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Where are the jazz fans? Stiff competition from Nelson Mandela, but what a loss.
It isn't given us to know those rare moments when people are wide open and the lightest touch can wither or heal. A moment too late and we can never reach them any more in this world.
I saw Stan Tracey just once when he came to play in Derry in the sixties. Happily his visit was organised by a local Arts group which went on to become the Classical Music Society, of which I was a member. He and his Trio performed in the Great Hall of Magee College, now part of NUU. I remember the massive sound of his piano playing which was quite different from anything I was accustomed to hearing, and I still feel the energy, the like of which I don't believe that old Hall ever experienced before or since. Farewell Stan; it's time for that Closer Walk.
Down at what would become The Old Place I would listen very carefully for Stan's scrunchy chord voicings, retain them in my head, and, on getting home in the early hours, reproduce them very quietly on my parents' piano, so as not to wake them.
Down at what would become The Old Place I would listen very carefully for Stan's scrunchy chord voicings, retain them in my head, and, on getting home in the early hours, reproduce them very quietly on my parents' piano, so as not to wake them.
This and your message #6 are apt tributes, S_A - many thanks
This and your message #6 are apt tributes, S_A - many thanks
I'm trying to remember if Stan has been COTW. With a recording history going back from the present day at least to the mid-50s he would make a great subject. After Ronnie Scotts' and Humph's departures he was probably British jazz's father figure.
I'm trying to remember if Stan has been COTW. With a recording history going back from the present day at least to the mid-50s he would make a great subject. After Ronnie Scotts' and Humph's departures he was probably British jazz's father figure.
Ronnies, Gerrard Street 1961....Stan aloof, Phil Seaman "glaring", Ronnie's Qrt....and I was 15 and (just) allowed in by "Mr Scott". Unforgetable experience. Formative!
RIP. ..R3 should play the Little Klunk album. Stan's finest in my opinion.
BN.
I met him again in the 80s in Swindon...oh the hipness...when he was doing an Arts Council tour with Oxley and Tony Coe....his opening words to me were..."what a feking dump!" Triple vodka and ice, Stan?
what a sadness .... i saw him play in Leicester a year or so back with his quartet with son on drums and grandson reading the Dylan Thomas 'A Child's Christmas in Wales' ... he was still as fresh in his playing as he was when he was in the Old Place and Frith ST .... many of us seem to have seen him there in our teens .... when i saw him in Leicester i wondered what the young Mr Tracey would have made of seeing himself with son and grandson playing the same gig .... not something you would have expected to see back then .... but it is a tribute both to him and his wife that he made that gig and all the others and still had another few miles in him
yes Mr Rollins most of us knew just how good he was
I only met him when he "Seventy Something" though I'd heard him play live before and he wasn't aloof then, he was friendly in a grumpy South London kind of way. Along with others of that generation and background his motto seemed less "Keep Calm and Carry on", more "Grumble and Get on with it."
I reckon he would have been unimpressed with the "Father of British Jazz" epithet. Something along the lines of "As long as no one is chasing me for maintenance"
NO doubt his music will be be discussed in great depth for the foreseeable future.
I only met him when he "Seventy Something" though I'd heard him play live before and he wasn't aloof then, he was friendly in a grumpy South London kind of way. Along with others of that generation and background his motto seemed less "Keep Calm and Carry on", more "Grumble and Get on with it."
I reckon he would have been unimpressed with the "Father of British Jazz" epithet. Something along the lines of "As long as no one is chasing me for maintenance"
NO doubt his music will be be discussed in great depth for the foreseeable future.
I didnt mean aloof as a put down. Maybe above it all would be better. Dont forget the 2003 C4 doc on Stan...wonderful program...the highs and lows. And a great put down of Stan Getz.
BN.
And dont forget the truly essential role of his late wife...very like Dolly to Jackie Mclean.
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