In the mid-1960s, whilst working as a schoolteacher in London, Bill established the London Schools' Jazz Orchestra, which soon developed into the National Youth Jazz Orchestra, which he continued to run until his retirement in 2009. At the time of its inception, the idea of a youth jazz orchestra was a major innovation. Nowadays many such bands exist all over the country, but back in the 1960s, ensembles for young people were nearly always limited to playing western classical music. So Bill played a hugely influential role in widening the range of musical experiences available to young people, enriching their lives and, very often, preparing them for careers in music.
In the early 1970s, as a
teenager, I was a member of the Newcastle Big Band, playing saxophone next to
the late, great, Nigel Stanger. In 1974, when I told Nigel I’d be moving to
London as a student, he phoned Bill Ashton (with whom he had been a fellow student at
Oxford University) to recommend me for a place in NYJO. Bill then invited me to
a Saturday morning rehearsal at the Cockpit Theatre in North London.
The following week, they
needed a sax player for a gig at Tommy Whittle’s jazz club - the Hopbine in
Wembley. Bill invited me to do the gig, and I was lucky enough to become a
member of NYJO for two years.
This was one of the great
musical experiences of my life - playing alongside Guy Barker, who was to
become one of the country’s great trumpet players, arrangers and conductors,
trumpeter Dick Pearce who went on to play in Ronnie Scott’s band for 14 years,
Lawrence Juber, who later played guitar with Paul McCartney’s Wings, and Phil
Todd, who was to become one of the country’s leading session musicians on the
saxophone - to name just a few! And, thanks to Bill’s amazing work, I have some
incredible memories of my time with NYJO: touring California and Nevada in
1976, performing with major jazz musicians such as Humphrey Lyttelton and Annie
Ross, producing three LP records, appearing on the BBC television programme Omnibus in 1976, and performing pieces
composed for the band by leading jazz musicians such as John Dankworth, Ken
Gibson and Eddie Harvey.
Typical of Bill’s sense
of humour was the fact that, whenever I played a solo, he introduced me to the
audience as ‘that well-known anagram, Cormac Loane’. He was referring to the
sleeve notes of the Newcastle Big Band LP where, for some reason, the names of
Don Rendell, Henry Lowther and Ken Gibson appeared as anagrams: Dene N. Droll,
Geno Binks and Ethel Wryhorn. And, because my name was unusual, Bill said that
he assumed it too was an anagram!
Bill had a real interest
in, and memory of, the many musicians who had passed through the ranks of NYJO
over the years. I was amazed that, when I attended a NYJO reunion, 40 years
after I had left the band, he immediately remembered my name, as well as the
anagram joke! And in the 1990s, when I set up the Birmingham Schools’ Jazz
Orchestra, I phoned Bill to ask his advice on repertoire. He kindly took the
time to talk me through, in great detail, the Stanza catalogue of hundreds of
NYJO arrangements!
Many people, including myself, would not have had these wonderful experiences had it not been for the amazing hard work, imagination and determination of Bill Ashton. I know we all feel very grateful to him. Cormac Loane
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