The Sheila Tracy Tapes

[Serial_Apologist]

I only just spotted this:

Radio 2
Weds 21 Sept - 10 pm
Ken Bruce celebrates the specialist Radio 2 career of Cornwall-born broadcaster Sheila Tracy (1934-2014), who played trombone professionally with Ivy Benson and her All Girls Band. From 1979 to 2000 Tracy presented Radio 2's Big Band Special , interviewing jazz, big band and swing greats. Featured here are highlights, including band leader and clarinettist Artie Shaw (before his death in 2004*) and, in 1985, arranger Nelson Riddle (1921-85). Plus trombonist Chris Barber, pianist George Shearing (1919-2011), several of Glenn Miller's musicians and US big band-era star Helen Forrest (1917-99), American bass player Milt Hinton (1910-2000) and his wife Mona (1919-2008) discuss their experience of segregation.

*Not after, please note!

I wonder if the interviewees will include a pianist called Richard Madgewick, a brilliant but overlooked jazz pianist residing in this district, whom I got to know, but who died a couple of years ago. Richard was a brilliant backer for vocalists, and the regular piano player with the John (nephew of Glen) Miller Band.

It may not be known, incidentally, that at least two of our better-known still-living female jazz musicians did brief time in Ivy Benson's band: Paraphernalia leader Barbara Thompson, and trombonist Annie Whitehead.

[Lat-Literal]

I only just spotted this:

Radio 2
Weds 21 Sept - 10 pm
Ken Bruce celebrates the specialist Radio 2 career of Cornwall-born broadcaster Sheila Tracy (1934-2014), who played trombone professionally with Ivy Benson and her All Girls Band. From 1979 to 2000 Tracy presented Radio 2's Big Band Special , interviewing jazz, big band and swing greats. Featured here are highlights, including band leader and clarinettist Artie Shaw (before his death in 2004*) and, in 1985, arranger Nelson Riddle (1921-85). Plus trombonist Chris Barber, pianist George Shearing (1919-2011), several of Glenn Miller's musicians and US big band-era star Helen Forrest (1917-99), American bass player Milt Hinton (1910-2000) and his wife Mona (1919-2008) discuss their experience of segregation.

*Not after, please note!

I wonder if the interviewees will include a pianist called Richard Madgewick, a brilliant but overlooked jazz pianist residing in this district, whom I got to know, but who died a couple of years ago. Richard was a brilliant backer for vocalists, and the regular piano player with the John (nephew of Glen) Miller Band.

It may not be known, incidentally, that at least two of our better-known still-living female jazz musicians did brief time in Ivy Benson's band: Paraphernalia leader Barbara Thompson, and trombonist Annie Whitehead.

Sheila Tracy was a good broadcaster.

I think my parents are friends with someone who played in Ivy Benson's band and has continued to play until recently in Croydon area jazz bands.

His name is Ron the Trumpet.

[Serial_Apologist]

Sheila Tracy was a good broadcaster.

I think my parents are friends with someone who played in Ivy Benson's band and has continued to play until recently in Croydon area jazz bands.

His name is Ron the Trumpet.

I think Richard may have known Ron, and possibly introduced us. If it is the same Ron, he played (and maybe still plays) in the Big Beer Band, which used to put on a Monday night appearance at a pub adjacent to the Crystal Palace site.

[Lat-Literal]

I think Richard may have known Ron, and possibly introduced us. If it is the same Ron, he played (and maybe still plays) in the Big Beer Band, which used to put on a Monday night appearance at a pub adjacent to the Crystal Palace site.

That sounds about right to me. He used to visit from time to time between 2005 and 2012 (approx) and in the early days rang my door bell having confused the properties. He seemed very pleasant. There was a music link to another Ron, now deceased, and his wife Margaret and I think one Ron also did some sailing. I am not sure how they all met.

[Ian Thumwood]

I used to be a regular listener of "Big Band Special" when Sheila Tracy was the presenter and was always really surprised when some on the fore-runner of this board used to vilify the programme. It was quite informative and the programme was an eye-opener in getting me to appreciate more modern styles of big band writing. I always liked ST's presentation style and it was great that she was so well informed , not only from having been a musician but also regarding that there was another presenter on BBC other than Alan Dell who had a better grasp of the wider range of big band music.

By the mid 80's the BBC Radio Big Band had a accumulated a big following and there was even a fan club. As a teenager I belonged to a local Big Band society who were affiliated with a similar organisation in Yately. The latter had a some impressive connections and would organise annual recitals which often concluded with a set by local rehearsal big bands who were populated by professional musicians. Each year they tried to better themselves and eventually managed to book the BBC Big Band which was a massive coup. Having seen them on a few occasions, they are a good bet at live gigs but with ST presenting, there was a enhanced degree of professionalism. She seemed far more in touch with what big bands were about than Alan Dell who was never about the contemporary scene.

[Hornspieler]

I used to be a regular listener of "Big Band Special" when Sheila Tracy was the presenter and was always really surprised when some on the fore-runner of this board used to vilify the programme. It was quite informative and the programme was an eye-opener in getting me to appreciate more modern styles of big band writing. I always liked ST's presentation style and it was great that she was so well informed , not only from having been a musician but also regarding that there was another presenter on BBC other than Alan Dell who had a better grasp of the wider range of big band music.

