The Jack Newman Orchestra on stage at the Gaumont State London 1954
In 2004, seven years before he passed away, my father gave me the original 1954 Melodisc 78rpm vinyl recording of the Jack Newman Orchestra to remaster on computer. One middle of the night with headphones on LOUD I listened to their very breath, the very crack and crash of the drummer on whose knee I had sat at my first stage appearance aged 18 months, all emerge through a music so primarily familiar to me as to be from a time before I thought I had any memory. Suddenly in a kind of flash I see/remember/see my fathers' face from the perspective of laying on my back. He is young, happy, free and looking down smiling at me. Then I'm standing in a big hall near half open double doors through which sunlight is pouring. In the darkness there is a huge presence (his Band) to where my father must return (to rehearse). Then outside seeing half of the street sunny and the other not I remember first understanding the literal meaning of the title 'On The Sunny Side Of The Street' the very song I was trying to remaster. My mother confirmed recently that she took me to their rehearsals from when I was in the pram until I was three
below, dancing at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, 1940’s
my father was 19 years old when he received the above letter, written just two months after the end of WWII, offering him work and more work. In 1945 £100 was worth £5,322 today
Jack Newman was (possibly) the youngest professional UK Swing bandleader during the years prior to and including the birth of Rock'n'roll
Featuring musicians who went on to play for Sinatra and record for the Beatles, the Jack Newman Orchestra performed opposite the names of the day in theatres, ballrooms and USAF bases all over pre-motorway England from 1945-56
Below is almost all the musicians who worked with the Jack Newman Orchestra from 1953-6 in order of appearance . . .
John Fox, Ron Prentice, Eric Benn, Roy Kaye, Roy Bentley, Ken Pound, Arthur Covey, Trevor Adams, Barry Noble, Jack Silk, Ron Avery, Ken Gorrell, Ben Johnson, Frank Davison, Stan Pollard, Ken Williams, Kathy Knight, Sydney Hayes, George Botley, Phil Fisher, Jackie Lane, Benny Lazell, Stewart Watts, Joe Gibbons, Ted Martin, Don Lambert, Stan Cracknell, Jack McKinley, David Andrews, Denis Kensett, Stan Moore, Dave Marden, John Ware, Denis Roberts, Len Lewis, George Cox, Denny Jackson, Toni Williams, Derek Cooper, Ronnie Clegg, Cole Wood, Gil Mahon, Roy Duddington, Roy Theo Lewis, Tommy Gray, Alf Terry, Joe Southworth, Vincent Holland, Jimmy Simmons, Benny Wicks, Syd Wilcox, Bill Tyrrell, Frankie Page, Leon Campbell, Syd Weinstein, Joe Maynard, Toni Hogg, Tommy Hall, Ron Black, Alma Raye, Denis May, Stewart Watts, Fred Morgan, Les Philips, Wally Bishop, Barry Hamilton, Al Cornish, Shirley Somers, Fred Perry, Charlie Reddick, Bob Johnson, Jim Lyon, Johnny Rogers, Lee Lester, Len Conway, Jackie Sharp, Billy Reddick, Bernard Ebbinghouse, Charlie Moore, Johnnie Grant, Les Johnson, Jimmy Watson, Pete Pitterson, Stan Roderick, Dick Nairn, Robin Carol Wayne, Kaye, John Murphy, Dave Dallas, Chuck Gates, Dennis Roe, Les Condon, Eddie Cohen, Bob Dale, Pete Winslow, Leon Calvert, Bill Dean, Phil King, Melvin Cooper, Charlie Cleves, Bob Knox, Allan Poston, Denis Ackerman, Jim Wallis, Norman Burns, Allan Cameron, Bertie King, Joe Crossman, Lynda Russell, Bob Frances, Fred Morgan, Derek Stark, Peter Willis, Roy Webb, Bill Jackman, Bill Griffiths, Dave Stevenson, Cecil Moss, Ted Brennan, Charlie Messenger, Bill Davey, Don Close, Reg Driscoll, Jackie Harkins, Gerry Osborne, Bill Hallett, Don Bennett
'Shake, Rattle And Roll' by Bill Haley And His Comets released in October 1954 (UK), a cover of the original by Big Joe Turner, was the perfect musical bridge between UK Swing and the avalanche that was about to engulf it. Where once he had been an upstart at the heels of Joe Loss, Ted Heath and the like my father, while trying to establish a new Big Band with a tougher sound, suddenly found himself on the wrong side of the new Rock’n’roll, the Guitar pulling the carpet from under all their feet.
my father didn't become a full-time fixture in my home life until I went to school because rock'n'roll was taking away his livelihood as a touring bandleader and now he was trying to build a company in the new Direct Mail Advertising industry.
