Happy Birthday Tubby Hayes and Ronnie Scott

[The Rep]

There are two birthdays, that occur within two days of each other that this month,

Ronnie Scott, 28th January 1927, which would make him 83.

Tubby Hayes, 30th January 1935, which would make him 75.

Ronnie Scott

Born Ronald Schatt in Algate, East London, Scott began playing in small jazz clubs at the age of sixteen. he toured with Johnny Claes, the trumpeter, from 1944 to 1945, and with Ted Heath in 1946, as well as working with Ambrose, Cab Kaye, and Tito Burns. He was involved in the short-lived musicians' co-operative Club Eleven band and club (1948–1950), with Johnny Dankworth and others, and was a member of the generation of British musicians who worked on the Cunard liner Queen Mary (intermittently 1946–c. 1950) in order to visit New York and hear the new music directly. Scott was among the earliest British musicians to be influenced in his playing style by Charlie Parker and other bebop musicians.

In 1952 Scott joined Jack Parnell's orchestra, then led his own nine-piece group and quintet featuring among others, Pete King, with whom he would later open his jazz club, Victor Feldman, Hank Shaw and Phil Seamon from 1953 to 1956. He co-led The Jazz Couriers with Tubby Hayes from 1957 to 1959, and was leader of a quartet including Stan Tracey (1960–1967).

During this period he also did occasional session work; his best-known work here is the solo on The Beatles' "Lady Madonna". He was said to be upset at the amount of his saxophone that made the final cut on the original record. In subsequent recordings Paul McCartney restored greater sections into the song.

From 1967–69, Scott was a member of The Kenny Clark Francy Boland Big Band, which toured Europe extensively and which also featured fellow tenor players Johnny Griffin and Eddie Lockjaw Davis, at the same time running his own octet including John Surman and Kenny Wheeler (1968–1969), and a trio with Mike Carr on keyboards and Bobby Gien on drums (1971–1975). He then went on to lead various groups, most of which included John Critchinson on keyboards and Martin Drew on drums.

Ronnie Scott's playing was much admired on both sides of the Atlantic. Charles Mingus said of him in 1961: "Of the white boys, Ronnie Scott gets closer to the negro blues feeling, the way Zoot Sims does." Despite his central position in the British jazz scene, Scott recorded infrequently during the last few decades of his career. He suffered periods of depression and, while recovering slowly from surgery for tooth implants, accidentally died at age 69 from an accidental overdose of barbiturates prescribed by his dentist.

He was cremated at the Golders Green Crematorium

Tubby

In 1951, when he was sixteen, Hayes joined Kenny Bakers's sextet, later playing for big band leaders such as Ambrose, Terry Brown, Tito Burns, Roy Fox, Vic Lewis, and Jack Parnell. In 1955 he formed his own octet, with which he toured the UK for eighteen months. Hayes took up flute and vibraphone during this time, but it was as a tenor-saxophone player that he made and retained his reputation.

From 1957 to 1959 he joined Ronnie Scott in co-leading a quintet, The Jazz Couriers, perhaps the most fondly remembered of British Modern Jazz groups. Subsequently, Hayes reformed his quartet, and toured Germany with Kurt Edelhagen. Then in 1961 he was invited to play at the Half Note Club in New York; a new transatlantic Musicians' Union agreement meant that, in exchange, Zoot Sims played at Ronnie Scott's. While in America, Hayes recorded (Tubbs in NY) with Clark Terry, Eddie Costa, and Horace Parlan, and in 1962 he returned for another visit, this time recording Return Visit with James Moody, Roland Kirk, Walter Bishop Junior, Sam Jones, and Louis Hayes. He played at the Half Note again in 1964, and at the Boston Jazz Workshop the same year, and at Shelly Manne's Manne-Hole in Los Angeles in 1965.

Back in London, Hayes formed his own big band, working in television, film, and radio, and even having his own television series (1961–1962, and 1963). He stood in for Paul Gonsalves in February 1964 (with whom he also recorded twice in 1965 (Just Friends and Change of Setting)) when the Ellington orchestra played at the Royal Festival Hall.

As well as leading his own bands and recording under his own name, Hayes also appears on recordings by other UK jazz musicians, such as the Harry South Big Band and the Ian Hammer Sextet.

Hayes appeared in a number of films. He also played at a wide range of jazz festivals, including Reading, Windsor, Antibes, Lugano, Vienna, and Berlin.

Despite all this, regular gigs were hard to come by for jazz musicians in the late sixties. Matters were made worse for Hayes by his development of a drugs habit, which came to badly affect his health. In the late 1960s he underwent open heart surgery; he was able to start performing again in 1971 (though he had more heart surgery that same year), and in 1972 toured Norway and Sweden. In 1973 he died during another heart operation, at the age of thirty-eight. He was cremated and interred at the Golders Green Crematorium.

Hayes left a legacy of recordings which are now sought after collectors' items, many of which have been reissued on CD

The Jazz Couriers were a British jazz quintet formed in April 1957 and which disbanded in August 1959.

The quintet's first line-up consisted of Tubby Hayes and Ronnie Scott on tenor saxophones, with Terry Shannon (piano), Malcom Cecil (bass) and Bill Eyden (drums) and made their debut on the opening night at the new Flamingo Club in Wardour Street, Soho. They shared the gig with Tony Kinsey's Quintet featuring Joe Harriott.

Cecil had been replaced by Phil Bates on bass for their first recording, which also included two tracks with Jimmy Deuchar on trumpet.

By August 1958, Bates had been replaced by Jeff Clyne, who would in turn be replaced by Spike Heatley. The band disbanded in August 1959, shortly before Scott opened his own club, Ronnie Scott's, just around the corner in Gerrard Street, in October that year.

They recorded four albums and appeared on some BBC radio broadcasts

[BillF]

Good to see them remembered!

[brownie]

A few seconds of Tubby Hayes (on vibes) with Charles Mingus on bass (from the film 'All Night Long), plus Mingus backing Dave Brubeck!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aYDhYCfQEzU

[Shrdlu]

That's a lovely post, Reppy! I really enjoyed reading it, and the many names brought back a lot of memories.

My pianist buddy, Stan Jones (who used to play at the old Ronnie's) told me that when Bill Evans played there, Ronnie said "A few months with Joe Loss would do him a power of good."

[BillF]

That's a lovely post, Reppy! I really enjoyed reading it, and the many names brought back a lot of memories.

My pianist buddy, Stan Jones (who used to play at the old Ronnie's) told me that when Bill Evans played there, Ronnie said "A few months with Joe Loss would do him a power of good."

Classic Ronnie remark!