, Spike Hornett on reeds, Rube Stoloff on trombone, Charlie Short on bass, Carlo Krahmer on drums, Art Thompson on piano, plus the addition of West Indian trumpet virtuoso Dave Wilkins. The band was sensational and attracted much attention from other fellow musicians who came to hear the band. So great was their interest that Johnnie was forced to instigate a stri