By the mid 80's the BBC Radio Big Band had a accumulated a big following and there was even a fan club. As a teenager I belonged to a local Big Band society who were affiliated with a similar organisation in Yately. The latter had a some impressive connections and would organise annual recitals which often concluded with a set by local rehearsal big bands who were populated by professional musicians. Each year they tried to better themselves and eventually managed to book the BBC Big Band which was a massive coup. Having seen them on a few occasions, they are a good bet at live gigs but with ST presenting, there was a enhanced degree of professionalism. She seemed far more in touch with what big bands were about than Alan Dell who was never about the contemporary scene.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/obituaries/11137238/Sheila-Tracy-obituary.html

When an attractive young redhead entered the Royal Academy of Music for the first time, I was one of the first to greet her. She told me that she wanted to learn to play the trombone and her professor would be the RPO's Principal, Sydney Langston...

My jaw dropped. Why?

Well, why not? One of the great principal "Slip Horn" players at that time was the Salvationist Maisie Ringham, in the Hallé orchestra.
Well, my friend, the legendary Denis Wick had joined the RAM at the same time as me, but had left after only a year, because, as he told me "Syd Langston isn't teaching me, I'm teaching him!"
Denis joined the then Bournemouth Municipal Orchestra and Sheila arrived at the RAM two years later. She was not happy with Syd Langston (she didn't say why), but I suggested that she might like to try one of my colleagues from the RA Band - another Salvationist called Gordon McGowan.
Then Gordon went off to Canada, Sheila joined the Ivy Benson band, and she shared a flat with a fellow musician, whose surname was, I think, Tracy (or was that the aparment address where they were living?)

They formed a cabaret act and called themselves "The Tracy Sisters" so it was as Sheila Tracy that she joined the BBC as a continuity announcer.
It was a logical move for her to become a presenter for the BBC Jazz and Light Music programmes.

(I'm getting tired now, and making too many mistakes, but I will continue with another post regarding my re-aquaintance with Sheila some years later.)

HS

[Hornspieler]

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/obit...-obituary.html

(I'm getting tired now, and making too many mistakes, but I will continue with another post regarding my re-aquaintance with Sheila some years later.)

HS

The early 60s

My elder sister Paddy (the actress) was married to a BBC television producer.

Jack Braybon was a physicist who had been around since the wartime years, when he was working for the Air Ministry at their research facility in Boscombe Down.
Paddy had recruited him into her little play acting group in Salisbury, when she was a member of the so-called "Stars in Battledress" alongside such luminaries as Peter Ustinov in the Garrison Theatre (formerly "The Old Picture House" in Salisbury.

As we lived only five minutes walk from the theatre, quite a few of the actors were invited home for a cup of tea and also Jack, who was courting Paddy and plying the family with his vast collection of Jazz records (especially Benny Goodman, which, at the age of ten, made me decide to learn the clarinet (see Bravo Maestro or PM me for a copy)

So, knowing that she would be going off on a tour with ENSA, Paddy left Jack to take over that little drama group and it was his acquired knowledge of production and his scientific qualifications that got him into the BBC as a TV producer, specializing in afternoon Schools Education programmes.

He was making a program about "The Properties of Sound" and of course the question of harmonics and the harmonic series needed to be illustrated.

(most forumites will remember Dennis Brain's performance on one of those delightful Hoffnung concerts, when he played tunes on a hosepipe with his mouthpiece at one end and a parafin funnel at the other. Try it - it's good fun!)

An old friend from Southampton University was quite a good trumpet player "What about Stan and me playing a duet on hosepipes of different lengths?",

"Better still", I suggested "what about a trio for three hosepipes which could therefore cover all the notes in the scale? We could have lengths of 4 feet, 8 feet and 12 feet - like a brass trio - trumpet, horn and trombone?."

"And where do we get a trombone player?"

Jack's secretary, who was writing all this down, looked up.
"Doesn't Sheila play a trombone?

BINGO! "She can introduce the programme and take part in it as well!"

So I composed a trio, based on "Here's a Health unto His Majesty" and with three hosepipes with trumpet, horn and trombone mouthpieces in one end and three cookery funnels (purloined from the BBC Canteen) in the other ends, we demonstrated how all the notes can be found from somewhere.

To my regret, that is the last time that I saw my friend Sheila.

RIP Sheila

[Serial_Apologist]

Fascinating reminiscences, HS - not often you visit here - many thanks!

[Lat-Literal]

I think Richard may have known Ron, and possibly introduced us. If it is the same Ron, he played (and maybe still plays) in the Big Beer Band, which used to put on a Monday night appearance at a pub adjacent to the Crystal Palace site.

I got some of my information wrong. In the very distant past, Ivy Benson's band was a band of women. Ron the Trumpet (and I know his surname now which ends in a "son") played trumpet until recently in the Croydon area for a woman called Gloria who when younger had sung in Ivy Benson's band. Thought it was only right I clarified that point.