Barry Aldous - A Pen Portrait

Barry Aldous

Barry, living in Accrington from the age of fifteen, picked up his interest in jazz from listening to his father’s 78r.p.m. records of Fats Wailer and Pee Wee Hunt in the early 1950s. He bought his first clarinet at the age of seventeen and was self-taught, his inspiration being Benny Goodman as well as other stylists like Pee Wee Russell and Barney Bigard. He recalls listening to the New Independence Jazz Band at the Ballet Club in Blackburn and buying his first records of Ken Colyer, Humphrey Lyttelton and Freddy Randall around the same time. After a short spell with his own Storyville Jazzmen, in 1956 Barry joined the Bury-based Cotton City Jazz Band led by Doug Whaley. National Service ensued a year later and he learnt to read music by playing with various RAF camp military bands as well as playing Dixieland with a “small band within a band” at concerts. The sixties saw the end of the “Trad boom” and found Barry starting married life and moving to Bury. Following a short spell “depping” with various bands and a further adventure with his own Northside Six, Barry switched to playing bass.

It was on this instrument that he experienced his musical highlights - backing Wild Bill Davison, Bud Freeman, Roy Williams and Humphrey Lyttelton! Barry returned to playing clarinet in 1986 when he formed a re-united Cotton City Jazz Band involving the original leader, Doug Whaley, who was working at the same Company. The Band played a limited number of gigs over a ten year period and, in 1996, the band finished and Barry retired from full employment as a company director. Having now added the tenor saxophone to his armoury, he spends most of his musical life playing with small groups at private parties and the like. Amongst his listening-time favourites are Louis Armstrong and Duke Ellington. Barry has “depped” regularly with the Pendle Jazzmen: his fine and exciting playing on both clarinet and tenor as well as his vocals and all-round enthusiasm make him a great favourite with band members as well as audience. We welcome him, yet again, this evening! - Colin Mason