Jon Hiseman

[burning dog]

Very sad news..........


RIP Jon

[BLUESNIK'S REVOX]

"The family of Jon Hiseman have announced his death at the age of 73. The former Colosseum, Colosseum II and Graham Bond Organisation drummer passed away after a battle with brain cancer.

Hiseman’s daughter, Ana Gracey, posted on Facebook that her father “passed away peacefully at 03.55am.”

Hiseman underwent an operation recently to remove a cancerous brain tumour. Sadly, this life saving surgery failed, and on June 1 it was announced by his daughter Ana that he had been admitted to a hospice:

"We have been told there is no hope for my dad now and it will be just a matter of days. He has been moved to our local hospice - he is not receiving any treatment or food, but he is in a peaceful state and gradually drifting away." - from "Louder" which I think is a drum journal.

BN.

[cloughie]

Indeed very sad. RIP Jon.

[Serial_Apologist]

Thanks, everyone, for your support and sympathies.

[Serial_Apologist]

Links for tributes to Jon can be found below:

https://www.loudersound.com/news/colosseum-founder-jon-hiseman-dies-aged-73

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/12/obituaries/jon-hiseman-73-drummer-who-melded-rock-jazz-and-blues-dies.html

http://www.ultimateclassicrock.com/jon-hiseman-dies/

http://www.londonjazznews.com/2018/06/news-jon-hiseman-1944-2018-rip.html

http://www.temple-music.com/jon-hiseman-dies-aged-73/

http://www.dmme.net/jon-hiseman-has-passed-away/

http://www.jcmband.com

I hope I've managed to transcribe all those urls correctly - some of them appear a bit dodgy!

[Serial_Apologist]

Yesterday I had the great privilege of being invited down to Sutton to a celebration of Jon. As might be expected many faces from Jon's rock band leader career were there, but of the jazz people I grabbed chats with Chris Biscoe, Mike & Kate Westbrook, and Pete Lemer. This was a sit-down event, rows of chairs arranged in lines extending into the back garden at Temple Music under the welcome shelter of two gazebos, with tressel tables to each side for food and drinks and displaying leaflets, ads for existing and new recordings and a large board covered with photographs of Jon going back to childhood, teenage early musical exploits, the, as it happened, small gathering for Jon and Barbara's wedding in August '67, (not the rock celebrity affair I'd always assumed), through the numerous line-ups that showed the dapper mod in the Graham Bond Organisation and the hirsuite early '70s edition of Colosseum giving way to the smarter elegance of the Tempest and Colosseum II late 70s periods and early Paraphernalia, right through to the early middle aged look he carried right through to untimely passing. Had six sweeks already gone by?

The sequence of events, introduced by Jon's son Luke, began with an edited reconstruction culled from several documentaries and interviews that offered insight into Jon's approach to drumming, music, and the music industry in general. How good it would be if a broadcaster transmitted this. Pete Lemer spoke of first meeting Jon in 1965 when the latter was backing Annie Ross - I hadn't known that - he then accompanied their daughter Ana-Grace in three songs, favourites of Jon and Barbara. Ana is pitch-perfect across a wide pitch range and has a sweet tone with slight vibrato, capable of being notched up when dealing with blusier materials, as would become clear later in proceedings in a duet with Chris Farlowe. A ex-associate from the early 1980s spoke of Jon's character in terms of his high standards of perfectionism, professionalism and generosity, emphasising, as did others, his facility for communicating principles from musical practice and dealings with fellow artists that could be applied to life in general, and the debt many movingly owed this much-to-be-missed polymath character, described as Renaissance man. A childhood associate of Barbara's described in often humorous terms the trials and circumstances of her and Jon's getting together - Barbara had only agreed to dating in return for him giving her driving lessons in exchange for his borrowing her dad's tape recorder! - and how they got their first domestic situation sorted. Someone associated with Andrew Lloyd Webber came on to speak of that relationship, much of which I consciously missed as I moved to the food & drinks tent to sample some amazing smoked salmon sandwiches, washed down with fine champaigne - see, I told you I was privileged!