Within the bubble of my childhood I had no conscious knowledge of his former life because no one in my family discussed or referred to it at all. It was buried. For me he was a businessman with whom all my musical discoveries were … complicated, like the mystery of his wry knowing smile when I aged 7 obliviously demonstrated the difference between Swing and beat group hi-hat with knitting needles on an armchair.
We became the archetypal hair forward / hair back post-War generation gap, a stalemate of capitalist / psychedelic claptrap. As I grew into an introvert he remained the opposite and, rightly demanding I make plans for my future, overwhelmed me with the uncertainties of "Showbusiness" particularly, logically: "HOW CAN YOU BE A MUSICIAN IF YOU CAN'T READ MUSIC ? ! ? "
In his world there were songwriters, arrangers, musicians, singers, each skilled in their craft. In mine there was mostly jamming.
Resigned but hopeful of yet finding a way back to his former life (later lines will reveal he never really left it) my father began sharing with me stories about "the Big Band days" when I first became a teenager.
From within the bubble of my youth I listened to his memories of the now famous neither believing or disbelieving him. In the context of his unyielding realism (I knew he and his mother had escaped Nazi Germany in 1939, family and school friends murdered) I accepted it all in the matter-of-fact way he presented it to me. At times during the telling he would become animated and, rising to his feet, relive the sheer brass power around him on eleven years of one night stands, residencies and tours.
He told me of the camaraderie between musicians on endless journeys; of sleeping on the coach because they had no money for hotels; of how some of the established bands would try and scupper the up-and-coming by hogging the stage, depriving them of rehearsal time; of arriving at USAF bases, before Civil Rights, to be told they can't perform with black musicians. My father refused to play without them. Fearing a cancellation might cause a riot they let them on.
Showbusiness in the UK at that time was being rebuilt after WWII, a London-centric industry still small enough for everyone to know or know of everyone else. In a pre-satellite world opportunities were found in the music press, by word-of-mouth and in music clubs where friendships were made, new artists discovered and news, gossip and business cards exchanged. Ever the genuine outgoing personality able to chat and have a joke with anyone my father would have thrived and been remembered in such places. Below are 1950's photos of him in London music clubs with (l-r) Pia Beck, Kathy Stobart and Alan Dean, all 'stars' in their day
He attended the 5Star Club, Feldman's Swing Club, the 45Club (where he and my mother met) and later the 2i's Coffee Bar. About the latter he told me of how Bill Haley was unrecognized without his kiss curl; of rejecting an invitation to co-manage Tommy Hicks (Steele) because he was underage and his mother was yet to approve; of being invited to be the big band on new televison show 'Oh Boy!' but turning it down because by then he knew he would be seen as the old generation; of his former coach driver Johnny introducing him to new employers Cliff Richard & The Drifters (Shadows) and of how Cliff was upset because his producer wouldn't let him re-record a vocal he was unhappy with. All the names and places of the Swing / Rock'n'roll crossover he cared to mention.
My favourite was the one about my father being one of three men in the office of a London music publisher (and in the café over the road). A manager looking for a publishing deal and two friends differing in their interest. He told me it was Dick James (former employee of Sydney Bron Music, suppliers to the Big Bands) and Brian Epstein. “Cross my heart and hope to die.” What can I do. Investigate.
I stress my evidence is entirely circumstantial. As you will see, if you continue reading, I treat it as an investigator laying bare what facts he has without hoping or seeking to prove anything. There is no conclusion at the end. It is what he told his immediate family and closest friends only. He was, in all other aspects, an honest man.
After my 'psychosis' in the opening paragraph I began to remember what I'd always thought were single unconnected events in my childhood. As I wrote them down I began to see, between the lines, the bigger picture of my fathers’ continued involvement with Showbusiness. I include them chronologically for background, the investigation above continuing thereafter
I wake up early on my fourth birthday to find a drum kit, exactly my size, waiting at the foot of my bed. Remembering my earlier appearance I crash it until the snare skin rips.
