Acker Bilk has died

[aka Calum Da Jazbo]

... with terminal prejudice then ... as time passes one mellows i guess ...

[kernelbogey]

Well, in the "Great UK Jazz War", just like the Spanish Civil War but far more vicious, they, the Tradistas were the enemy to be shot, clubbed and strung up by their banjos. No mercy.

But, I always had a sneaky regard for the clarinetists...Sunshine, Sandy Brown and Herr Bilk.

I would still of course have "detained" them.


BN.

At the ages of 15 -16 the Trads just seemed to me to be enjoying themselves more than those playing other styles.....

[BLUESNIK'S REVOX]

There was a regular trad gig when I was c. 15 where the band would usually get plastered in the interval and leave it to the banjoist to finish out the night. He then played guitar - very good Broonzy blues with steel finger picks. I was hugely impressed by that. First time I had seen that finger style up close.

BN.

[clive heath]

re #14 above:

I think the clarinet solo in "High Society" is a homage to the original (?) solo on Jelly Roll Morton's recording which you can check on

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NGdg4QNFfMI

and is included in many performances of the piece. The clarinettist is most likely Albert Nicholas although Sidney Bechet is also in the group, listed on the label as on Soprano sax.

[kernelbogey]

Thanks Clive. Yes that's the one. It was certainly on the Kenny Ball recording played on Saturday JRR. My 50+ year old memory is that it's either on the Acker EP or the Chris Barber one, but I don't now know which!

(Not sure my hearing was clear but was one of the solos in the Jelly Roll disc on clarinet followed by another on sax?)

H

[Old Grumpy]

Nice piece in the Telegraph

[Ian Thumwood]

I think that Acker Bilk probably gained more credibility with jazz fans as he grew older. The track with Stan Tracey is pretty well-known but he did made some recording with Humph in the 1980's which drew him more towards the jazz mainstream. He always came across as a modest and affable character and I think he had a genuine passion for jazz even though I am not too enthused by much of his output.

The whole Bilk / Barber / Ball stuff always struck me as having relatively little to do with jazz when I first discovered the music. I would have to say that Chris Barber is the one who I would have to revise my opinion of and someone whose current band is certainly far more credible than what you might perceive. Of the three, Chris Barber seemed less "Trad"yet I would have to say that I can't say his records impress me as much as other revivalist bands. Current groups like the Fat Babies seem to capture the spirit of this music exactly and I think the more scholarly approach of many musicians since the 1980's has by-passed Trad and made the latter a bit irrelevant. There are countless bands who play this early jazz with gusto and can make music that is 80-90 years old come to life. I don't think that many Trad bands of the 50's / 60's really addressed the mechanics of the music as well as musicians like Colyer or more latterly, Keith Nichols.

I can't honestly say that I've ever checked Bilk's recordings out although I have a memory of being a young teenager getting in to jazz and having a haircut in the hairdresser in the village that I seldom used when they played the whole album of Bilk with strings on the radio. It was a bit of a shocking experience as it was the first time that I had appreciated the jazz could be transformed in to middle-of-the road music or muzak and a million miles away from someone like Benny Goodman whose music I was then immersed in. Coupled with the paraphernalia of the bowler hat and waistcoat , the issue with the likes of Acker Bilk for me always goes beyond Trad v Modern as it is a matter of authenticity against a commercialised, perceived travesty of what jazz is. Like Kenny Ball, I've never felt Acker Bilk really had much connection with true jazz and when he did, it was only in the more modern collaborations where the Trad element had diminished. Sorry if this seems harsh. This kind of stuff is more pop music than genuine jazz.

I would tend to agree with Bluesnik and I think that Sandy Brown was a more interesting clarinettist and, in my opinion, an original and authentic jazz voice on this instrument. Elsewhere, you can quickly discover just how far many of the Trad bands were from really appreciating the tradition when you hear the likes of Ken Colyer who absolutely nailed it.

I'm sad that Acker Bilk has passed on as it is the end of an era. However, at the height of the "Trad boom", his music was almost indicative of being a pastiche of jazz albeit in a cruder fashion than someone like Shostakovich might produce. I'm not convinced that (his commercial music at least) really had anything to do with jazz. He may have eventually become more credible yet I think the whole "Trad jazz" boom casts a shadow over the music insofar that it distorts the wider public perception of what the music really is about.

I'll await the brickbats........

[BLUESNIK'S REVOX]

"Ken Colyer who absolutely nailed it."

According to one story Colyer in his cups hit his wife around the head with a guitar when she suggested he give it a rest. Colyer's blues and skiffle group was fkg awful.

No brickbats from me. Although didn't Bilk move on for a time to a kind of Louis Prima-esque jump sound?

BN.

[Ian Thumwood]

Strange that no reference made to the brilliant Brian Lemon who also passed away recently. Always impressed by his swinging playing and one of the first British musicians I got switched on to.

[Padraig]

Love the replaying of all the goodnatured banter of the fifties and early sixties regarding all that trad. It was good to be there. I'd make the point that though we all argued about the relative merits of the British trad band scene, inspiration was drawn from the good old USA. As a case in point I would suggest that the test piece for the clarinet was the High Society solo of Johnny Dodds. Legend has it that the solo was originally inspired by the sound of electricity humming through a telegraph pole.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rvw0a_2uezE

[RayBurns]

While sorry that Acker Bilk had died I'm a bit fed up that no one has yet noted that Vic Ash died on October 24th. I started a thread on another forum on this subject but would have hoped that a predominately British forum might have noted that one of the foremost British modernists of the 1950s had passed.

[BLUESNIK'S REVOX]

While sorry that Acker Bilk had died I'm a bit fed up that no one has yet noted that Vic Ash died on October 24th. I started a thread on another forum on this subject but would have hoped that a predominately British forum might have noted that one of the foremost British modernists of the 1950s had passed.

Didn't know that. I saw Vic Ash when he stood in for David Newman with the Ray Charles band in London etc in 1963. A fine job he made of it and was highly regarded by all of them I understand.

[Ian Thumwood]

Vic Ash was really under-rated. One of the few British clarinettists to pursue the approach of Buddy De Franco. there was a fascinating interview with him on the radio in the early 1980's when I was getting in to jazz and he was explaining his musical education and how important classical music was to his schooling. Don't forget he also played for the BBC Radio big band as well.

[Serial_Apologist]

Vic Ash was really under-rated. One of the few British clarinettists to pursue the approach of Buddy De Franco. there was a fascinating interview with him on the radio in the early 1980's when I was getting in to jazz and he was explaining his musical education and how important classical music was to his schooling. Don't forget he also played for the BBC Radio big band as well.

Yes - I didn't know of his passing either, nor Brian Lemon's whom I had once wrongly thought an Earl Hines pasticheur, until hearing him in a requested track from an LP with Tony Coe and, I think, Kenny Wheeler; he was much much more of course, and another from that Bruce Turner/Michael Garrick generation who made something original and dare one say English out of seemingly incompatible influences.

Thanks for this news, people, said though it is.

[BLUESNIK'S REVOX]

"I had a wonderful time with the Ray Charles band and all the guys in the band including Ray Charles, accepted me socially and musically as if I had been a regular member for years. It was a very gratifying experience." - Vic Ash, 1963.

When Fathead was busted in London and "detained", Vic Ash stood in at short notice playing James Clay's tenor parts while Clay filled in for Fathead Newman. Ash played with them for over ten days in London and Paris etc. He's very interesting on just how good that Ray Charles band was. Packed with soloists.


BN.