Several close relations and associates then gave verbal tributes, with an emphasis on Jon not wishing this to be a sad occasion mitigated by no small number of tears understandably being shed, especially when Barbara delivered her own, which, notwithstanding several hilarious reminiscences, her daughter Ana concluded, finishing her mother's script. Chris Farlowe sang a couple of tunes from the early Colosseum repertoire which had strong Jack Bruce associations with piano, electric violin, acoustic and bass guitar accompaniment, followed by Pete Brown (who never seems to get any older) - drums were noticeably absent from the day's event - and, then being joined by Ana for a blues number with words chosen for their salience to the occasion and Jon's memory - before Chris concluded the sequence with an unaccompanied spontaneously "lyricised" blues of his own. Chris is a fine exponent, and this was genuinely affecting. He then told a very funny joke, an adaptation of a more well-known one about God thinking he was, in this instance, Jon Hiseman, but the light relief went down well.

People were then invited to come up and offer reminiscences and anecdotes of their own - a couple of neighbours did: Jon and Barbara have been living in the Edwardian pile incorporating the recording studio comprising TM since 1978: I was tempted to get up and list all those now passed on who would have been there "in spirit", but could not decide it this would have been appropriate to the occasion, or if it was the drink that had dredged up the idea. There was a final three cheers, and other people as well as me started making our ways home.

[Old Grumpy]

Very fine account, S_A.

for Jon and Barbara

OG

[BLUESNIK'S REVOX]

Many thanks for that. Well conveyed and good to see him so remembered. I know its coming for all of us but it brings it home more so when its someone of your own generation, and someone you admired. Chastening.

BN.

[Serial_Apologist]

Very fine account, S_A.

for Jon and Barbara

OG

Thanks, OG. I think it goes better on here than on the "Experimental" etc thread.

[Serial_Apologist]

Many thanks for that. Well conveyed and good to see him so remembered. I know its coming for all of us but it brings it home more so when its someone of your own generation, and someone you admired. Chastening.

BN.

Thanks Bluesie. Two things I forgot to mention were how old so many of Jon's former associates are now looking. It always seemed to me that "our generation" would retain our general semblance of youthfulness a lot longer than our elders, due to a combination of optimism, never wanting to be old, and post-WW2 rationed food, which may have been meagre in quantities but was more nutritious than the junk food that's creating obseity everywhere these days, and will probably lead to shortened lives as compared to ours, thereby obviating the demographic pensions timebomb to come. But that impression then had to be set among the state of many of the characters I was witnessing, and comparing with changes in their physical appearances in publicity and other shots over the years.

The other, related thing, is that according to Jill, his sister, Jon fortunately hardly suffered at all, apart from one day when she said he experienced anxiety - after which, she said, he just quietly slipped away, and this she put down to the tumour having occupied the left side of his brain, thereby protecting him from the full emotional impact it might otherwise have had. Having myself known several people on close terms who had died from brain tumours, I remarked on the irony that this so often seems to happen with particularly brilliant people, to which Jill replied, "Our father died of a brain tumour as well, you know".

[cloughie]

Yesterday I had the great privilege of being invited down to Sutton to a celebration of Jon. As might be expected many faces from Jon's rock band leader career were there, but of the jazz people I grabbed chats with Chris Biscoe, Mike & Kate Westbrook, and Pete Lemer. This was a sit-down event, rows of chairs arranged in lines extending into the back garden at Temple Music under the welcome shelter of two gazebos, with tressel tables to each side for food and drinks and displaying leaflets, ads for existing and new recordings and a large board covered with photographs of Jon going back to childhood, teenage early musical exploits, the, as it happened, small gathering for Jon and Barbara's wedding in August '67, (not the rock celebrity affair I'd always assumed), through the numerous line-ups that showed the dapper mod in the Graham Bond Organisation and the hirsuite early '70s edition of Colosseum giving way to the smarter elegance of the Tempest and Colosseum II late 70s periods and early Paraphernalia, right through to the early middle aged look he carried right through to untimely passing. Had six sweeks already gone by?

The sequence of events, introduced by Jon's son Luke, began with an edited reconstruction culled from several documentaries and interviews that offered insight into Jon's approach to drumming, music, and the music industry in general. How good it would be if a broadcaster transmitted this. Pete Lemer spoke of first meeting Jon in 1965 when the latter was backing Annie Ross - I hadn't known that - he then accompanied their daughter Ana-Grace in three songs, favourites of Jon and Barbara. Ana is pitch-perfect across a wide pitch range and has a sweet tone with slight vibrato, capable of being notched up when dealing with blusier materials, as would become clear later in proceedings in a duet with Chris Farlowe. A ex-associate from the early 1980s spoke of Jon's character in terms of his high standards of perfectionism, professionalism and generosity, emphasising, as did others, his facility for communicating principles from musical practice and dealings with fellow artists that could be applied to life in general, and the debt many movingly owed this much-to-be-missed polymath character, described as Renaissance man. A childhood associate of Barbara's described in often humorous terms the trials and circumstances of her and Jon's getting together - Barbara had only agreed to dating in return for him giving her driving lessons in exchange for his borrowing her dad's tape recorder! - and how they got their first domestic situation sorted. Someone associated with Andrew Lloyd Webber came on to speak of that relationship, much of which I consciously missed as I moved to the food & drinks tent to sample some amazing smoked salmon sandwiches, washed down with fine champaigne - see, I told you I was privileged!

