SAID Count Basie: “So many jazzmen were being called King that I decided it was time I had a nickname”

We had just entered the Granada studio for a rehearsal of his hour-long Personal Appearance, which viewers will see on Wednesday.

The Basie group will be the first American big band to be starred in a British television show.

As the Count eased himself on to the piano stool, he told me his first name is really William.

He got it 58 years ago when he was born in Red Bank, New Jersey.

The Count rippled some fast single notes, stabbed the air with an index finger — and the entire 16 piece band swung into climactic sound.

The impact is as solid as the Rockies.

It has been that way for a quarter of a century. No matter how many musicians come and go within the orchestra — and many of the greatest names in jazz have worked under him at one time or another — the stirring Basie beat never wavers.

What kind of man is this thick-set maestro soon to be seen by ITV’s millions?

In a business which is often tough and always demanding, the Count moves around with a smiling affability and a built-in calm which few things, if any, seem able to disrupt.

Dave Lambert, the red-bearded leader of the Lambert-Hendricks-Ross singing team — you’ll see them, too, in the Basie show — told me:

“The Count is marvellous to work with. Mind you. he’s the boss all right, but he never becomes excited. If anybody gets out of line he just jerks his head sideways … and glares. I guess that’s always enough!”

There’s a story among musicians who have known him for years. Once a saxophonist, tickled by a hurriedly whispered private joke, laughed out loud during a performance, instantly, the Count slammed out a weird chord on the piano — and the saxman shot bolt upright as if his chair had suddenly become red hot.

For his television show the Count brings in a new singer whom he recently discovered in an obscure New York club.

She is Irene Reid, from Savannah, Georgia, a vivacious 31-year-old and the mother of four sons and a daughter.

Irene, who started singing at high school, is enthusiastic about working with the Basie band.

“It’s all so wonderful I can hardly believe it,” she said. “Hearing that tremendous rhythm section behind is just about the biggest thrill of my life.”

The Count learned piano from his mother. When he grew up he went on tour with a vaudeville group, finally landing in Kansas City.

“I was just a kind of honky-tonk piano player with the show and we didn’t have any big names in the cast and we didn’t do much business,” he recalled.

“When, inevitably, the show folded, I knew I couldn’t do any good sitting around feeling sorry for myself and wishing I’d never left home, so I started making the rounds to see if there might be a spot in town for a piano player.”

He found one — playing accompaniments to silent films. “I played for everything and anything, from horse operas to passionate romance films — great experience.” he said.

Then he joined the almost legendary Benny Moten band. When Moten died in 1935 the Count formed his own group — and a radio broadcast from a small Kansas City station shot him to the stardom which has never left him down all the changing years.

Unlike some musicians, he doesn’t look down on all contemporary trends. The Twist, for instance.

“I like it,” declared the Count. “It’s good, swinging music for dancing — and basically, jazz is music for dancing. Yeah, you can tell everybody I’m for it.”

British bandleader Ray Ellington had dropped in to listen to the television rehearsal. Peering down like a friendly cliff, he said suddenly: “This is gilt-edged jazz.”

It was almost time for the show to go into another full rehearsal. Cameras were re-positioned, microphones regrouped. The subdued chatter of technicians and visiting musicians faded.

There was a tense hush. Then once again the rippled single-note introduction. A split second in which time seemed to hang suspended in the hot, still air.

Then the whole band was surging, like a vast, throbbing powerhouse, into One O’Clock Jump — the number most closely linked with Basie’s name.

I predict that in addition to the band, the Lambert-Hendricks-Ross singers will make a sensational impact on viewers. Perhaps the more appropriate word is unique!

The fetching Annie Ross who appeared several years back in the London West End revue, Cranks, has lived in America on and off for many years.

The Count, by the way, is happily married and has an 18-year-old daughter. She isn’t a musician.

I suggested that perhaps one in the family was enough.

The Count chuckled.

“Sometimes,” he said amiably, “sometimes it gets to be almost too much!”

The post Count down for Basie appeared first on THIS IS GRANADA from Transdiffusion.

ROUND the door of the dressing-room peered a face with toothbrush moustache and dark, slicked-down hair.

“I was about to have a nap, but welcome in,” said top trumpeter Eddie Calvert, who, with singer Marion Ryan, is among the stars of Personal Appearance on Wednesday.

“Sleep?” I said.

“You can sleep after,” said Marion, my companion and guide through the studios. “We won’t keep you long.”

“O.K. then,” said Eddie, who flopped into an easy chair and prepared to be interviewed.

“I started playing a musical instrument when I was seven,” he said. “I taught myself.

“No one even knew I was learning to play a musical instrument. I used to play my dad’s cornet when he was out. He caught me one night.”

Eddie grimaced at a painful memory.

“I never learned to play a musical instrument,” said Marion. “Couldn’t even tinkle on a piano. I never had any lessons — we were too poor.”

“My father bought me my first cornet,” continued Eddie. “It was either that or putting a padlock on his own. And when I was 11 I joined Preston Town Silver Band.”

“As a mascot?” asked Marion.

“Certainly not,” said Eddie. “Lots of lads of that age play in prize bands.”

Eddie told us how he got into the Forces. “My father decided that the Army was the only place for me to complete my musical education. I joined the Territorials when I was 12. I had to lie like a trooper to convince them I was 14,” he said.

“But my military career came to a sticky end. I found myself called up and given a job as a despatch rider. In the middle of the blackout in 1941 my bike went slap into the back of a three ton truck. I was in hospital for four and a half months. When I was in hospital I did some thinking. I decided I wanted to go into show business.”

Eddie worked with many top bands — Oscar Rabin, Billy Ternent, Geraldo — eventually became musical director of a leading London restaurant.

“I booked lots of top artists,” he said. “I turned down some too. I once turned down a young fellow named Dickie Valentine who was trying to get started in show business.” Eddie blossomed out as a solo artist about that time. His first big break came in 1953.

“Sheer coincidence, the whole thing,” he said. “I was driving home in my car, arguing with my wife about a new German tune sweeping the Continent.

“Norrie Paramor, who has his own orchestra, was driving home in his car, arguing with his wife about the same song.

“Both car radios were on — and during the course of the arguments the tune was played. It was too strong a coincidence to ignore. So we decided to record the tune. Remember it?”

We remembered.

It was called O Mein Papa and sold 5,000,000 records.

The post Marion Ryan meets ‘mein papa’! appeared first on THIS IS GRANADA from Transdiffusion.

PAUL ANKA, star of Granada’s Personal Appearance on Wednesday, is an agreeable youngster who seems remarkably composed by the fact that, at 20, he earns a million-and-a-half dollars a year.

Even more remarkable, he has reached this palmy income bracket in just four years. Only the tax man is likely to halt the flow of Anka dollars to any appreciable extent.

For Paul is something of a one-man band. He doesn’t have to pay a lyric writer, music writer, or even a song publisher. He does the lot himself.

Two American artists make their first appearance on British television with Paul in this hour of music and comedy — 16-year-old vocalist Linda Scott and comedian Johnny Carson.

Linda, who will sing Let’s Call the Whole Thing Off with Anka, soared to success a year ago with her first recording of the song I’ve Told Every Little Star, which sold 1,000,000 copies.

She won a Golden Disc. At 16, Paul did the same thing with his first recording, Diana.

Johnny Carson, who has had his own television show in America for the past four years, has been described by newspaper critics as “a logical successor to Bob Hope and Jack Benny.”

“In this programme,” said Irvin Feld, Paul’s personal manager, “you are going to see the new Paul Anka.

“When he was in Britain nearly four years ago. he sang his current hits which were aimed specifically at the teenagers. Songs like Diana.

“But since then, Paul has been undergoing a vast change. He has been bridging the gap between teenagers and an adult audience.

“The result is that he now appeals to audiences of all ages. We have even given him a facial change. We had a plastic surgery job done on his nose which makes him better looking than ever,” said Mr. Feld.

“His voice, too, has a fullness and a range it never had in the beginning. Even his song writing has changed. He is writing mature lyrics now.

“In Wednesday’s show he will include a 15-minute spot in which he will sing only established ballads and some of his own songs written in the same vein.

“It will be like telling the story of his life in song, a sort of potted biography.”

The story of his life is really his four-year-old career. Before Diana put him on the map, Paul was just another school kid who had dabbled at singing from the age of ten.

His family are Syrians, although Paul was born in Ottawa, where his career began to open up after a New York record company heard him singing on the radio.

He talks assuredly and frankly: “I’m not a brash kid,” he says. “You have to try and stay reasonably humble about success.

“I started out as a Rock ‘n’ Roll singer and, let’s face it, I owed my success to the teenagers. But I knew in my mind that I had to bridge the gap and get the adults to accept me, too.”