Break-time in the playground and some friends and I are talking about what our fathers 'are'. I don't know. I know he used to be something but is now something else. "A policeman" I panic. I get found out when they come home for tea and ask my mother. "Why did you tell them dad is a policeman?" she smiles. I don't know.
A visit with my father to the small and cluttered home of Joe Crossman, a professional sax / clarinet player who, unknown to me, was an original member of my fathers’ Big Band. Everything is SO INTERESTING right down to his tobacco pouch and pipe, the petrol smell of his silver lighter when he lights it. I am full of questions. Eventually I'm sent into the garden until we leave.
Bullied and homesick at summer camp I'm befriended by guitar strumming youth workers who suggest I borrow their instrument overnight. It's a full-size acoustic and trying to play it is like juggling a table. In the morning I show them what I've learnt and, next thing I know, my dad and I are driving to buy one for me. It's early on a Saturday morning and the London traffic is sparse. I notice old derelict buildings scattered on large areas of wasteland which my father tells me are bomb sites. We arrive at the shop and are greeted by the owner, Ivor Mairants. I don't know who he is. While he and my father are talking I look up at a wall of electric guitars. They ask me if there's one I like. I choose one but it's too expensive so they suggest another. Then they tell me about music, chords, scales, notation. Private lessons. I refuse. I don’t like the idea of private lessons and want to play like the youth workers. How hard can it be. They persist. I refuse. Ivor Mairants looks at my father. "Do you still want the guitar?" My father looks down at me and our eyes meet. "Yes" he says and we leave.
At home the guitar quickly became an ornament for me to mime with and my musicality from then on was not a serious subject (though I secretly persisted)
I'm safely locked in the family car waiting for my father to get back from somewhere we've stopped to do with his work. Apart from the door that my dad went in the quiet London street has nothing of interest whatsoever. Wearing short trousers I check my long socks are each folded over at exactly the same height and wish I hadn't decided to not bring my comics. Suddenly he returns and hands me a white A5 leaflet with four big royal blue capital letters on the front, each with a dot after (N.E.M.S.) The paper is crisp, glossy and never been opened. I open it. On the left are paragraphs of small royal blue typing. On the right is a royal blue list of nearly all the brand new beat groups. "I KNOW THESE!" I turn and see him smile an obvious smile. We drive away.
With everyone everywhere loving the Beatles I look for my own thing. On first hearing the Hollies burst out of the radio I get hooked in to their B-sides and EP before discovering they've released two earlier singles. My father says he knows someone he can ask. Early evening in his office waiting for him to finish and drive us home I remind him and find him happy to be reminded. From another room I listen to him chatting, I assume, to a man in a shop. When I hear him laugh I think my luck's in until he says goodbye and tells me the records have been deleted.
A few years before he passed away I asked my father about the above and he told me he had phoned Dick James. Having bought their records for me he knew both groups were on the Parlophone label
One night my parents and I attend a Variety Show at the London Palladium. We dress up smartly and sit in the stalls near the orchestra pit where I look down at the musicians getting ready, each with a golden light illuminating open books of sheet music. In the most hushed silence a man stands alone on the stage and sings about a girl named Maria. I think he's going to cry except he seems very happy about it. The show includes the Honeycombs. During the interval I follow my father backstage into a very large room where grown-ups are standing in groups. Suddenly there they are in a semi-circle looking down smiling at me. THE HONEYCOMBS. They ask me a music related question and my answer makes them chuckle. Then my father asks how everything is for them and they reply Very happily in the positive.
A summer car journey with my father through miles of winding countryside listening to the pirate ship Radio London until he suddenly can't take anymore and, apologizing, abruptly turns the dial back to the BBC Light Programme. Arriving at a race track we are in a large bright room with seats in rows facing a huge window that looks down on cars zooming past. My father and a man with a moustache are in conversation. I ask the man a question. He’s kind and answers me. I'm interested and ask him another. Then it's just he and I talking.
I think the above was because my fathers' direct mail advertising company had grown, Pirelli and the UK distribution of their calendars being one of his clients.
A hall somewhere with a stage. On it are the five members of an unknown electric guitar group named Quantrell’s Confederates. My father and I are the only standing audience. He is telling them what to do, stopping them when they don't, trying to get them to play a song over and over until he's happy. They are not. The song is 'Jezebel' with an arrangement like this. During a break I keep asking to have a go on the drums which eventually I do, badly, and am told to stop. They carry on for ages.