Several close relations and associates then gave verbal tributes, with an emphasis on Jon not wishing this to be a sad occasion mitigated by no small number of tears understandably being shed, especially when Barbara delivered her own, which, notwithstanding several hilarious reminiscences, her daughter Ana concluded, finishing her mother's script. Chris Farlowe sang a couple of tunes from the early Colosseum repertoire which had strong Jack Bruce associations with piano, electric violin, acoustic and bass guitar accompaniment, followed by Pete Brown (who never seems to get any older) - drums were noticeably absent from the day's event - and, then being joined by Ana for a blues number with words chosen for their salience to the occasion and Jon's memory - before Chris concluded the sequence with an unaccompanied spontaneously "lyricised" blues of his own. Chris is a fine exponent, and this was genuinely affecting. He then told a very funny joke, an adaptation of a more well-known one about God thinking he was, in this instance, Jon Hiseman, but the light relief went down well.

People were then invited to come up and offer reminiscences and anecdotes of their own - a couple of neighbours did: Jon and Barbara have been living in the Edwardian pile incorporating the recording studio comprising TM since 1978: I was tempted to get up and list all those now passed on who would have been there "in spirit", but could not decide it this would have been appropriate to the occasion, or if it was the drink that had dredged up the idea. There was a final three cheers, and other people as well as me started making our ways home.

Really good chronicle of the event. Thanks.

[BLUESNIK'S REVOX]

Thanks Bluesie. Two things I forgot to mention were how old so many of Jon's former associates are now looking. It always seemed to me that "our generation" would retain our general semblance of youthfulness a lot longer than our elders, due to a combination of optimism, never wanting to be old, and post-WW2 rationed food, which may have been meagre in quantities but was more nutritious than the junk food that's creating obseity everywhere these days, and will probably lead to shortened lives as compared to ours, thereby obviating the demographic pensions timebomb to come. But that impression then had to be set among the state of many of the characters I was witnessing, and comparing with changes in their physical appearances in publicity and other shots over the years.

The other, related thing, is that according to Jill, his sister, Jon fortunately hardly suffered at all, apart from one day when she said he experienced anxiety - after which, she said, he just quietly slipped away, and this she put down to the tumour having occupied the left side of his brain, thereby protecting him from the full emotional impact it might otherwise have had. Having myself known several people on close terms who had died from brain tumours, I remarked on the irony that this so often seems to happen with particularly brilliant people, to which Jill replied, "Our father died of a brain tumour as well, you know".

Yes, the partner of a friend of mine is suffering from a kind of brain atrophy, not dementia, and he was an Oxford trained historian. Its extremely sad and testing as it's very gradual with good and bad days, recognition and none. Corin Redgrave, Vanessa's brother has a similar end although that was as a result of oxygen starvation after a heart attack. Kika Markham's (his wife) book is heart-rending


As to people of "my generation" (talkin bout) aging, you're right except that in my experience my women friends all look genuinely remarkable, it's the men who suddenly start crumbling like sixties shopping centres. The facias weathered and cracked! Me, I still look like Paul Newman....and as Tubby Hayes used to say, "....and I'm the biggest lier in the world"!

BN.

[Serial_Apologist]

The opening mini-doc I referred to in my #21 report on Jon's send off party, which set the spirit of the occasion brilliantly, has come on youtube. It packs a lot into its 16 minutes:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O6qPlpvyvg8

I'll pop this onto the Prog thread as well.

[Old Grumpy]

The opening mini-doc I referred to in my #21 report on Jon's send off party, which set the spirit of the occasion brilliantly, has come on youtube. It packs a lot into its 16 minutes:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O6qPlpvyvg8

I'll pop this onto the Prog thread as well.

Thanks, S_A.

Some very moving footage.

OG

[johncorrigan]

Thanks, S_A.

Some very moving footage.

OG

Me too...thank you very much for posting this, S_A.