People Summer 2013
Bill Geldard and John Dankworth 1956 at the recital room, Festival Hall
Bill Geldard 1950
ard magic with the music from Cabaret, which meant quite a lot of writing and I don’t think I could write like that now, but it was a challenge and you don’t get those sort of challenges today. When you’re working at that standard things come easily but when you’re not doing so much it’s not so easy. It’s like playing the trombone, I certainly don’t have the lung capacity I had when I was younger and have to breathe a lot more often than I used to, especially on the bass trombone.” Does Bill have copies of all the scores he has written over the years? “Unfortunately not, as the BBC had them,” he responded. “I’m sure they will have been shredded. I’ve got sketches of a lot of the big orchestral things and although not complete, they are quite comprehensive, so I could probably write them out again. I think the Cabaret score may still be in the library as the BBC Concert Orchestra has played some of it, leaving out the jazzy parts! I have my tentet library. I enjoyed that as it was a nice change from playing in the studios all the time. We had all discovered George Roberts featured on bass trombone back in the 50s and thought it would be nice to do something like that. So, I was the bass trombone along with Roy Willox (alto/flute), Bob Efford (tenor/
The Trombonist
oboe), Keith Bird (clarinet), Stan Reynolds or Ronnie Hughes (trumpets), Clive Hicks (guitar), Harry Stoneham or Brian Dee (piano/ organ/harpsichord), Joe Mudell (bass), Jim Lawless (percussion) and Bobby Orr (drums). I wanted to play and wanted to arrange as well so it was the perfect set up, especially with the doubling and I think the balancers on a broadcast used to like it as they couldn’t just sit back, they had to spot the oboe and watch Jim Lawless as one minute he’d be in one place and the next the other end of the studio banging something else! Yes, I enjoyed the tentet and we did quite a lot of broadcasts. “In 1972, I was on the trip to Japan with Frank Chacksfield, when Johnny Edwards and Ted Barker were with me in the trombone section, Ronnie Hughes, Ray Davies and Bobby Haughey in the trumpet section and we met up with an American band, becoming good friends with the likes of Dick Noel, Tommy Shepherd, Jimmy Henderson and Manny Klein. Yes, I’ve been lucky in my career.” Bill has been coaching a couple of amateur bands since 1989, when he got a call from the Sutton Society of Liberal Arts, which is now called the Sutton College of Learning for Adults. “We rehearsed on Saturday mornings,” Bill continued, “and created quite a high standard so after a couple of years we started a second band with a lower standard and all was going well until 2008. By then there was a lot of paperwork involved and I had to keep going to meetings reporting on what we were doing, so I said we would finish at the end of the current year. Both of those bands
decided if I wasn’t going to be there, they weren’t going to be there either! They found a new venue in Kingswood and we’ve carried on to this day, but it’s not part of Sutton Council anymore. We do two charity dances a year which are always quite well attended and people seem to like it as they don’t get much chance to dance to a big band any more.” Bill can occasionally be persuaded to play in what are basically semi-pro big bands, to which he brings a tremendous amount of class and knowledge of how things should be played. He sees his involvement as giving something back to a profession that has been good to him. It can also spring a few surprises and involve him in playing music from the 1920s, the like of which he has never before encountered in his professional career. I remember taking Stan Kenton trombonist Milt Bernhart to the Lord Napier in Thornton Heath, where Bill has occasionally been seen in the lineup, and his comment was “I haven’t heard music of that vintage in over 60 years!”
Bill Geldard with Carl Fontana Eton 1989
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