He drummed his fingers assertively on the table. “I don’t kid myself. I’m just out of the kindergarten stage. I’ve got a long way to go.

“But I figure it this way. The all-time greats, fellows like Frank Sinatra, and Bing Crosby … well, they have to retire some time. Younger people have got to take over.

“The freakish thing about this business is that you can make a lot of money. I’ve done just that, and it’s nice to have the money.

“But, honestly, the accomplishment of becoming a great entertainer means a whole lot more to me right now.”

In America. Paul has been described as a “sort of sophisticated Rock ’n’ Roller.”

“In a way,” says Paul, “that’s a compliment, I guess. It shows my development is being noticed. But really people say this about me because they don’t know yet how to describe me.

“It’s true I was the youngest among the kids like Fabian, Tommy Sands and Frankie Avalon to appear in night clubs in the States.

“This is why they call me sophisticated. Playing the plush night clubs in America is a measure of success. So in that sense I’m a pioneer.”

Paul summed up: “This is quite something, but it doesn’t scare me. At my age I suppose I should be scared by success. But I have never got into anything that I didn’t like.

“I love what I’m doing too much to be worried about it.”

The post Now for the new Paul Anka appeared first on THIS IS GRANADA from Transdiffusion.

JEREMY LUBBOCK, who brings a new face and a new style of playing to Granada’s Piano Pops, is including many “oldies” from the pages of composers like Gershwin, Rodgers and Jerome Kern.

“And why not?” he said, “Their numbers may not be in the Top Twenty, but some of them are still as popular as ever. An up-to-the-minute example is Smoke Gets in Your Eyes, which is enjoying new lease of life.”

Not that Lubbock’s appreciate of music is restricted to any particular style. His musical education has ranged from harpsichord classics to the latest thing in “rock.”

It all started when Jeremy was a toddler. The Lubbock home in Berkshire was the centre of musical life in the neighbourhood. At the age of four he began to explore the keyboards of the two pianos his parents owned.

He had a strictly classical upbringing. Beethoven and Bach were his childhood heroes.

But as Jeremy grew older his taste changed to lighter compositions. “My preference,” he says, “is for tunes that are of popular appeal and yet have a lasting value … and it is my opinion that there are only half-a-dozen people who have written tunes that come into this category.”

Lubbock admits that none of the tunes he has written has reached the high standards he has set. His own contributions to music so far have included jingles for television commercials and a score for a short film.

He has also written a blues number, which had its first public hearing in Piano Pops. It took him 10 minutes to compose and is called Nameless. “It is tremendously difficult to find a title for a blues, so I just took the easy way out,” he says.

Lubbock is 6ft 3in tall and in the studios is provided with a grand piano that matches his proportions. But he tends to dwarf the miniature piano he uses for rehearsing the programme in his flat in London’s Holland Park.

This is an unusual instrument, decorated in Chinese lacquer — jet black with gilt illustrations of traditional Chinese figures with a background of rustic bridges, pagodas and willow trees.

Lubbock, now 28, was originally meant to be an architect. It was only three years ago that he decided that he wanted to be a full-time musician.

“I’d always had a hankering to move into show business, but it took me a long time to take the plunge,” he said. “Whether I took the right decision remains to be seen, but right now I don’t regret the change.”

Even so, he’s not taking any chances. On the drawing board in his flat are the plans for a shop he is designing for one of his friends. “An interesting project which I cannot resist doing,” is how he describes it.

Since his appearances in The Sunday Break last year, he has spent three months playing in a Paris night club.

“I suppose it was good experience,” he says, “but I didn’t care much for the hours. I was on duty from nine o’clock at night until four or five o’clock in the morning. Then I would have breakfast and take a swim in a floating pool moored in the River Seine before going to bed.”

The post New style old tunes appeared first on THIS IS GRANADA from Transdiffusion.

THE teenagers, who, after all, are the people who dictate the trend in popular music, seem to be getting a little tired of rock ‘n’ roll.

By that I do not mean rock ‘n’ roll is dying. Just that in 1960 we shall be hearing less of it. The time is ripe for something in music — a new sound, a new gimmick – something original.

The trouble is that nearly all the musical permutations have been done. The cycle has been round about 20 times already. But if someone can think up a new angle and get out just one recording I am sure it would catch on. The public is always willing to accept a change — so long as it has something to offer that is worthwhile.

At the moment the swing is towards the more melodic numbers. I think the big bands are going to return to favour, too. Proof of their unflagging popularity lies in the fact that bands like those of Ted Heath, Glenn Miller, and Joe Loss are still heard every day on record request programmes.

They set the style when melody and popular music was well into the “swing” phase.

That phase is coming back. It is under way already. I know this is true because I get hundreds of letters from the people who watch Piano Pops telling me how nice it is to hear a good tune.

I am sure that 1960 will be a year in which there will be a flood of this kind of music from Britain’s Tin Pan Alley.

There are plenty of good writers around, like Tolchard Evans, Michael Carr and Robert Farnon, who can produce tuneful music that appeals to a wide public — not just to the teenagers but to the parents and elder brothers and sisters.

There will be catchy tunes that make everybody want to sing — music that stays in the mind day after day, the tunes you can’t get out of your head, that set office boys whistling as they walk along the street and office managers singing in their baths. Everyone I talk to says the same. The number with a melody is becoming more and more popular with musicians.

At one time I refused to play rock ‘n’ roll, but I got so many demands for it that I had to play it. Now, the pattern of popular music is changing, slowly, towards the sweeter numbers. And I am pleased.

It points to a return of the romantic music that was so popular just after the war — the gorgeous tunes with words like “moon” and “June.”

The Top Twenty is going to be crammed with this kind of song in 1960, because these songs are easy to listen to and to remember.

They are the songs with a melody that lingers on — the sort of tunes I play each week on TV.

I hope that in Piano Pops I have been able to help people forget some of the cares and worries of the world for a few moments and perhaps recall, through some favourite tune, a happy occasion.

The post Catchy Tunes are catching on again appeared first on THIS IS GRANADA from Transdiffusion.

IN a smoke-filled Hongkong dance hall a young British Army lieutenant was persuaded to sing a number with the band. He got enthusiastic applause, and resolved then to take up a new career as a “pop” singer.

Now, two years later, the lieutenant, Gary Marshal, is established on the British popular music scene. On Wednesday, he sings with the Ted Heath Orchestra in Granada’s Bandstand. He has reached an objective.

After Sandhurst, and winning his commission, he was posted to Hongkong. There, after his military duties, he wanted something to do with his spare time, so he applied for an announcing job with the English language commercial radio station – and got it.

“They took me on as a board announcer, doing 14 hours a week of news and disc jockeying in the evenings,” said Marshal. “After a few months I was not only a board announcer, I was a bored announcer.”

The other English language station, the non-commercial Radio Hongkong, offered him more work, so he switched stations. He then found time to write two newspaper columns a week — a short story and a record review feature.

He courted and married an American girl born in China. “We now have a year-old son, Jamie, who — I swear — was born with a real cool haircut. He loves music and already looks like an out-of-work tenor sax player,” said Marshal.

How did he find the time for soldiering, married life, radio work and newspaper writing? His explanation: “I am a ‘night person’ and don’t like going to bed early.”

Marshal left the Army in August, 1958, at the end of his five-year term. A month later, a friend took him along to an agent. The agent looked up, noted his good looks, and said: “Bernard Delfont’s Sunday Night at the Prince Of Wales … The Frankie Howerd Show.”

Marshal, astounded, said “Fine.” And that was how he found himself playing a “wide boy” in a sketch with Frankie Howerd on ITV.

“After the show I dashed home and asked my wife ‘How was I?’ She said ‘I blinked and missed you!’” said Gary.

Later, he acted in TV commercials. “One of them was made at the Guards depot, Pirbright, where I found myself wearing a steel helmet, a pack on my back, and all the gear I hadn’t worn in years,” he said.

He went into cabaret, where he insisted on using his own drummer and pianist. “The extra expenditure was worth it,” he says. ITV talent spotters saw him and, as a result, he appeared in a number of shows. He also landed a recording contract.

Singing in front of the Ted Heath Orchestra in Bandstand is for Gary Marshal the realisation of a long-standing ambition. It was always his favourite band and, two years ago, hearing that Ted Heath was looking for a male singer, he took him a recording.

He said I was as good as any he’d heard, but there was a technical fault in my voice.” said Marshal. “He told me to come back when I had got rid of this fault. But I never found time to re-apply. Now, at last, I am to sing with him.”

The post Lt Marshal gains his objective appeared first on THIS IS GRANADA from Transdiffusion.

