IAN ROYLE: THE REGAL TOUCH By
Andrew Liddle
Reproduced by
kind permission of Ian Royle, Andrew Liddle and Just Jazz Magazine Mar
2007 (updated 2012)
Ian Royle is the third generation of his family to blow. His father, Bill, was a Dance band trumpet player: his grandfather, Frank, a soprano cornettist. I visited him at his home in Urmston, near Manchester, on a day that for a variety of reasons will long live in memory. It was, coincidentally, the occasion England went out of the World Cup, which we somehow contrived to watch as well as talk Jazz ; and the fell day on which the death was announced of Freddie Trueman. Being a great follower of Cricket, Ian was as keen to discuss this great loss as he was to talk about himself. Ian took up the trumpet in earnest at the age of 9 and by the time he had arrived at secondary school, Moseley Grammar, he was in their jazzband – along with Terry Brunt, no less. ‘He was a hooligan, then,’ he says, ‘and still is!’ He laughs uproariously. At the age of 12, he was playing third trumpet in the Sid Lewis Big Band, at Stockport Town Hall - and while still in is early teens was sitting in with various jazz local jazz bands. I ask him to name the one record that turned him on and, after a good deal of sighing and cogitation, he says; ‘Shorty Baker, played such beautiful stuff. I remember listening to his version of “Stormy Weather” with Ellington and it was just fantastic. And then of course I discovered the Ory band. I just loved his fruity sound, and was knocked out by the ferocious trumpet playing of Teddy Buckner! Then there was Henry “Red” Allen and Ruby Braff.’ In 1962, he joined the Pete Hartigan Jazz Band, at the Bamboo Club in Hazel Grove, Stockport, already a formidable outfit with Pete on clarinet and Gordon Robinson, trombone; and later to feature Howard Parr (banjo), Roy McGuire (piano), Pete Banfield (bass) and Terry Heald (drums). At this point of his life he began to take jazz very seriously and when he wasn’t playing or rehearsing with this band, he spent his time blowing along to all the American jazz records he could get his hands on.. For many of the succeeding years, however, Ian was to run two styles of music in parallel - one , with big bands, for example, the Jack Kirkland Orchestra, ‘for monetary gain’, as he says, making no bones about it, and the other with small jazzbands, ‘for personal pleasure’. It was while with Jack Kirkland’s outfit that he ‘really learned to read and learned all the standard solos.’ It was no doubt the extraordinary precision of his playing and the apparently effortless lyricism of his tone that got him the work –all those Monday dates with the Alan Hare Big Band, at the Midland Hotel, Didsbury and those Sunday Nights at the M. S. G. with the Nev Taylor Jump Band, playing to packed houses. He made the break, after six years with Jack Kirkland, going professional, on lead trumpet, with the Charlie Barlow Orchestra at the Tower Ballroom, Blackpool. In fact, he usually got work the year round in Blackpool, not just in the ballroom but also with the pantomime pit orchestras. ‘They were long days,’ he recalls, ‘we started in the early afternoon with the children ’s ballet and finished about half-eleven.’ After hours, he would go to the Galleon Club and sit in till about two in the morning.
On his off- nights, Sundays, he was to be found in The Railway Hotel, Whaley Bridge, guesting with the Keith Pendlebury Trio, with Keith on piano, Geoff Ford on bass and Graham Fenton on drums. This dual existence went on for many years and with different bands - because all the while he was in strict tempo at the Ritz Ballroom in Manchester or at the Opera House, in Blackpool, he was also jazzing it up in his spare time with his mates, at the Mad Hatter, in Warrington. By his own admission, ‘it was a superb band’ ! Brian Pendleton, on piano, at that time was MD for the Millionaires Orchestra; Roy Rogers, on clarinet, was the leader of the Chicago Teddybears; and bassist Brian Wiltshire played with Bob Sharples’ ABC Orchestra and the Granada TV session bands. One year, when there was no panto work, he got a seven-week gig on the Castle Line mailships travelling from Southampton to South Africa. In the 1970s, Ian took on a third responsibility when becoming a peripatetic brass teacher seven days a week, whilst hardly relaxing any of his playing commitments. Looking back he does not know how he did it, but this was his life for the best part of 30 years, until his semi- retirement from teaching in 1999. His list of credits in all that time is astonishing, whether it be deputising with the Syd Lawrence Orchestra, or making his mark with Les Howard’s NDO or with Harry Bence’s New Squadronaires on the big band front - or playing with that top session jazz band, John Brown’s Bodies, which was comprised of musicians of the calibre of Alan Barnes, Colin Hulme and Jim Burkett, to name but a few of those who appeared in it over the years. Among the highlights, Ian recalls the gigs for the BBC from Pebble Mill and the BBC Jazz Club broadcast, introduced by Peter Clayton. It is a source of considerable pride and pleasure to him that in 1992, and on the strength of his reputation, he got a call from the American Jazz singer, Marilyn Middleton Pollock, who told him she wanted him in the band she was assembling ‘for a very special project’. ‘I was just off on a three-month world cruise on the QE2,’ he recalls, ‘playing with that very fine saxophonist, Garry Cox, but I fixed up to play with Marilyn as soon as I got back.’ The terrific line-up of Steve Mellor’s Chicago Hoods, included Keith Steven on banjo, Bruce Rollo on bass, ‘Sir’ Alan Buckley on drums, Steve Mellor on clarinet and Paul Munnery on trombone. The special project turned out to be the acclaimed Radio 2 series ‘Vaudeville –Red, Hot and Blue ’, with vocals from Marilyn and Steve. The Album entitled ‘Red Hot and Blue’ is still available from Paul Adams at ‘Lake’. In more recent years, Ian enjoyed an extended stay at the Granada Studios in Manchester, playing with Dave Donohoe’s Hi Life Band – parading up and down Coronation Street, playing Dixieland in the most convivial of circumstances. There have been festivals in Bude and Cork and gigs the length and breadth of the country. He is currently playing with the Pendle Jazzmen, as ‘special guest’, and has a regular residence, on the other side of the Pennines with Peter Frank’s All Stars, at Baildon Hall, near Shipley. He singles this ‘superb band’ out for special praise. ‘I try to provide new tunes every week and write out the chords since the guys in the front-line, Martin Boyd on clarinet and Dave Morrell, trombone, read the changes and I only have to hum a riff and they play it perfectly. That’s musicianship!’ With this band, he recorded an album, on a trip to Ludham in Norfolk, called ‘Live at St. Catherines’. He also has an album of other live recordings entitled ‘Ian Royle –Trumpet Man’. “That one sells well over in Spain” he says “but only to the Germans, Scandinavians and Russians – the Spanish still prefer Flamenco!”.
Eventually, he and his wife, Pauline, intend to retire to their villa in Spain , which they bought six years ago. There is quite a flourishing jazz scene out there and he hopes to form his own band when he gets there permanently. ‘You’ll miss the Cricket,’ I say. He smiles tolerantly and produces, with a flourish, the extensive fixture list of Sporting Alfas Cricket Club, his local team, who play to a good standard at the Columbus Oval, in the seaside resort of L’Alfas del Pi, in Alicante. ‘Their season starts in February,’ he says with a laugh. Clearly he has thought of everything – and we know he likes a good long season!
Ian Royle is the third generation of his family to blow. His father, Bill, was a Dance band trumpet player: his grandfather, Frank, a soprano cornettist. I visited him at his home in Urmston, near Manchester, on a day that for a variety of reasons will long live in memory. It was, coincidentally, the occasion England went out of the World Cup, which we somehow contrived to watch as well as talk Jazz ; and the fell day on which the death was announced of Freddie Trueman. Being a great follower of Cricket, Ian was as keen to discuss this great loss as he was to talk about himself. Ian took up the trumpet in earnest at the age of 9 and by the time he had arrived at secondary school, Moseley Grammar, he was in their jazzband – along with Terry Brunt, no less. ‘He was a hooligan, then,’ he says, ‘and still is!’ He laughs uproariously. At the age of 12, he was playing third trumpet in the Sid Lewis Big Band, at Stockport Town Hall - and while still in is early teens was sitting in with various jazz local jazz bands. I ask him to name the one record that turned him on and, after a good deal of sighing and cogitation, he says; ‘Shorty Baker, played such beautiful stuff. I remember listening to his version of “Stormy Weather” with Ellington and it was just fantastic. And then of course I discovered the Ory band. I just loved his fruity sound, and was knocked out by the ferocious trumpet playing of Teddy Buckner! Then there was Henry “Red” Allen and Ruby Braff.’ In 1962, he joined the Pete Hartigan Jazz Band, at the Bamboo Club in Hazel Grove, Stockport, already a formidable outfit with Pete on clarinet and Gordon Robinson, trombone; and later to feature Howard Parr (banjo), Roy McGuire (piano), Pete Banfield (bass) and Terry Heald (drums). At this point of his life he began to take jazz very seriously and when he wasn’t playing or rehearsing with this band, he spent his time blowing along to all the American jazz records he could get his hands on.. For many of the succeeding years, however, Ian was to run two styles of music in parallel - one , with big bands, for example, the Jack Kirkland Orchestra, ‘for monetary gain’, as he says, making no bones about it, and the other with small jazzbands, ‘for personal pleasure’. It was while with Jack Kirkland’s outfit that he ‘really learned to read and learned all the standard solos.’ It was no doubt the extraordinary precision of his playing and the apparently effortless lyricism of his tone that got him the work –all those Monday dates with the Alan Hare Big Band, at the Midland Hotel, Didsbury and those Sunday Nights at the M. S. G. with the Nev Taylor Jump Band, playing to packed houses. He made the break, after six years with Jack Kirkland, going professional, on lead trumpet, with the Charlie Barlow Orchestra at the Tower Ballroom, Blackpool. In fact, he usually got work the year round in Blackpool, not just in the ballroom but also with the pantomime pit orchestras. ‘They were long days,’ he recalls, ‘we started in the early afternoon with the children ’s ballet and finished about half-eleven.’ After hours, he would go to the Galleon Club and sit in till about two in the morning.