Trumpeter’s Style Independent Of Trends

Press, Volume CIV, Issue 30768, 4 June 1965, Page 14

Trumpeter’s Style Independent Of Trends

“I hope you'll excuse me soon,” said the famous jazz trumpeter, Kenny Ball. “I have to do some practice.” He had just arrived, looking tanned and fit, from Dunedin to play in Christchurch last night and tonight on his third tour of New Zealand—a tour which is making him the jazzman most frequently heard in this country. Do you practise very often? he was asked. Three Countries “No, only when I have, well, problems. I’ve had a few lately and I’ve been trying to blow my way out of them. It’s been only in the last few nights that I felt I had got through them.” Since his last visit, Mr Ball has added three countries to the rapidly-increasing number in which his band has made its mark—Scandinavia, Japan and Roumania. “We spent three weeks in Japan and got a hell of a good reception

there. We got a pretty good reception in Roumania, too, where the last jazz band they’d heard was Harry Roy. Both of those countries want us back.” The appetite for returns by Mr Ball is not surprising, for his band offers a timeless brand of jazz that seems impervious to ■ ’ anges in fashion and is independent of the vicissitudes of hit parades. “I started playing about 15 years ago, just after I’d left school,” he said. “About six of us began fooling around with instruments. We used to go to a place called the Ilford Rhythm Club and try to play a few jazz numbers. But they all seemed to drift out of it, and I was the only one who really stuck to it. Second Trumpet “One of my first jobs was playing second trumpet in Charlie Galbraith's band. Later I played with Sid Phillips—a dance band really, which plays a commercialised form of Dixieland jazz. Then

I played with Eric Delaney and Sid Phillips again. “I left to concentrate on playing jazz with Terry Lightfoot in 1957. But I became involved in the New Orleans controversy and left in 1958. Terry had been playing in Chicago style, which is the style I prefer. He decided to change and go back to the pure New Orleans style, and he wanted me to change also, and play in a much more earthy manner. Attitudes Needed “But I feel you’ve got to be a certain kind of person to play in the New Orleans style—you’ve got to have certain attitudes. I couldn’t do it, so I left. “Well, the problem was, what then? I didn’t want to go back to Sid Phillips. I’d given up a good job with Sid to play jazz and I thought I may as well carry on, win or lose. “So John and I (John Bennett. the trombonist in the band) went to see an agent— Acker Bilk's agent, actually.

We said, ‘We’d like to form a band. Will you take us in your agency?’ And his reply was: ‘That depends on what style you play.’ That was the time when all the kids were going for the George LewisJohnny Dodds style of jazz. But we couldn’t play that way. and we told him: ‘King Oliver style.’ Then we went to another agent, and he said, ‘We’ll have a go.’ Back Roaring “We got a few jobs, morebecause we knew people than because we were popular. Our first week’s wages were £6 each. “Then we went to Germany, and the band came back really roaring. We got a recording contract with Pye and did a lot of nice things. “We’ve been working regularly ever since. “No, I don’t think current trends in popular music have affected us. Some Dixieland bands in England have changed to rhythm and blues and taken up electric guitars, but they play it without any

feeling and it doesn’t come off.

A Good Time “People know what to exjpect from our band. We're not a rhythm and blues band, and we're not a comedy band. ' We're a jazz band. We play ‘to the best of our abilities, land we try to make a good time with the audience. “There’s nothing terribly deep about our playing. We like to entertain people. And I enjoy it. Sometimes 1 enjoy it very much, especially on the blues. “We sometimes have trouble finding good blues themes to play. You see, we don’t just stand there and play any 12-bar blues. We ‘have to have good themes and they must be themes we can feel. We need something fairly clear-cut and fairly melodic. Practically anything by King Oliver or Duke Ellington is suitable, but not, surprisingly, by Jelly Roll Morton. Morton for the faster numbers, yes, but not for the blues.” —D.W.R.