Currently Listening To 2023/24

My Dad was a friend/contemporary of Johnny Dankworth @shiney
Dad was a Londoner, and they often played together in some of the big bands through the 30s/40s. He decided the 'full on' touring etc wasn't for him, so he turned down offers to play professionally, carried on semi professionally, and eventually met my mum, moved up here, and started his own business - teaching clarinet/saxophone and then repairing brass and woodwind for many people and the orchestras etc.
I think it's why my sis and myself have such a wide range of likes/dislikes in music.
Yesterday I went from Regina Spektor to Trisha Yearwood and, of course, Joni, followed by Johnnie Walker at 3pm, but it could easily have been Oscar Peterson and Andre Previn doing some Gershwin in his inimitable style...and with all the right notes in the right order....

 

I think my Dad played at Ronnie Scott's @shiney but he was a very private man, and didn't talk a lot about his experiences, which is sad, because it wasn't until my Mum died that he opened up a bit more about his earlier life. He played with various people including Geraldo and Ted Heath, and also played with the Miller orchestra in later years, after Glenn Miller had died. I still have his copy [he was given it as a present] of Who's Who in British Jazz as he has a mention in it.
He became good friends with Ron Moore, a jazz guitarist, when they shared space in a building in Glasgow for their teaching. Ron was a lovely man.
Dad was also deaf - fully in one ear from birth, and the other deteriorated over time until he was totally reliant on his hearing aids. I think it was a big motivator in his life, as his mum told him he'd never succeed as a musician, and his stubborness and determination were passed to me, albeit in a different way. I'm very proud of him, and all he achieved, especially his conversion of a friend's instrument, who had lost two fingers in an accident. I think my sis has the newspaper cutting about it.
The coffee bars were a huge thing weren't they? My Mum often talked about them.

 

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