AS far as the money went, it didn’t matter to the 16-year-old coloured girl whether she cooked hot meal or sang hot songs. She was paid 35 dollars a week either way.

Donna Hightower, who sings as a guest in the next two Granada Bandstand programmes, “realised that sleeping all day and doing three or four hours a night in a club was better than standing in front of a stove for eight hours.”

So she threw away her apron, bought a couple of evening gowns and started singing.

For a long time she thought her voice was not good enough to take her to the top. “What, me sing professionally?” she said, and dismissed the idea as a lot of hard work with no returns.

“My father was a musician, and we were very poor,” said Donna. “He was also a farmer. Sometimes he worked his own land; sometimes he worked for others.

“It didn’t seem to make much difference; we were still poor.

“He taught music, too, and could play any instrument he could lay his hands on — harp, piano, accordion, harmonium.

“But I never saw a trumpet or anything like that when I was a kid. I reckon they were out of our class.

“He tried to teach me to read music, but I could never learn.”

Now she wishes she had. For, in addition to singing, Donna composes.

“A tune comes into my head and, as I think of the melody, I make up the words. Then I sing it over and over again until it is photographed in my memory. Then I go to sleep.

“When I wake up I find I’ve forgotten it. But it comes back and I sing it into a tape-recorder.”

It sounds a rough and ready way to compose. But she has reached the Top Twenty in America too often for her methods to be laughed away.

It all began in a Chicago restaurant when a customer asked the girl behind the counter to turn up the radio. There was no radio … Donna was singing over the stove.

The customer persuaded her she had talent, and she started singing at weekends in a club for five dollars. Then a newspaperman took her on a tour of Chicago, trying to get her a booking. They began by asking for 100 dollars a week. They ended by accepting 35.

“A woman from a record company came down and she said I had a kinda unique style,” Donna went on. “I guess I had. I could hardly keep time.”

She recorded, and waited for success to come. But nothing happened.

She went back home to Los Angeles. “I must have been pretty good, because I won a talent contest; and then I made some more records for another company.”

But they brought in little money, so New York was the next stop, “knocking around, doing practically nothing.”

Then, a year ago, she met a group of song-writers, who asked her to make some demonstration records of their songs.

They liked her voice even better than they liked the songs. “We’ll try to get you a recording,” they said.

In her smooth caressing voice Donna told what happened then. “I picked out my best tunes, and we just went in and sorta jammed something. The disc came out last January.”

It was a hit. The 35 dollars a week cook turned out to have a million dollar talent – both as singer and song-writer.

It has brought her to London and soon maybe it will take her to Paris. And though she still likes cooking she is in no hurry to get back to her home in Brooklyn.

“Things are just beginning to break for me,” she said. “I’ll be around for a while.”

Musicians say that this girl, at 24, is a singer’s singer — which is their way of bestowing high praise.

I’m no musician, but Donna Hightower is my kind of singer.

The post From Cooking to Crotchets appeared first on THIS IS GRANADA from Transdiffusion.

A FIVE-FOOT-NOTHING girl with dark hair and twinkling brown eyes stands in a corner of the studio, her fingers snapping and her feet tapping as the Ted Heath band rehearses.

Viewers will see her next Wednesday as a guest singer in Granada’s Bandstand. Nineteen-year-old Maureen Evans has come a long way from the school plays and concerts in which she appeared at home in Cardiff.

In fact, she has been a success ever since she got her first real taste of show business at the age of 15.

She told me: “I began appearing at local concerts when I was 12. At 15 I was asked to sing two songs at a Lord Mayor’s charity matinee at the New Theatre, Cardiff.

What happened? Maureen scored a big success. The theatre manager signed her up for a week’s variety.

“That was the most thrilling day of my life,” said Maureen, her eyes alight with excitement at the memory.

It was exciting, too. for Maureen’s mother, Mrs Lavinia Evans. She sat in the stalls watching the daughter who had blossomed in three years from just a schoolgirl soprano to “pop” singer.

Maureen switched to “pop” songs because she enjoys them more. It was a switch that led to three summer seasons at Llandudno, many TV appearances and a disc contract.

She confessed: “I suppose it is just as well that I am in show business, because I do not think I could do any other job.

“I got plenty of encouragement from my music and drama teachers at school and produced and acted in a few plays. I enjoyed producing more than acting. But I always wanted to be a singer.”

Maureen loves her work, but she is still a home girl at heart. This commercial traveller’s daughter likes nothing better than to have her family and friends around her.

Travelling about the country is something Maureen detests. She told me: “I have never quite got used to it.

“I was only 15 when I did my first four month summer season.

“Four months! It was the first time I had been away from home, and every night I rang Mother to cheer myself up.

“I love to be with the people I know, and at home I often have my friends in to parties. Sometimes we have three parties in a week.”

She also enjoys lending a hand with the household chores, decorating — “I did out my own room” — and helping her aunt make the dresses she wears on TV.

“If I had not become a singer. I might have gone in for dressmaking,” said Maureen.

For a girl who is only 60 inches high — “I wear 4in heels all the time” — clothes are something of a problem.

Said Maureen: “I have the greatest difficulty when it comes to buying new outfits. That is one reason why my aunt makes most of my dresses.”

The post Home is where the heart is appeared first on THIS IS GRANADA from Transdiffusion.

TOP stars of London’s jazz clubs will be seen on Thursday in Granada’s Bandstand. They are the Tony Kinsey Quartet, tenor sax player Ronnie Scott, and pianist Eddie Thompson.

Ronnie Scott recently embarked on a venture that is binding these musicians, and others who have appeared in Bandstand, even closer together: he opened his own jazz club. The Kinsey Quartet have played there and Eddie Thompson is more-or-less the resident pianist.

Eddie Thompson was born blind in 1925. At a Wandsworth school for the blind, he played a few piano duets with George Shearing, who emigrated to America.

“I think we usually played Let’s Have A Basin Full of Fun in G flat — the first key I learnt. They tried to stop me playing jazz at school because they said it was degrading. But my mother bought me records and soon I was collecting early Basies, Shaws, Goodmans and Ellingtons,” Eddie told me.

“So I grew up with the idea of playing jazz for a living. But at another school for the blind, I was trained to be a piano tuner and repairer, a job which has stood me in good stead because some club pianos are appalling. After leaving school I nearly starved for a year, tuning a few pianos, trying to get a job as a musician. Then for six months I landed a regular job as a solo pianist touring as one of Brian Michie’s discoveries.

“After that I did various jobs, including working as a Dixieland pianist with Freddy Randall’s band. Went to the States as part of an exchange scheme for the Louis Armstrong All Stars, who toured Britain.

“America was gruelling — we were put in a rock ’n’ roll show — but very interesting. A year later I went again with Tommy Whittle’s band. I had a marvellous time — even stayed a week with the great pianist Thelonius Monk.”

These days, Eddie is spending his spare time learning to play the saxophone, which he may eventually play professionally. He can read Braille music, but seldom needs to because, like most blind musicians, he has developed an exceptional memory.

He only needs to hear a piece of music once or twice to be able to play it.

Kinsey’s quartet have appeared in earlier Bandstands, but this time Tony will have a different saxophonist.

“Kathleen Stobart used to play tenor with us, but now she has three children and she has had to leave to look after them.” said Tony. “Now, we’ve got Alan Branscombe on alto. The others are Bill LeSage on vibraphone and Joe Muddell on bass.”

Drummer Kinsey told me he has recently moved to a house at Sunbury-on-Thames “where I can play all I want”.

Pianist Denis Wilson’s Trio will also be appearing in the programme. Wilson, who has often broadcast and arranges accompaniments for “pop” songs, says his music has “wide popular appeal and enough ingenuity, I hope, to appeal to musicians.”

The other member of the trio are Frank Clarke (bass) and Alan Ganley drums.

The post Jazzman Eddie keeps ’em on the note appeared first on THIS IS GRANADA from Transdiffusion.

BRITAIN’S best small bands will play weekly for viewers, beginning on Thursday. The series, presented by Granada, is called Bandstand and the first four programmes will star Mr Acker Bilk and his Paramount Jazz Band at one end of the studio and the Ray Ellington Quartet, with Valerie Masters, at the other.

“Each week we’ll have at least one guest. The first will be Don Lusher, the modern trombonist in the country,” director Dave Warwick told me. “The week after, it will be harmonica player Max Geldray, an old friend of Ray Ellington. Then we’ve booked a veteran star, trumpeter Nat Gonella, followed by Johnnie Gray, a good tenor saxophonist with a flair for comedy.

“We will have comedy only where it is involved in the music, as it often is with Ellington. We won’t go in for comperes with a lot of comic patter. The bandleaders will do the announcing and will be encouraged to develop their own personalities.”

