This is a list of notable events in music that took place in the year 1962.
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.
Helen Kate Shapiro is a British pop and jazz singer and actress. While still a teenager in the early 1960s, she was one of Britain's most successful female singers. With a voice described by AllMusic as possessing "the maturity and sensibilities of someone far beyond their teen years", Shapiro recorded two 1961 UK chart toppers, "You Don't Know" and "Walkin' Back to Happiness", when she was just fourteen years old.
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.
Kenneth Colyer was an English jazz trumpeter and cornetist, devoted to New Orleans jazz. His band was also known for skiffle interludes.
Robert Wallis was a British jazz musician, who had a handful of chart success in the early 1960s, during the UK traditional jazz boom.
The cultural year was dominated by the Festival of Britain and the opening of The Royal Festival Hall, the first dedicated concert hall of its size to be built in London since 1893: located on the south bank of the Thames, this was to host concerts by major orchestras from Britain and abroad. The Festival itself was a celebration of music, art and theatre. It notably provided an opportunity for the staging of many events seen during the first Folk music Festival held in Edinburgh, organised with the help of such talents as the American Alan Lomax, the Irish traditional musician Seamus Ennis and the political theatre director Ewan MacColl, who would go on to form the Ballad and Blues Club.
Alex Welsh was a Scottish jazz musician who played cornet and trumpet and was also a bandleader and singer,
Terence Lightfoot was a British jazz clarinettist and bandleader, and together with Chris Barber, Acker Bilk and Kenny Ball was one of the leading members of the trad jazz generation of British jazzmen.
Malcom Bruce Turner was an English jazz saxophonist, clarinetist, and bandleader.
Richard Anthony Charlesworth was an English jazz clarinettist, saxophonist and bandleader.
"Riverboat Shuffle" is a popular song composed by Hoagy Carmichael, Irving Mills, and Dick Voynow. Lyrics were later added by Carmichael and Mitchell Parish.
Dixieland jazz, also referred to as traditional jazz, hot jazz, or simply Dixieland, is a style of jazz based on the music that developed in New Orleans at the start of the 20th century. The 1917 recordings by the Original Dixieland Jass Band, fostered awareness of this new style of music.
Ian Hunter-Randall was an English trad jazz trumpeter born in London.
It's All Over Town is a 1964 British musical film starring Frankie Vaughan. It was directed by Douglas Hickox who said they shot it in 15 days without sound and the "script consisted of two tiny typewritten pages, badly typewritten at that." The film features Lance Percival as a daydreaming stage technician and Willie Rushton as his friend, and includes songs performed by the Springfields, Clodagh Rodgers, the Bachelors, Acker Bilk and the Hollies, as well as Frankie Vaughan.
Eddy Ray Davis was an American musician and bandleader of trad jazz, who was internationally known mainly through the decades of collaboration with the clarinetist and filmmaker Woody Allen.
Douglas Frank Richford (1920-1987) was a British jazz clarinetist, and saxophonist.
Band of Thieves is a 1962 British musical film directed by Peter Bezencenet and starring Acker Bilk, Geoffrey Sumner and Jennifer Jayne. It was produced as a second feature in an attempt to cash in on the Trad jazz craze. It was shot at Pinewood Studios.
