in MEMORIAM
Gerard (Gerry) Majalla McElhone 12 February 1925 – 24 February 2011 It is with great sadness that The Trombonist reports the passing of Gerry McElhone. Ian Fasham, a former pupil of Gerry, looks back on the life and career of the renowned bass trombonist, and remembers the man and his music.
Gerard (Gerry) McElhone and David Chandler in 2007. Unless you are over a certain age there’s a good chance that the name Gerry McElhone may not mean very much to you. He was, however, one of the great brass players of his generation with a career that spanned 45 years, starting off as a bandsman and ending with his retirement from the orchestra of the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden in 1990. He was also a very fine teacher, who taught and inspired many of the bass trombone players who are working in the music business today. Gerry was born in Consett, County Durham, to Irish parents. His working life began as a farmhand, but in 1939 (aged 14) he enlisted as a boy soldier in the Royal Irish Fusiliers based in Omagh, where he soon had a bugle thrust into his hands. It seems he had ambitions to play the saxophone, but fortunately he was persuaded by Evan Watkin to take up the bass trombone. From 1945-48, the band was attached to the Buffs, and then from 1948-52 he was a member of the Band of the Irish Guards. On one occasion whilst in the Guards, Gerry was on a charge for a minor offence and was being marched to the Guard House by no less than a Sergeant Haydn (Dai) Trotman. The story goes that as they marched, diaries were being compared so that Dai could cover Gerry’s work while he was
PAGE 8 | THE TROMBONIST | SUMMER 2011
incapacitated! In the autumn of 1948, Gerry also became a student at the Royal College of Music, where he studied with Morris Smith. According to the archivist at the RCM, he remained on the books as a student until the end of the summer term in 1952, the same year that he left the guards. A likely explanation for this is that at that time, it was very common for bandsmen to have lessons at music colleges, sometimes even paid for by the army. To make life even more complicated, as well as being a student at the RCM and being in the Irish Guards, in 1950 Gerry also became a member of the London Philharmonic Orchestra, replacing Godfrey Kneller as the bass trombone player. Unfortunately, because he had joined the LPO before his period with the Irish Guards was completed, his only option was to buy himself out. However, it seems that despite the support of the Musical Director Lt. Col. ‘Jiggs’ Jaeger, the bandmaster wasn’t so keen and so for a while Sir Adrian Boult, the orchestra’s principal conductor, had to put up with his bass trombone player either not being available, or turning up late because of army commitments. The LPO section at that time was George Maxted (principal), Tony Moore (2nd), and John ‘Tug’ Wilson (tuba). In
1955, there was a change in personnel when Evan Watkin (Gerry’s old army friend) and John Hawling became the 1st and 2nd trombones respectively. At this time, Gerry was playing the uniquely British G bass trombone, of which he really was a master, and there are some wonderful recordings from this period which, among other things, demonstrate what a wonderful instrument it was in the right hands. Sadly, from the late 1960s, the instrument became virtually obsolete in the orchestral world. Gerry left the London Philharmonic Orchestra in 1958 and freelanced for the next ten years. He was a regular member of the Sinfonia of London, which was set up to record film scores for Rank Studios under the Direction of Muir Mathieson and Marcus Dods. The orchestra recorded sound tracks for many black and white films that were to become legendary, like Alfred Hitchcock’s Vertigo. A story that Gerry recounted from that time was that, as very few musicians had telephones, the fixer would drive round on his motorbike and leave a scrap of paper with details of the next dates through the window. No one locked their sash windows in those days! During this time, Gerry was also doing extra work for the Royal Opera House where Dai Trotman was the