Warwick, a blond, outspoken man from Southport, will book jazz and near-jazz groups of all kinds. He knows the subject well because for years he was a dance band drummer and vibraphone player, but he found the going hard as a drummer because the market was glutted — “by about 20,000 people who had learned to play in the Services, fooling around with small groups in NAAFI canteens.”

Whenever he directs a band programme – he did seven of a Humphrey Lyttelton series, Here’s Humph and a dozen Ray Ellington Shows — he does a bit of drumming, strictly for fun, by sitting in with the bands during run-throughs. He looks forward to a reunion with the Lyttelton band later in the Bandstand series.

Others he hopes to have on the show eventually are the Tony Crombie Quartet, Georgia Brown (“a talented singer who recently returned from America, where she has been making records with jazz stars”), trumpeter Kenny Baker, the Dill Jones Trio, Joe (Mr Piano) Henderson and singers Dick Francis, Rosemary Squires and Maxine Daniels.

“Ray Ellington’s original pianist, Dick Katz, has become a manager. I’d like to get him back on one programme to do a solo spot,” Dave Warwick said. “I’d also like to see Ray Ellington’s original girl vocalist Marion Ryan, come back and do a song with Valerie Masters, the girl who replaced her.”

Although there will be a good deal of jazz, Bandstand will not be aimed entirely at teenagers.

“In America, jazz appeals to an older public,” Dave pointed out. He believes Bandstand may make some adults take a stronger interest in it.

“I’ve noticed that teenagers who like jazz even “educate” their parents by pointing out some of the good things to listen for,” he said.

“If you take a well-known number — say, I’ll Be With You In Apple Blossom Time – and play the first eight bars straight you can then go into the most advanced modern jazz idiom and people will appreciate it. But if you start off playing intricate jazz, you won’t hold the audience.”

Some of the guest musicians Granada hope to feature are not necessarily big stars, but they are all well-known in the music world.

“I don’t suppose Don Lusher, for example, means much to the mass of viewers, but every serious fan in the country knows about him,” said Dave.

The programme may not be confined to jazz and dance groups. There may be a gipsy band, or a Trinidad steel band.

“Our policy is flexible,” concluded Warwick. “We don’t know yet whether to concentrate on bands of contrasting styles or groups of the same sort. We would like to hear from viewers about their musical preferences.”

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One Man’s Music, a new Granada series featuring songs of the world’s great popular composers, starts on Monday with the work of Jerome Kern. Cleo Laine sings each week, backed by her husband, Johnny Dankworth, and his orchestra. Here David Griffiths writes about one man’s music — Johnny Dankworth’s

THE year was 1944, the number was Duke Ellington’s Mood Indigo, the band rejoiced in the name of Freddy Mirfield’s Garbage Men … and the occasion was the finals of a national dance band contest.

At the microphone: a 17-year-old clarinet player with the lean good looks of a juvenile Frank Sinatra.

A trade paper review said of the show: “Most credit goes to the youthful clarinet player who thought out an original solo for himself instead of using the conventional one of Barney Bigard’s. (Bigard was Ellington’s star clarinettist.)

“He played with a taste and technique that would have been a credit to a professional instrumentalist.”

So began the professional career of Johnny Dankworth, who later confessed: “The truth is, I just didn’t know Bigard’s solo. I had to improvise!”

By 1949 Johnny was himself a judge at music contests, and he was described as the “noted alto sax and clarinet player of the Ambrose Orchestra.” Ambrose was then playing at a London night club.

In those five years the musical outlook of the young Dankworth had undergone a profound change.

He had become a Licentiate of the Royal Academy of Music, and worked in “Geraldo’s Navy” — the bands operated by Geraldo on Cunard liners.

Johnny worked on the Queen Mary. Between voyages he spent days in New York listening to the giants of modern jazz, particularly alto saxophonist Charlie Parker.

“I marvelled at his genius then, as I marvel now,” said Johnny.

“Everything I had heard up to that time was involved with Benny Goodman. Parker changed my thinking.”

Such thinking, in those days, was considered dangerously avante-garde among the entrenched musicians of the swing era. Dankworth found few commercial outlets for his kind of jazz.

But his big chance came. One day he had a call from Ted Heath. “I could hardly believe it,” said Johnny.

At the time Ted had a highly successful series of Sunday afternoon swing sessions at the London Palladium.

“I think Harry Parry was to be that Sunday’s guest star, but was taken ill. Somebody suggested me as a replacement.

“I was deliriously excited. I had to borrow one of my father’s suits.

“Jack Parnell — then playing drums for Ted Heath — was very kind. He offered to lend me one of his.

“Ted introduced me as ‘the young clarinet star’! Within a couple of bars I made the most ear-piercing squeak!

“But Ted was very nice afterwards, and suggested I form my own band.

“So I signed on six young musicians and asked Ted about bookings. All he had was one Palladium date! Not Ted’s fault, of course. I had been misled by my own youth and publicity.”

The Johnny Dankworth Seven made its debut at a 1950 swing session. Fellow musicians were delighted, but the paying public were apathetic.

“FANS BAFFLED BY DANKWORTH’S MASTERPIECES,” said a trade paper. A zealous agent stuck the item in Johnny’s cuttings book … leaving only the last two words of the headline.

But after 10 weeks Johnny called the boys together. “It’s all over,” he told them. “No jobs, no money.”

“We won’t let that bother us,” they replied. “We’ll stick together.”

The Seven survived, even made a little money. Then in 1953 Johnny took the step that often spells disaster. He formed a big band.

What’s more, he made money. Not much, and not often, but just when things were looking black, something always turned up. One example was Johnny’s hit recording of Three Blind Mice.

Today, a reasonably prosperous Johnny Dankworth lives with his wife Cleo Laine at Nether Hall, Bletchley — an hour and a quarter’s drive along the M1 from London’s Tin Pan Alley.

“Cleo and I always wanted to live in the country,” he told me. “And we could do so much more with our money there than we could in the centre of London, where a flat would cost as much as our Bletchley house. And we wanted to bring up our family away from our centre of business.”

It was Johnny who discovered Cleo when he reluctantly agreed to give her an audition with his Seven. He could hardly believe his ears — and his good fortune — and promptly hired her for the group and, subsequently, for the orchestra.

Though they often pursue separate careers (she as an actress as well as a vocal star) they join forces when possible, as in this series.

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THEIR fans see them as the symbolic success story of all the boys-next-door.

Their co-stars recognise them as a slick professional trio who have been swinging “standard” pops and making feet tap since they started singing together 10 years ago.

But how do the King Brothers, featured in Swinging Along every Tuesday, see themselves?

They share the same parents, the same address, and the same friends. They bump into each other at the breakfast table, in the rehearsal room and before the TV cameras So they know each other pretty well.

And when I talked to them at rehearsal they gave me their verdicts. First on Dennis:

Dennis, the pianist, is 22 and the baby of the trio. He picked up his musical talent from his father, a planning engineer for a car firm who used to be a semi pro pianist with a dance band. At six, Dennis played the banjo. At 10, he turned to the piano. At 16 he left school to join his brothers in a professional group.

Michael: If it hadn’t been for Dennis, none of us would have got involved in show biz. He is the one with the real musical knowledge. Whatever we know he taught us.

Tony: Michael and I are just intuitive about music. We go for the regulars — Frank Sinatra, Ella Fitzgerald, and so on — but Dennis has a wider taste.

Michael: Let’s face it, he has a livelier mind than we have. He gets enthusiastic over everything that directly concerns us.

Tony: All his money goes on clothes — £40 [£720 in today’s money, allowing for inflation – Ed] a suit is nothing to him. He has more suits than Michael and I put together. He’s always trying to outdo us with smart ties, striped shirts and fancy waistcoats. We let him.

Michael: He’s trying to become a man about town. It’s a phase we all go through.

Tony is 25, has fair ginger hair, a wry smile and a habit of not joining a conversation unless he has something worth saying. As a teenager, he was, musically, the odd boy out, while Michael and Dennis were winning talent contests as a guitar and piano double act. Then a friend found a double bass in a cellar, gave Tony lessons — and the trio was born.

Michael: He’s the odd one out in personality, too. He’s much quieter than Dennis or me. When he does speak, it is usually a crack against one of us.

Dennis: His habits aren’t like ours, either. He’s a real homebird. He’d rather stay in to read, or practice his golf swing, than have a night on the town.

Michael: He saves his money. We share a joint bank account out of which we allow ourselves a regular weekly amount for spending money. Dennis and I get through ours in a flash. Never a 6d. [2½p in decimal, 45p now after inflation] left at the end of the week. But not Tony.