Late evening driving to a house in the country and a gate that my father opens and then closes after he’s driven through. We return home with a box of Demonstration Only vinyl singles of 'Jezebel' by Quantrell’s Confederates, each with a royal blue JACKSON label.
top photo above by Dick Weindling from his book: ‘ Decca Studios and Klooks Kleek ‘
I'm running down a dark London side street trying to keep up with my dad. We're late. "Come on!" he calls back to me. We enter a building and go downstairs into a basement recording studio. I'm asked to stand at the back and be quiet. Opposite me is a window looking into another room where I can see the lead singer and one other from Pinkerton's Assorted Colours laughing and joking. To my left a man sitting on a chair with wheels is moving himself about to fiddle with knobs and I don't know what. They're recording the follow-up to their recent hit 'Mirror Mirror'. I'm disappointed to learn that none of the musicians are members of the group. A few weeks later I see them miming the song on television.
There were three different-sized studios at Decca. Recently I have been amazed to realize how many records that I've held dear since childhood were actually recorded in that basement, even the pre-Parlophone Beatles just four years before the above. Here's a full list of Decca artists in all studios, the first singles by guitar groups surely made downstairs, including most of those on Decca's psychedelic subsidiary Deram
above, inside the Kingsbury Odeon
Yet to learn any guitar chords I take the top two strings off an electric and, playing it like a bass, form a trio with school friends which I name 'The Feeling'. Somehow we get to play at the Kingsbury Odeon during Saturday Morning Pictures. We’re 12-years-old. My dad drives me there and insists he go on first. The place is packed. Listening from backstage we hear my father speaking through a microphone, then the crowd cheering, and again louder, each time more until we find ourselves walking out to a barrage of screams. Though I do get to sing my very first song (a repeated chorus going nowhere) we're not very good and with each attempt gradually lose the audience until someone shouts for the films, everyone agrees and we leave the stage.
Another visit to Decca. This time I'm in the control room of an enormous recording studio during an Engelbert Humperdinck session. Somewhere there is an orchestra and, much to everyone's impatience, they are having to record the ending over and over because the drummer just can't get it. During a break the story goes round that a music journalist had arrived and asked some people in the studio (including Engelbert) if they know where Engelbert is. I look down from the control room window at the studio floor and see my father with a group of people (including Engelbert, tanned and unmistakable) and chuckle along with everyone else. While I’m writing something, pen and paper in hand, Engelbert walks into the control room and assumes I want his autograph. Now being the bassist in a group with older lads of far greater interest to me is the sound of a solo guitarist playing real electric blues drifting down a nearby corridor from a half open door. Entranced I venture as near as I dare but, not wanting to cause trouble for my dad, turn back without finding out who it is.
I'm following my father down a steep staircase into a very long room where there are lots of people standing and talking in groups. To my left is a foot high wooden stage where, my father tells me, a group is to play soon. Far off to my right is a large bright window where my father goes leaving me to walk around on my own. I quickly become bored. Some men come out and sit on the stage. As I walk towards them I'm sure I hear one of them say, "Sshh. That's his son." I walk away and become very bored indeed. Without introduction or applause the band eventually appears. Dressed in matching denim jackets and jeans they play old rock'n'roll. I'm not impressed except the lead singer several times throws himself, knees first, across the stage like he means it. We leave soon after.
With a guilty heart I went behind my fathers' back and wrote the above letter completely forgetting to address ‘Mr Martin’ as Sir George. My bigger regret is not enclosing a photograph of my father.
I wrote to Sir George Martin because my father told me he had two meetings with him sometime in the 1950's, one at the EMI Studios on Abbey Road, the other at an office in the City. He said he was looking to record a rock'n'roll big band but the answer on both occasions was no.
it's hard to imagine a time when such famous musical landmarks had little significance, but so it was. Certainly my father would have been aware of EMI on Abbey Road it being a short walk from his home address of Alexandra Road (see letter from the Royal Opera House). Also, having recorded for Melodisc, perhaps he was familiar with the German origin of Parlophone as a jazz label.
