Douglas Frank Richford (1920-1987) was a British jazz clarinetist, and saxophonist.
Douglas Frank Richford (1920-1987) was a British jazz clarinetist, and saxophonist.
Starting piano at age 7, [1] he became a fan of Artie Shaw and Benny Goodman, taking up the clarinet at 13. [1] A pupil of American clarinetist Danny Polo before the war, [2] [3] during Army Service in World War Two he played in the Lion Swing Stars. [1] Following the war he led a 14-piece big-band, the Streamliners. After a stint with the River City Jazzmen in the early/mid 50s, [1] [4] Richford had his first professional job with George Chisholm and Tommy McQuator. [2] [3] In the later 1950s he was a member of Sonny Morris's and then Nat Gonella's bands; [1] and from 1959 to 1961 Bob Wallis's Storyville Jazzmen, [1] [5] [6] [7] with whom he recorded. [8] [9] [10] [11]
Richford started his trad jazz band in July 1961, [1] [12] [13] which debuted in Coventry. [14] [15] [16] A week later, the boozy London Jazzmen played on a riverboat near Liege for Belgian TV. [13] Trumpeter Trevor Jones, [17] [18] trombonist Eric Dalby, future illustrator Toni Goffe on double bass, [13] 18-stone big Pete Deuchar on banjo, [19] [13] [20] and Kenny Harrison on drums, [3] [21] were in the initial line-up. [16] [22] Clarinettist Gerry Turnham joined later that year. [23]
Represented by the Lyn Dutton Agency Ltd, [6] [24] [25] [26] and financed by publishers Chappell, the DRLJ recorded in November 1961, [27] and released in January 1962 on Parlophone records, [13] their first single Yip-I-Addy-I-Ay/On Sunday I Go Sailing. [28] [29] [30] The band was by then Pete Deuchar, Toni Goffe, Kenny Harrison, the legendary Nat Gonella trumpet/vocals, [31] [32] [33] [34] [35] [36] [37] and Bill Hales trombone. [38] After Colin Bowden took over as drummer, [39] it was probably their second single that was recorded at Abbey Road studios, Cascading/12 Over the 8 - both Richford originals. [40] [19] [13] [41]
The band played in London, often late at night at Studio 51, known as the Ken Colyer Jazz Club off Leicester Square, [42] [43] [44] [45] and around England throughout its 1961-64 life. [1] [46] [47] [48] [49] [50] [51] They appeared four times on the BBC Light Programme, [13] [52] alongside / introduced by Humphrey Littleton, Diz Dizley and George Melly. [53] [54] [55] Trumpeter Nat Gonella was replaced in mid-1962 by young Australian Dick Tattam in his first professional role. [56] [19] [57] Guitarist Paul Sealey also played with the band; [58] vocalist Beryl Bryden appeared with them too. [59]
As well as travelling in Britain, in 1963 the band visited Denmark, [60] where three tracks were recorded by Copenhagen-based Storyville Records, [61] - Spooky Takes A Holiday, Running Wild and Beedle-Um-Bum. [62]
After the Trad boom ended, as The Beatles changed popular music, [63] [64] Richford took a trio for a summer season in Jersey in 1964. [1] Ironically Richford had appeared repeatedly at the Cavern Club in Liverpool, whilst the Beatles were still a local Merseybeat band performing there. [65] [66]
Richford returned to full-time music in 1978 to tour Germany with Steve Mason's Dixielanders, [1] and then played "residences" in Zurich.
Richford was born in 1920 in Camberwell, London, where in 1945 he married Ellen Rolf; their son Lincoln Douglas Richford, born 1946, is a land reform campaigner in Scotland. [67] [68] [69] [70] Doug Richford died in West Sussex in 1987.
Anthony James Donegan, known as Lonnie Donegan, was a British skiffle singer, songwriter and musician, referred to as the "King of Skiffle", who influenced 1960s British pop and rock musicians. Born in Scotland and brought up in England, Donegan began his career in the British trad jazz revival but transitioned to skiffle in the mid-1950s, rising to prominence with a hit recording of the American folk song "Rock Island Line" which helped spur the broader UK skiffle movement.
Bernard Stanley "Acker" Bilk, was an English clarinetist and vocalist known for his breathy, vibrato-rich, lower-register style, and distinctive appearance – of goatee, bowler hat and striped waistcoat.
Trad jazz, short for "traditional jazz", is a form of jazz in the United States and Britain that flourished from the 1930s to 1960s, based on the earlier New Orleans Dixieland jazz style. Prominent trad jazz musicians such as Chris Barber, Acker Bilk, Kenny Ball, Ken Colyer and Monty Sunshine performed a populist repertoire which also included jazz versions of pop songs and nursery rhymes.
Kenneth Daniel Ball was an English jazz musician, best known as the bandleader, lead trumpet player and vocalist in Kenny Ball and his Jazzmen.
Donald Christopher Barber was an English jazz musician, best known as a bandleader and trombonist. He helped many musicians with their careers and had a UK top twenty trad jazz hit with "Petite Fleur" in 1959. These musicians included the blues singer Ottilie Patterson, who was at one time his wife, and Lonnie Donegan, whose appearances with Barber triggered the skiffle craze of the mid-1950s and who had his first transatlantic hit, "Rock Island Line", while with Barber's band. He provided an audience for Donegan and, later, Alexis Korner, and sponsored African-American blues musicians to visit Britain, making Barber a significant figure in launching the British rhythm and blues and "beat boom" of the 1960s.
Beryl Audley Bryden was an English jazz singer, who played with Chris Barber and Lonnie Donegan. Ella Fitzgerald once said of Bryden that she was "Britain's queen of the blues".
Nathaniel Charles Gonella was an English jazz trumpeter, bandleader, vocalist, and mellophonist. He founded the big band The Georgians, during the British dance band era.
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Tiny Winters was an English jazz bassist and vocalist who worked in the bands of Roy Fox, Bert Ambrose, Lew Stone and Ray Noble.
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Malcom Bruce Turner was an English jazz saxophonist, clarinetist, and bandleader.
Lennie Felix was a British jazz pianist who worked in the bands of Nat Gonella, Harry Gold, and Sid Phillips, and enjoyed a 20-year association with trumpeter Freddy Randall.
William John Harty was an Irish born dance band drummer.
Albert Gay was a British jazz tenor saxophonist.
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