Dennis: He’s got a thing about security. And woe betide you if you borrow 5s. [25p in decimal, £4.50 after inflation] and forget to pay it back.

Michael: His main hobby is keeping fit. He looks after himself. He goes to bed at the same time every night. Believes in plenty of sleep and plenty of fresh air.

Dennis: Take it from us — one of these days be is going to make someone a steady, quiet, responsible, healthy, wealthy husband!

Michael, the 27-year-old guitarist, is darker and more forceful than his younger brothers. He is used to speaking for all of them.

Dennis: We still regard him as the leader. A sort of leftover from when we were kids. He influences us a lot. He sees himself as the organiser. He ploughs ahead gets things started and expects us to follow.

Tony: Usually when we’re busy with something else.

Dennis: Mike’s very conscientious about our turning up for rehearsals on time, and seeing that we practice. If we don’t give in he gets upset. He gets worked up over lots of little things. I think his big fault is that he’s…

— “Sensitive?” suggested Mike, unable to keep silent.

Tony: Irritable?

Dennis: No, I was going to say excitable. If he’s worried or nervous then he picks on one of us because we’re always the nearest. Sometimes he feels he’s against us. But when he’s happy then he’s generous and gay and wants everyone to have a good time with him.

Tony: The trouble is that his idea of a good time may not be everybody’s.

Dennis: I think he’ll be the first one off us to get married. I hope it won’t split the trio if he does.

Tony: At one point we were sufficiently worried about this to take out an insurance policy against it happening. But I don’t think there’s any need now. For as long as the public want us, Mike, Dennis and I intend staying just as we are — a singing threesome.

But the three boys admitted that the idea of sticking to the image they have created of singing, swinging, homely boys down the street, has its drawbacks for all of them.

Mike feels that three joint singers can never fully become individual personalities.

Dennis feels that to continue their style of steady singing (which ensured them a safe passage through and beyond the rock age, and will guarantee them a safe voyage through the twist era) they must sacrifice the chance to experiment musically in any extreme form.

Tony feels their future as a trio will necessitate a continuance of their closely-knit life with its limitations of mental independence and privacy, which he, at least, is beginning to demand.

But when I asked them to weigh these against the advantages of their joint fame and joint income, their choice was unanimous:

The Kings see the Kings remaining the Kings.

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BURT BACHARACH… the name is almost certain to mean nothing to you. Yet I’ll wager his works have been buzzing around in your brain for the last 10 years.

Bacharach is one of the most talented and prolific songwriters of our time. A few hawk-eyed pop pickers may have spotted the name in fine print on the label of their latest record.

But outside Tin Pan Alley, few recognise this 34-year-old New Yorker for what he is — one of the greatest one-man influences on popular music this century. He is hailed by international artists, musicians and composers as a trend-setting genius.

On Wednesday night at 9.40, Dionne Warwick — Burt writes all her numbers — heads a star-studded cast who pay tribute to America’s Mr. Pop in The Bacharach Sound.

Bacharach “winners” include “Anyone Who Had a Heart,” “I Just Don’t Know What to do with Myself,” “Message to Martha,” “Tower of Strength,” “Twenty Four Hours from Tulsa,” and dozens more.

There to sing them with Dionne Warwick will be Dusty Springfield, Chuck Jackson, The Searchers and The Merseybeats.

Bacharach, who began to learn piano at 10 (“I hated it, I wanted to be a baseball player”) wrote his first hit number “Magic Moments” for Perry Como, in the mid fifties.

He wrote the “Story of My Life,” for Michael Holliday, and never looked back. Four years ago he teamed up with lyrics writer Hal David.

But it was not until early last year that the Bacharach Sound was born — a lush sound created with an exciting orchestral backing like 15 strings, a drummer plus two percussionists, and brassy French horns.

Immediately arrangers, composers and singers rushed to copy him. Artists such as Dusty Springfield, Cilla Black and Sandie Shaw have been deeply influenced by Bacharach.

From his luxury suite on the 18th floor of a New York apartment block, Bacharach told me: “If I have helped to make pop music a little better I couldn’t be more delighted.”

I asked him if he thought today’s pop was worth preserving. “No,” he said, “the average song is so very fragile — 2½ minutes long — it is exposed to saturation. I don’t think any of my numbers will survive the next three years.”

There’s a legend in the music business that Marlene Dietrich won’t work without Bacharach. “Not strictly true,” said Burt modestly. “But whenever I can, I fly to her anywhere in the world. We work well together.”

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The singer who commanded the biggest “fee” of 1963 for a single appearance — £85,700 [£1.5m in today’s money, allowing for inflation – Ed] — is in England to sing in the ITV show, Sentimental Over You, on Wednesday. Name? Frank Sinatra Jr. The sum, you will remember, was the ransom money Frank Sinatra Sr. paid out after his son had been kidnapped. Sinatra Jr. will be singing with the “new” Tommy Dorsey Orchestra. It was with Tommy Dorsey that Sinatra Sr. learnt that not only did moon rhyme with June, but that croon went pretty well with swoon. This is a profile of Sinatra, Sr. and Jr., by singer and guitarist Clark Yocum, who worked with Dad in the Forties and will be working with Son on Wednesday. He talks here to TV Times

I’LL never smile again … until I smile at you …

The thin young man concludes the last phrase of the old song, the Pied Pipers vocal group blending softly in, and suddenly there is an overwhelming round of applause to fill the room.

The young man, still a bit lost in the song, bows: “Thank you, thank you very much, ladies and gentlemen. I’m happy you enjoyed that.”

Somehow, the applause is always mixed with nostalgia, for Frank Sinatra Jr., who was 20 years old on January 12, brings back happy memories to fans of the great Tommy Dorsey Orchestra of the Forties, the band that used to boast another Frank Sinatra as vocalist.

But if the audience is nostalgic and in a happy frame of mind, it is no more so than a singer-guitarist named Clark Yocum, a member of the Pied Pipers who sang with Frank Sinatra back in the Forties and who will be blending his voice with Frank Jr.’s during Wednesday’s Sentimental Over You on ITV.

“I met Sinatra for the first time in April of 1940 when I joined the Dorsey band,” said Yocum. “I’ve always remembered our association with pleasure because I don’t know any more talented man…

“However, I’ll have to admit,” Yocum continued, “that another April, 23 years later, is equally meaningful to me.”

April, 1963, is when Yocum met Frank Jr., just signed as a member of the “new” Tommy Dorsey Orchestra, led by saxophonist Sam Donahue. “We rehearsed in Los Angeles, and it was great to be doing the wonderful Dorsey tunes again.

“And knowing that Sinatra’s son would be with us made it even better. He’s such a nice fellow, and so like his father. He has the same poise, the same intensity, the same way of moving, of gesturing…

“And, I believe, the same talent.

“Frank Jr. was more quiet and reserved than his father at first. But then he was only 19, and this was a pretty important step for a sheltered young boy to be taking. His father was three or four years older when he joined the band—was married and was used to being on his own.”

Yocum laughed as he added: “And then, too, Frank Jr. could hardly be expected to have as much confidence as his father. After all, look who he’s following – just about the most popular singer in the world!”

One thing young Frank definitely has confidence in, though, is knowing what he wants in a song. “He knows how he wants to sound, how he wants the arrangement to back him up, and he’s willing to work hard to make each number as good as possible. “His father was and is exactly the same way. Sinatra has high standards, and he is as much of a perfectionist as you can find. Temperamentally, the two Sinatras are very alike. However, Frank Jr. has far more technical knowledge of music, and that’s something his father is very proud about.”

Frank Jr. has studied music since childhood, is a talented pianist, has written a concerto and conducted and arranged two tunes which have been recorded on the Sinatra Reprise label.

“Frank Jr. spends most of his time working on his voice,” said Yocum. “He travels with a tape recorder, tapes some of his numbers and listens to them, trying to improve rough spots.

“This has paid off,” Yocum pointed out. “Frank’s much more at ease now, although he has always had an extra amount of poise. He loves to sing, and no matter how tired he gets he never complains. We’ve been working non-stop since last May, and it’s gotten a bit rough at times.

“For instance, when we appeared at the Cocoanut Grove in Los Angeles, we were through at midnight. When we worked in Las Vegas, Reno and Lake Tahoe, our last show wasn’t over until six in the morning. That’s a crazy schedule for a young boy.

“When he’s not working on his voice, he spends most of his spare time listening to his father’s records. But he does date occasionally during our engagements. He’s got no time to get serious yet, though he does have a picture of Hayley Mills hanging in his room at home.” Frank Jr. told me in a recent interview: “I don’t want to get serious with any girl yet.

