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Kenny Baker. I only once heard Kenny live when he was touring the halls as part of a variety show at Newcastle Empire. If memory serves me right, he was second banana to Dorothy Squires! Imagine having that as an epitaph! However, my lasting memories are of those Friday night BBC Light Programme sessions: "Let's Settle For Music". Perhaps the greatest examples of mainstream jazz ever heard in this country.
Ian Carr. Ah the memories of hearing Ian with the Emcee 5 at the old Downbeat Club in Newcastle. Perhaps the most innovative of the modern Miles inspired trumpet players to emerge in the early sixties he certainly ensured that Newcastle was more than a "Trad Town". After Nucleus I tended to listen less but still cherish those heady nights down Carliol Square.
James Copus. The inclusion of this young man may seem a premature choice but, after I heard him the other week at the 606 I knew he was something special! His recent album gave us a clue but, hearing him live was something else. It's not often these jazzworn, jaded, ears get excited about a "new star" but this was one occasion when it felt like I was discovering jazz for the first time!
Digby Fairweather. I first heard Digby on a lunchtime gig at the Barbican Centre. I heard him again with Daryl Sherman on consecutive nights at North Shields and Gosforth. Probably the nearest we've ever got to Ruby Braff (musically) in this country.
Henry Lowther. As recently as last Saturday I heard Henry on a livestream from 606. This was just a few days after his 80th birthday. Did his venerable status show? You betcha! It showed in the playing. The notes, the phrases, the technique that only a lifetime's dedication to the music could produce. The last time I heard Henry live was at Pizza Express for the 2018 the APPJAG awards. A legend.
Bobby Pratt/Bert Ezard. Impossible to separate them. Their duets with the Ted Heath Orchestra could only have been equalled had Maynard Ferguson and Cat Anderson squared off in front of Kenton or Ellington. Two numbers I recall from record and at the City Hall are Memories of You and Bill (from Showboat).
Ryan Quigley. I'd gone to Edinburgh to hear Randy Brecker with the Scottish National Jazz Orchestra at the Queen's Hall. Brecker was great - when is he not? - but my lasting memory was of Ryan hitting those high notes. Me and any dogs who were listening had a ball. A few years earlier, I'd heard Ryan at the Corner House, Newcastle, along with Paul Booth and Paul Towndrow. What a great team they made.
Freddy Randall. I know Humph, Halcox and Colyer, were, understandably, regarded as being at the forefront of the so-called jazz revival but none had the drive of Randall. The others, dedicated as they were to New Orleans, lacked the fire of Randall's Chicagoan trumpet playing. Humph, of course moved on to a more modern/mainstream setting ultimately becoming the face of British jazz. But, when it came to kick ass - Freddy had an extra leg!
Steve Waterman. Steve, like so many, seems to have slipped off the radar of late however, as a tutor at the London Trinity College of Music he has been sharing his wisdom on line and it looks like he'll be gigging again in October. I first heard him with, I think, Alan Barnes at a Scarborough Jazz Festival and again at the old Side Café down on Newcastle Quayside. The audience stayed at home on that occasion and I've been been looking down my nose with an air of superiority at the absentees ever since.
I realise now that picking out 10 was impossible so apologies to Guy Barker, Harry Beckett, Kenny Ball, Eddie Blair, Les Condon, Bert Courtley, Jimmy Deuchar, Al Fairweather, Freddy Gavita, Albert Hall, Stu and Ian Hamer, Dickie Hawdon, Pete Horsfall, Laura Jurd, Mick Mulligan, Dick Pearce, Dizzy Reece, Enrico Tomasso, Byron Wallen, Alex Welsh et al. I never heard Nat Gonella live and, as Kenny Wheeler was Canadian, he didn't qualify either. Lance
(Photo: l:r clockwise: James Copus, Henry Lowther, Bruce Adams, Ryan Quigley, Digby Fairweather, Ian Carr, Steve Waterman)
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