A Tribute to Stan Tracey – by Alyn Shipton

There was no sign of the illness that was about to overtake him, and my last memories of him are literally sunny – in every respect. I can’t remember how many times I interviewed him for various publications and radio shows, but although he was always prone to play down his achievements, we always found plenty to chat about. I think the time we really broke the ice was in 1999, when we were both appearing on a fledgling BBC 4 (then called BBC Choice) TV show Backstage, to celebrate the Ellington centenary. Stan was confronted with a very ‘OK-Yah’ female presenter who didn’t listen to a word he said, and I was expected to comment on ancient films that clearly showed Barney Bigard and Juan Tizol blacked up for the camera. We both ended up in helpless giggles. Ever afterwards, a chat together was good fun, and a chance to relive that surreal experience.

Stan’s music was part of my childhood. His records played in the house and when Under Milk Wood came out in 1964 it was seldom off the turntable. I remember forays to London as a teenager to hear him at Jazz Centre Society gigs, and being blown away by his playing with Art Themen at the Seven Dials. When I co-founded the Excelsior Brass Band to play New Orleans street parade music in 1976, we appeared at South Hill Park, Bracknell as a curtain-raiser for Stan’s Bracknell Connection with Harry Beckett, Don Weller and Peter King in the line-up. Stan’s band was fabulous and played even better, in my mind’s ear, than the 100 Club version of the same music that later came out on the Steam label. It was a precursor to much later times when I had the privilege to present Stan from the Appleby Festival for Radio 3, when whichever band he was leading at the time was always at its best in that happy beer-tented atmosphere. Radio 3 was on hand too for his 70th birthday, with a special performance of his arrangement of Ellington’s Sacred Concert music from the QEH.

Catching such snapshots of Stan’s music over the years, and having the chance to hear him in every setting from solo piano, via duo and trio to Octet and big band, was an education. With the possible exception of George Shearing, Stan is the greatest jazz pianist this country has produced. As a bandleader and composer he was unparalleled, and although his writing in this year’s The Flying Pig might have been more economical than of yore, it was every bit as effective. Last year’s reunion with Bobby Wellins for Under Milk Wood at Hertford was as profound as ever, proving that Britain can inspire jazz every bit as genuine and convincing as the American model. In that piece Stan produced his one enduring masterpiece, but every stage in his career produced more contenders, from Alfie to We Love You Madly, and from Alice in Jazzland to the explosive ‘Crackers and Bangers’ of the Hong Kong Suite. Stan was a one-off, and everyone who ever came into his musical orbit will be the poorer for his passing.

– Alyn Shipton

– Photograph © William Ellis