“The sort of opportunity I have only comes once in a lifetime and I want to prove I can be worthy of it.”

He may not have much time for girls but they are devoting more and more to him. When he played in Phoenix, Arizona, local police cordoned off his motel to protect him from a besieging horde of girl fans.

How do the various audiences react to young Frank? “They love him,” said Yocum. “We’ve had good crowds every place we’ve been, and when it’s Frank’s turn to step into the spotlight, he impresses them.

“They like the old songs such as “I’ll Never Smile Again,” and “There Are Such Nice Things,” and they like hearing the old arrangements and the familiar voice. But more than that, they seem to like Frank for his obvious sincerity and lack of pretence.

“He’s a nice boy, and it shows.

“Sinatra and young Frank are very similar when they sing … even to using the microphone the same way. They move about the stage in the same way, and they both sing so that the song is directed to each member of the audience, and they sing as though they believed every word of the lyric.”

Some of Frank Jr.’s new fans like the way he handles a tune called “The Rules of the Road.”

“A song of a lost loser,” as Sinatra might say, it is written by the same team who composed “Witchcraft.” One critic termed it: “The kind of song Sinatra might sing, but hasn’t, a song that shows his boy has inherited all the Sinatra talent in making a lyric come alive.”

“Sinatra is justifiably proud of his son,” Yocum said, “and has often been a member of the audience when the Tommy Dorsey band was performing.

“Sinatra doesn’t like to take the spotlight away from Frank though,” Yocum added. “He tries to be as inconspicuous as possible, and Frank Jr. tries to be as good as possible.

“He is so proud of his father, and he’s always especially happy when he’s in the audience.”

Yocum revealed that Sinatra has quietly made a great number of expensive arrangements available to the band, including many highly praised Nelson Riddle backgrounds.

Despite the stories of Sinatra’s outbursts of temperament during his stay with the Dorsey band, Yocum’s reply to the question “did you ever see Sinatra ill-tempered?” was: “I don’t remember an occasion.”

“Sinatra seems to think well of this new Dorsey band,” added Yocum.

“In fact, he told Frank Jr. that this would be the best experience he could ever get if he really seriously wanted to make singing a career.

“And he definitely does want to be a singer. His experience shows already. He likes the singing, but also the fact that he has a chance to meet many of his father’s friends and fellow musicians. And Sinatra has friends everywhere.

“Frank Jr. has been looking forward to coming to England ever since he heard that we’d been signed to appear here. We’ve all looked forward to coming, I might add.

“And we’re especially happy that Frank came back safe and sound to come with us.”

There are those who doubt that anyone will ever be able to follow in the footsteps of Frank Sinatra, but Clark Yocum is one who believes if anyone can, it will be … Frank Sinatra Jr.

The post Sinatra Jr… the swinging image of dad appeared first on THIS IS GRANADA from Transdiffusion.

FOURTEEN stone of Memphis muscle stretched over a 6ft. 2in. frame is slumped lazily on the edge of a piano stool.

We’re in Granada’s vast Studio Six and Jerry Lee Lewis, at 29 an “old timer” from the rock ’n’ roll scene of the ’fifties, drives his audience to hysteria as he winds up the spectacular beat show Whole Lotta Shakin’ Goin’ On on Wednesday.

Suddenly the fans are unable to contain their emotion any longer. They cut loose from their seats and swarm on the platform, reaching out to touch their idol.

Three out of four cameras are useless now. Hemmed in by the crowd, Jerry, who has just given an extraordinary performance on the keyboard with his feet, seeks safety in the last place of refuge — on top of the piano.

Director Phil Casson’s lone camera just manages to hold out through the finale.

Afterwards I talked to Granada’s light entertainment chief, Johnny Hamp [sic – Johnnie], and asked him how a man who was at the top almost a decade ago is able to drive a new generation to hysteria.

Said Johnny: “Jerry has the gift of the real performer. Like the Judy Garlands and Frank Sinatras of show business, he knows everything there is to know about audience reactions and emotions.

“In his own field, Jerry Lee Lewis is just as great. He is capable of lifting his performance to that tremendous pitch where the fans are eating out of his hand.

“He’s typical of Tennessee, which today is America’s undisputed centre of popular music and has produced world names like Brenda Lee, Roy Orbison and the late Jim Reeves.”

As a successor to the Little Richard show, Whole Lotta Shakin’ Goin’ On is one of the wildest musical spectaculars ever seen on television.

The build-up starts with the Animals. Then comes Gene Vincent, another pioneer of the rock ’n’ roll era, clad from head to toe in shiny black leather.

“There were 60,000 letters requesting a repeat of our Little Richard show,” said Johnny Hamp, “and I forecast an even bigger response to Gene and Jerry.

“As far as technique goes and knowing the business, they have no masters. Almost every modern beat group and singer have modelled themselves on performers like Vincent and Lewis.”

It was in 1957 that Jerry Lee Lewis sold a million copies each of two records called “Great Balls of Fire” and “Whole Lotta Shakin’” — a staggering sale in those days.

“Great Balls of Fire” sums up the story of Jerry’s career. He flashed on the scene like a thunderbolt, then disappeared just as rapidly when he incurred the rage of the British public for marrying his 14-year-old cousin Myra Gale Brown.

Artists of the Lee Lewis calibre, however, are seldom down for long. His prolific performance at the keyboard and at the microphone would move the soul of most music lovers.

He’s a music machine who can take on any juke box.

But then enthusiasm never was a weak point with Jerry. Rather the reverse.

Like the time he studied as a youth at the Bible Institute in Waxahatchie, Texas.

He was asked to play the organ and was sent down the same day for jazzing up “The Old Rugged Cross.”

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HIGH in the mountains, a spring wells up and a little trickle of pure, icy water meanders down the slope.

Hundreds of miles away, the great muddy river with thousands of people living along its banks empties into the sea.

On Wednesday at 9.40, ITV are presenting a programme called I Hear The Blues. The artists are all Negroes from the Deep South, many of them elderly and by modern standards, obscure.

The viewers, apart from those who switch on at 5 p.m. and switch off after “The Queen,” will be a partisan group ranging from beatniks to bank clerks.

They will take in jazz musicians, poets, folk singers and anthropologists en route — but all united in their love and understanding of the blues.

Three days later, millions of teenagers will be sitting biting their nails with impatience as they wait for the week’s edition of Thank Your Lucky Stars, Saturday, 5.50. There’s the emptying into the sea.

A Mersey-type Thank Your Lucky Stars, with The Searchers, Cilla Black, Tommy Quickly, Billy J. Kramer and the Dakotas, Gerry and the Pacemakers and, wait for the squeals, The Beatles.

It’s unlikely that many of the teenage audience next Saturday have heard about Memphis Slim, who is appearing on Wednesday.

It is equally probable that most of the blues enthusiasts would reject out of hand the whole of Thank Your Lucky Stars. Both, I feel, are wrong.

The blues aficionado is wrong, because the Liverpool sound stems from the blues.

Its excitement is superficial, its poetry based on the cliche, but its excitement and cliches are felt and experienced. Also, and more significantly, this music is happening here and now.

It is not, as early British Revivalist jazz was, some 15 years ago, a reconstruction of New Orleans, but something that has grown out of American Negro rhythm and blues and which speaks with a local accent.

The tragic nobility of the blues is something else, and something infinitely more satisfying, but you cannot spend the whole of your life on a mountain peak.

There is no shame and much pleasure to be found in the streets.

The teenage pop fan is wrong, but in a sense less culpable, because he or she is a teenager — that is, a prisoner of the immediate and a slave to the momentary.

To suggest that it might be rewarding occasionally to listen to an elderly Negro in stead of a young boy with a dish-mop haircut is to invite incomprehension and ridicule.

Even so, things change, and often for the better. A few teenagers will become, and because of the music they like, not despite it, the blues lovers of tomorrow.

I have met some blues enthusiasts who admit, usually with shamefaced reservations, to a certain weakness for the Beatles.

There is no need here to describe in any way the artists in Thank Your Lucky Stars. Wednesday’s Blues package is another matter.

Here is the history of the blues. Not only a history in time (Lonnie Johnson, whom you will see, was born in 1889, pianist Otis Spann in 1938), but a history in stylistic development, too.

Big Joe Williams, blues shouter and nine-string guitarist, Memphis Slim, pianist and blues singer, and Sonny Boy Williamson, who sings and plays the mouth organ, represent the Mississippi or country blues style.

Primitive is the adjective often used to describe this tradition, but it has the grandeur and power to communicate of an African statue. That, too, is “primitive” art.

Lonnie Johnson, although older, belongs to a more sophisticated era. The blues, together with many other elements, fused to become jazz in the early years of the century.