While trying not to hope for a reply I was shocked to discover in the book Revolution In The Head by Ian MacDonald that two original members of the Jack Newman Orchestra, Stan Roderick and Leon Calvert, had both recorded for the Beatles, the former playing trumpet on Strawberry Fields Forever, the latter trumpet and flugelhorn on Penny Lane and Martha My Dear. Also Bill Jackman who played baritone sax on Lady Madonna and flute on Hey Jude
The large project they were working on was Love
Of all the treasured words in the above letter the two that stand out the most for me are Bron Music. My father had mentioned Bron's' on several occasions but, never having seen it written, I'd always assumed he meant bronze like the record label. One day, the above reply nearby, I casually asked my dad how he spelt Bron's. Without thinking he replied immediately: "B-R-O-N-S." I showed him the letter and, to my relief, he reacted positively. During the subsequent conversation he went into another room and returned with an old personal address book in which he found a phone number for Sydney Bron, the original owner. He rang it. A woman answered and informed us that Sydney had passed away but gave us a number for his son which my father also rang. Gerry Bron (brother of Eleanor) answered. During a conversation about his father we were amazed when Gerry informed us that he was the founder of Bronze records.
The fact is when Dick James gave up his singing career in 1958 and began working at Bron Music as a song-plugger my father had been a customer there since before it changed its name from Bron's Orchestral Service. Each of them having toured the same dance hall circuit it's likely they would have known of each other as vocalist and bandleader. If they did meet they would have had a great deal in common historically, culturally and now as struggling businessmen. While my mother remembers meeting Dick James but doesn’t know where or when my father told me he occasionally visited him at his office when in the area.
On that day (of days) when Epstein met James my father said he was with a nearby music publisher looking to commission band arrangements and afterwards went to visit James. When he arrived he said James was walking down the stairs towards him with another man following. After introductions on the pavement he said he went with them to the café over the road where they drank tea and discussed the creation of a new music publishing company for the artists the man was managing. He said he went back to the office with them where he heard recordings he didn't like. On a subsequent visit he said James offered him in (on his part of the deal) but my father said he wasn't interested.
I have since discovered the first volume of Mark Lewisohns' definitive three-part history of the Beatles: 'All These Years' and surrender myself entirely to his unsurpassed research of their miraculous story. In it Mark writes that Epstein and James left the office and went to the café over the road, which is what my dad told me when I was first a teenager.
LATER YEARS
Upon returning from a trip overseas I discovered that my father had opened an entertainment agency and was now manager of bandleader, jazz clarinettist and friend from 'the Big Band days' Sid Phillips. Working from his direct mail offices a few streets away from Decca my father conceived and is credited as producer of the Contour album Two Generations with Sid Phillips on side one and his then 15-year-old son Simon on the other (musical arrangements by Pete Winslow). Here's a track from side two
One day my father overheard me playing some of my recent songs to friends and afterwards suggested that one in particular might be good enough to record. He told me he was soon to release a single through Philips Records and would I like my song on the b side. I agreed and he booked a studio for me to record a demo so Johnny Arthey could write a musical arrangement for it. Despite a sound engineer, my father and Sid Phillips watching from the control room I recorded it in one take.
Produced by John Franz, the A side was a cover of the Ray Stevens song For He's A Jolly Good Fellow sung by Dave Meadows (possibly the lead singer of Quantrell’s Confederates). The invisible fence that my dad and I were then on either side of might be understood by comparing the two songs
A side
b side
Despite airplay on national BBC radio the single failed to chart. I suggested they turn it over and promote the b side but was told it was too late.
I remember my father in the early 1970's expressing genuine surprise that so many still working in Showbusiness remembered him. I think it was this that led him to feel the time might be right for another attempt at creating a new rock and swing Big Band. He invited many of his original musicians from the 1950's (who had since become probably the toppermost players in their field) to a 20th anniversary reunion to be recorded and broadcast by national BBC radio. According to guest vocalist David Brandon these musicians had the ability to read and play together brand new musical arrangements without rehearsal. Below are most of the players involved, top l-r: Tommy Whittle (saxophone) Bobby Lamb (trombone) Ray Davies (arrangements) Kenny Baker (trumpet) Stan Roderick (trumpet), below l-r: Leon Calvert (trumpet) Don Lusher (trombone) Ronnie Verrell (drums) Pete Winslow (trumpet) David Brandon (vocal). Other musicians yet to be identified
Whatever connotations this style of music may have acquired over the last fifty years the brilliance of their musicianship shines through every note. Ten of the fourteen instrumentals recorded can be heard below
© Martin Newman, 2023. All Rights Reserved. Copyright Control.
Grateful thanks to David Brandon for his memories and encouragement
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