Jazz, in its turn, changed the blues. It became more urban, more aware.

Lonnie played with Armstrong and Ellington. His voice is tender and witty, his technique absolute, but controlled by his impeccable taste. Incidentally, Lonnie Donegan chose his stage Christian name in admiration of Johnson.

During the 1920’s, the women blues singers, like Ma Rainey and Bessie Smith, emerged to dominate the idiom. Victoria Spivey belongs to this period or at least dates from it.

Her singing, in which the Vaudeville tradition is transfigured by her blues feeling, forbids us to consider her as an historical curiosity. Her blues, like all real blues, are outside time fashion.

The work of Muddy Waters completes the cycle. He sings rhythm and blues, the most recent development in the music’s history.

The most recent in time, yet R. and B. has more in common with primitive blues than with the blues of the early jazz era.

It is less relaxed, certainly, full of the noise and violence of big city life, but it has the same direct approach, the same raw, emotional appeal.

It was from this music that the adulterated and synthetic rock ‘n’ roll of the 195O’s and the preferable, but still emasculated beat music of today derived their inspiration.

To listen to Muddy Waters is to cut our local idols down to size, as in fairness they would be the first to admit.

Bill Stepney on drums. Matt ‘Guitar’ Murphy and bass-playing Willie Dixon complete the bill.

What are the blues? It is tempting to quote what Louis Armstrong said about jazz: “If you’ve got to ask you’ll never know.” Tempting, but unfair.

Technically, the blues are usually a 12-bar chorus repeated ad lib and divided into three lines, the first two more or less identical, the third providing a rough rhyme and completing an image or an idea.

The subject matter is usually misery or despair, yet the emotional effect is not gloomy.

W. C. Handy put it very well: “The blues came from the man furthest down. The blues came from nothingness, from want, from desire.

“And when a man sang or played the blues, a small part of the want was satisfied from the music.”

On Thursday at 10.10 p.m., there is a programme far removed from the raw, painful world of the blues or the adolescent excitement of the pop world.

In Buddy Greco Entertains, he’ll perform numbers like “Chicago,” “Around the World,” and his biggest success. “The Lady is a Tramp.”

Greco, like Sinatra, is the child of Italian immigrants. His voice, however, is more ingenuous, less edgy. When he sings, he makes you feel rich, witty and glad to be alive.

Did you guess who has his fingers on the strings above? It’s Gerry of Gerry and the Pacemakers

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Ask a jazz lover to name his favourite jazz “giant” and he is likely to pick Duke Ellington — certainly Johnny Dankworth would. Here Britain’s top jazz orchestra leader, composer and pianist writes about America’s world-famous jazz orchestra leader, composer and pianist, who will be seen in Duke Ellington and his Orchestra on Wednesday, and says why Ellington has been such an important force in the world of jazz since the late 1920s

ALTHOUGH the name of Duke Ellington is one that most people in this country with any interest in music of any sort will have come across a great deal, it has a magic for the jazz enthusiast which is not so easy to explain.

Why, to most jazz fans, is the Ellington band far and away the most important group of jazzmen in the world today?

The answer lies obviously in the personality of its leader.

Great men break the very rules that most of us have to follow so very assiduously. And Duke has broken almost every one in the rule book which dictates the actions of the successful jazzmen.

He has been on the jazz scene now for upwards of 35 years and during that time his style has remained virtually unaltered. The ebb and flow of fashion, which exists in jazz as it does in nearly every form of self expression, has precious little effect on Ellington, who prefers to steer his own course in his very personal way.

This makes it difficult to see why those who applaud the fashionable in jazz still approve of the unchangeable Duke.

Duke also has not followed the obvious path of a bandleader by selecting the most brilliant jazz individualists of any generation and turning their virtuosity to his advantage. Many of the best-known Ellington sidemen have turned out to be quite ordinary when taken out of the framework which their mentor designed for them. And the band has never been famous for precision and dynamic range in the Count Basie sense of those terms.

The Ellington band’s unmistakable sound is largely achieved through the individuality of its leader’s writing. But even when playing rather dull music by other arrangers its identity remains.

The reason is surely that the Ellington band is a collection of soloists rather than a team. Each man will only submerge his musical personality enough to make things work.

The result is a sound which theoretically doesn’t make sense.

The saxophone section is anything but well-matched or well-balanced from the tonal or dynamic point of view, but the sound, always dominated by baritone saxist Harry Carney (of 37 years’ service), is bulbous, surging and immediately identifiable.

Of the brass the same could be said but here the special trumpet and trombone “growl” effects originated by Bubber Miley and “Tricky Sam” Nanton in the 1920s have been religiously retained by their successors.

Ellington has never presented himself as an instrumentalist leader like Benny Goodman, the Dorsey brothers, Woody Herman and so many successful jazz bandleaders have done — although he has always been technically capable of it.

The key to Duke Ellington’s success is that Duke Ellington’s instrument is his orchestra. And because over the years he has made it into a so much more expressive, adaptable and well-controlled instrument than any one man could ever make his saxophone, his trumpet or his piano, his position at the head of all jazzmen is so unchallenged today.

On meeting the man and working alongside him as I have done, it is easy to see those qualities which make his music superlative. His relaxed manner makes his 63 years seem like 40.

One could easily imagine him as a successful doctor, or even a diplomat, and certainly his gentle manner and his gift for choosing the right word at the right time would have served him well in either capacity.

Duke’s easy-going nature is apparent in his dealings with the orchestra, where discipline is almost unknown. One of the musicians once said to me: “It’s not so much like being in a band as belonging to a club.” But if the club’s rules are broken (as occasionally they are) there is no blackballing for the wrongdoer.

One Ellington orchestra-wife, who evidently admired the Duke as much as most women seem to, said to me once after two Ellingtonians arrived late on the stand: “Duke’s a great psychologist. When the guys arrive late, d’you know what he does? He don’t say nothing, not a word. And those guys feel so awful!”

So awful, I noticed, that the same thing happened the following night.

But such happenings do not reveal Ellington’s capacity for hard and arduous work at his music. He and staff arranger Billy Strayhorn often work long into the night, even after a concert, in order to prepare new scores.

Duke’s reputation for prolific output of new scores has remained undulled in spite of his advancing years. Nevertheless he tends to sleep as much as he can — some times for 12 hours at a time.

Were it not for the sheer love of his band, Ellington would certainly have given it up years ago. Likewise, some of his musicians, who could probably earn greater incomes elsewhere, stay with Duke as much for kicks as halfpence.

I once asked him why his musicians stayed so long with him (he currently has three who were with him in 1932). “Because they can afford me.” he replied.

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STARS twinkle in the night sky, and the light from the full moon makes the snow glisten high up on the mighty Rockies. From the brilliantly illuminated ranch-house, constructed of local stone and timber from the encircling forests, comes the gay music of a square-dance. And a rough wooden sign nearby proclaims that we are exactly 5,993 miles from London.

It could be Alberta, Canada. But. in fact, the stars are sequins, the mountains cardboard. And the ranch-house, made from matchwood and paper, is in a television studio only a stone’s throw from Manchester’s muddy Irwell.

But if the scaled down model screened at the opening of Melody Ranch is only make-believe, the atmosphere inside the full-size ranch-house built on the studio floor is 100 per cent authentic.

The place itself has been designed by a Canadian, Tom Spaulding. The moose’s head on the wall may have been borrowed from a Salford museum — but it is, after all, a genuine North American moose.

And most of the artists appearing in the show are Canadians, too. Bill O’Connor, the host, and comedy-singer Libby Morris, who have both appeared in a similar show on Canadian TV, tell me: “This is just like the real thing.”

It was in a building something like the Melody Ranch set that Libby started on her show business career. “It was back in Winnipeg,” she said. “There was a stable, and a man bought it and made it into a night club, while maintaining the Western setting. I was 17 and working my way through college, and I used to sing there at night.

“After that I moved to Toronto, broke into radio and television, and then came to Britain.”

Libby is no stranger to the Manchester studios. She used to sing in Two’s Company until she had a breakdown and flew back to Canada to recuperate.

Melody Ranch also brings diminutive Jackie Lee back to the studios where she scored so much success in magazine programmes like Sharp at Four and People and Places. Since she was last in Manchester she’s had a busy time. Much of it has been taken up with troop concerts in Cyprus, Germany, North Africa and Malta.

But she also found time to get engaged. Her fiance is Len Beadle, one of The Four Others singing group. They plan to be married in August.

Jackie is one member of the Melody Ranch team who has no connection with Canada. She is Irish, and proud of it. “But,” she told me, “I wouldn’t have missed this for anything. There is such a happy atmosphere, and everyone is so friendly and helpful.”

The leader of the Melody Ranch group of musicians is Danny Levan, whose “talking violin” has a lot to say during the show’s 30 minutes. “I like to specialise in the novelty jazz type of fiddle playing,” he said, “but for some years now I have been typed as a Western-style fiddler. I don’t mind. I love this kind of music.”

He was introduced to “this kind of music” when he came out of the Army after the war and teamed up with the late Big Bill Campbell.

It was a post war meeting that created the Maple Leaf Four. This singing group consists of Al Harvey, brothers Norman and Johnnie MacLeod and Joe Melia. None of them had any show business experience before the war. They came to Britain as Canadian servicemen, and met after the war.

Of the four, only Al Harvey, tall and immaculate in his black and white cowboy outfit, can claim any knowledge of real ranch life. “I have ridden in the Calgary Stampede,” he told me. “It’s the biggest in the world — an unforgettable experience.”

Melody Ranch should make Al feel at home. According to the script its location is in the foothills of the Rockies, midway between Calgary and Banff.

Derek Meakin

– And Bill O’Connor ties the show together

BILL O’CONNOR stopped shouting “Mr Props, Mr Props,” and gave me an engaging smile. “I’m looking for a piece of string,” he explained. “I’ve just had this Western outfit made and the belt’s too long. It looks untidy. A piece of string would tie it nicely.”

This he said in an accent that was born in Sault Sainte Marie, Canada, where Bill grew up. As an actor he has used many others, but his home-town accent has come out again for Melody Ranch, where square-dances and songs from the guests set the style.

I met him at a rehearsal to talk about his role as “the owner of this spread.” He is tall — almost 6ft — has dark brown curly hair, hazel eyes and a welcoming smile.

His figure is athletic, which is hardly surprising, for he lists baseball, squash and ice hockey among his leisure activities.

He looks a real rancher in his Western outfit of brown and white leather boots, brown and white checked trousers, yellow ochre embroidered shirt and ribbon tie with a matching waistcoat.

“I’m certainly enjoying this show,” said Bill. “I think it’s fun. I hope it’s popular. We have the same sort of show in Canada. That’s been running for more than five years and is so popular that viewers won’t let it be replaced.” He has just returned from Canada, where he is known as Larry O’Connor. ” There’s another Bill O’Connor in Canadian show business,” he explained.

Bill, who is 38, came to England with the Canadian Navy and stayed on to become a well-established leading man in West End musical comedy. He played in Cage Me A Peacock, Brigadoon and Love From Judy.

His films include They Made Me A Fugitive, Meet the Navy, No Orchids For Miss Blandish and The Happiness of Three Women. He has had two weekly radio programmes, and taken part in variety broadcasts and straight plays, but he plays host for the first time on television in Melody Ranch.

Bill does more than introduce the other artists; his easy-going, relaxed personality welds the show together He welcomes the viewers to the timbered, wide-windowed ranch house. He cracks the jokes that lead from song to song, and, of course, he sings.

“I like the happy atmosphere of Melody Ranch,” Bill told me. “I like the gay songs we sing.”

There was no more time to talk, for the last rehearsal was due to begin. Director Philip Jones walked on the set to give his last-minute instructions.

Bill was saying goodbye to me when a blue-sweatered character who had heard his appeal for string arrived with a piece. Bill tied his belt tightly. “I think that looks better,” he said. And he slipped back to the set in time to join the rest of the cast in the welcoming song that introduces Melody Ranch.

Pamela Hodgson

The post They’re real pardners at Melody Ranch appeared first on THIS IS GRANADA from Transdiffusion.

HUMPHREY LYTTELTON is more than just the Old Etonian wizard with a trumpet we see in Here’s Humph on Friday evenings. He is an artist, too. In fact, at one time he used to draw for a national newspaper.

And though he may appear to be oblivious of everything except the music when he is playing, he sees more than most of us—as you can tell from the pictures on these pages of his band and the studio audience, drawn by him specially for TV TIMES.

For the studio viewers at Here’s Humph are not like the average audience at television shows. They do not just sit quietly while the show goes on the air. Who could expect jazz fans aged between 15 and 24 to keep still while the Lyttelton beat is at its best? Certainly not Granada.

That is why there is a pear-shaped outline on the floor drawn in red chalk in front of the band dais in Studio One. Within this scarlet boundary the youngsters at the show can dance.

And dance they do. A few prefer to watch and keep their seats at the ringside tables, where they arc served with soft drinks. But the others stand at the back of the studio and. as Humph begins a new tune, they ooze — that’s the only word for their concerted shuffle — into the “pear” like blancmange flowing into a mould.

It’s an experience to watch the variations of jive they perform — as seen by Humph from the bandstand. There are:

THE HOPPERS: Boy holds girl’s hand and she hops. Sometimes on both feet, sometimes on alternate feet, matching her speed to the rhythm. Occasionally boy hops. too. Then, with the occasional, lazy flick of the wrist, he sends the young lady spinning.

THE KICKERS: (rather dangerous when there are 30 jiving couples on a night-club-size floor). Boy and girl lean forward until their noses almost touch, as in the first stages of an Eskimo romance. They hold both hands loosely, pump their arms in time to the music and kick their legs behind them. Room is made for them by —

THE INHIBITED: (usually the younger set, a little unsure of themselves and perhaps too formally dressed). They circle the floor in a speedy quickstep attached to a bobbing action.

THE TWIRLERS: (recognisable at once because the girl always wears a pretty, layered petticoat beneath her full skirt — you can’t help seeing it). This is the most relaxing for the boy — he stands fairly still and holds out his arm while his partner spins round and round, using his tensed hand as an axis.

These jive fans show the degree of their enthusiasm by their dress. Valerie Ralph, 22 years old, of Cheetham Hill, Manchester, and her 21-year-old friend, Norma Davies, a student teacher at a Didsbury college, both wore velvet drain pipe trews and brilliant-coloured, thick-knit sweaters. Their hair was neat and styled so that it could not flop in their eyes.

I was hardly surprised to learn they were crazy about jazz, and that most of their leisure time is spent listening and dancing to the music.

“We go to jazz clubs four times a week,” Norma told me. It was through one of these clubs they got their tickets. “I collect jazz records,” said Valerie, “particularly Humph’s.”

Their partners were Trevor Vickerstaff, a 22-year-old in a yellow sweater, who lives at Rusholme. Manchester, and 22-year-old John Corness, who wore a brown sweater with his casual slacks. Like the girls, they had got their tickets through a club, which is the way most of them are distributed.

Trevor said: “This is my fifth visit.” I noticed he and John took their partners to the least crowded part of the floor — the section where one camera was constantly tracking backwards and forwards for close-ups of the band and general shots of the dancers.

This worried some of the newcomers, and they kept away from the camera, but not the Trevor-John quartet. They were adept at ducking out of the way, although John did get his head lightly tapped once, which amused the others.

Trevor is a member of four Manchester jazz clubs, and he collects records. “I have 12 of Humph’s recordings,” he told me proudly, “and my favourite is Bad Penny Blues”

This was not one of the tunes Humph played that evening, but his music certainly pleased 15-year-old Sylvia Palmer, an office worker from Swinton, Lancs, and her teenage friend, Rosalind Lewis, from the same town.

Both members of a jazz club, this evening marked their first visit to a TV studio. At first they seemed overawed and sat, shyly sipping their soft drinks, at a side table. But a few minutes of Humph’s music — he plays to the youngsters for 45 minutes before the show goes on the air — and they were dancing, too.

“I really love his music,” Sylvia told me. “I am saving up for a record player so that I can hear it when I like in my own home.”

Jazz club member with a wardrobe of circular skirts — as popular as jeans among enthusiastic jivers — was 19-year-old Dorothy Machen, of Newton Heath, Manchester. The one she was wearing was black wool with huge white felt, diamante-studded guitars sewn on it. “I like to dress up for Humph’s shows,” she told me. “I treat them like a party.”

Indeed, there was quite a party atmosphere in the studio. The people were as happy and relaxed as those dancers who are members of his Oxford-street, London, jazz club. There was not a sign of TV nerves.

The members of the band — including one woman player, tenor – saxophonist Kathie Stobart, who has joined the group for the last weeks of the programme’s scheduled run — had lost themselves in the music.

And so had Humph. He stood, tall, burly and broad-shouldered in front of his band. Humph, the Old Etonian in a high-necked sweater, who is a wizard with the trumpet and his interpretation of free jazz.

Humph enjoys talking to the teenagers who appreciate his music. Many have become his personal friends — and this is not a story handed out by a publicity man. Three years ago Humph married a teenage fan who talked to him during a show. Her name was Jill Richardson.

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