ONE OF
THE CITY'S EARLY JAZZ PIONEERS - ROD HOPTON - HAS LEFT US.
By: Joe Silmon-Monerri
October 2014
On Fred
Burnett's website
http://www.jazznorthwest.co.uk, I learnt from a report by Stuart
Renn and by telephone to me through Tony Dunleavy, that Rod Hopton,
trombonist, and fairly early pioneer of the 1940s Jazz Revival in
Manchester and the North West, sadly passed away on 24th of September 2014. He was aged eighty-one. Rod was born in Leeds on
May 14th 1933.
I have known Rod reasonably well since about 1960, about two years
after I appeared on the local scene myself, when he was with Tony
Charlesworth's bands, expanded on below. Rod was a dear friend. Even
though we were out of touch more or less since Alan Hare died, he
and I occasionally spoke on the 'phone - usually about the local
Jazz scene - but, unfortunately, not as recently as I would have
liked, given the tragic circumstances that always creep up on us to
make us feel guilty about not making those calls more frequently -
until it's far too late.
Rod's career on the local Jazz scene was not only multi-faceted, but
it was also almost ancient by local standards. He was an adaptable
player who could easily fit into most of the styles of Jazz that
Manchester was to develop over the decades, from Bunk Johnson to
Gerry Mulligan and beyond, although he settled for a
middle-of-the-road Modern Dixieland style, by my reckoning. From the
pioneering angle, Rod didn't go quite as far back as the Delta
Rhythm Kings, put together without being named yet, in approximately
1942, by Harry Giltrap (bjo/gtr) and allegedly Eric Lister
(clt/voc.), a band that had its first recording session in 1944. It
is almost certain, though, that Eric and Harry also set up the next
Revival band, the Smoky City Stompers, when Eric Lister repatriated
on demobilisation from H. M. Navy, in 1946, via New York, where he
developed an American-style vocals delivery.
However, Rod appears to have been making the rounds just a little
later, in approximately 1948, at about age 15, when Jazz recitals at
appreciation societies and clubs began to yield to live performances
in those venues and eventually for the very first time that year, at
concert halls, such as the Onward, Bridgewater in the City and the
Edinburgh Hall, Moss Side. At the end of recitals given by the likes
of London-based stalwarts such as Messrs. Sinclair Traille and Asman,
local musicians on the way to carving their careers would pull out
their instruments and perform live. The rest is history. Rod was
among such apprentices and those who would blaze the trail.
The
first band that I can recall Rod being a part of, from my researches
and not by personal experience as I was not yet involved on the
local scene, was Alan Jackson's Apex Jazz Band (that's Manchester's
'Alan Jackson', not the formerly London-based modernist). The Apex
Jazz Band was set up in 1951 by Alan as the Apex Jazz Club, at
Frascatti's Restaurant/Pub. on Oxford Road, near the old Clarendon
then. It later moved up the road to the corner of Brunswick Street.
The boys played in and around central Manchester, for most of this
period boasting a residency later at the Thatched House Hotel, in a
cul-de-sac near the corner of Cross Street and Market Street. The
band had the following personnel between 1951 and 52. Alan Jackson
(tpt/clt/vocals, leader); Ted Lucas (clt); Rod Hopton (tbn); Jack
Farrer (d/bs); Frank Booth (bjo); Ronnie Arnold (dms).
It was at
about the end of the above period that the Smoky City Stompers
disbanded, the Delta Rhythm Kings already having done so earlier.
However, this did not halt the forward momentum of the local Jazz
Revival - which I am convinced started in Manchester and not London.
As we know, Jazz bands were constantly being set up and clubs were
formed around them at the respective venues. The Thatched House
opening for the band that Rod had enthusiastically joined, happened
when the highly popular Saints Jazz Band moved from the Thatched
House to the outwardly prestigious but apparently threadbare
Grosvenor Hotel at the Exchange Station end of Deansgate, where
Modern Jazz sessions also took place. The Club Moderne ran on
Fridays, the original night for the Saints. By March 1952, the
Saints Jazz Band played in the Jazz Room on Saturdays. During this
same period, another band played at the same venue as the Apex Jazz
Band (at the Thatched House). This was trombonist/ Blues singer Eric
Brierley's "Gut Bucket Five". Unusually for the period, they ran the
"all-nighter" at the Thatched House. It set a trend that would be
followed in the following decade, until the then Chief of Police,
concerned when gratuitous drinking, drink-fuelled fights and
drug-peddling, demanded that the local Constabulary should put a
stop to it all.
Alan Hare and Rod Hopton were in several nameless embryo outfits
together from the late 1940s onwards, to gain experience. Such
try-out combos and sit-in sessions with local bands led up to Alan's
famous Blue Note Jazzmen, which Rod would eventually take over. They
also frequented and became members of the Jazz clubs blossoming
everywhere profusely. Alan went even further back than Rod, having
started to gain interest in Jazz, as a pianist, while at grammar
school in Chingford, Essex, during World War Two, emigrating to
Cheadle Hulme in 1946. The pair met up while Alan was in the
forerunner of Derek Atkins Dixielanders, Manchester Dixieland Jazz
Band, managed by Jack Gregory, around 1948, Alan Hare soon taking up
the trombone as a second instrument. They now had at least one
instrument in common and their friendship was solid and remained so
until Alan passed on in recent years. They still came together to
the Thursday sessions at the Chorlton Conservative Club, to listen,
not play, when Don Long and Alan Yates were running bands there
seven or eight years ago. I was in both bands twice monthly. Their
teenage-like interest and enthusiasm in Jazz never diminished as
death drew nearer. Both have been invaluable sources for my
researches, because of the depth of their knowledge about the local
Jazz scene. It is a debt of gratitude that I will never be able to
repay.
The band that eventually became Alan Hare's Blue Note Jazzmen, was
actually set up in Stockport by 1952, according to Manchester
Evening Chronicle Jazz Critic Doug Enefer, on 5th September 1952.
Rod Hopton was to join some time later. It is not clear when,
though. His friend, Alan, clearly was already a part of it. The man
in charge, after whom the band was named, was clarinettist Don
Simmonds, who left later that same year, being replaced by Derek
"Mo" Mosedale. Personnel at that time included: Alan Hare (tbn); Roy
Cooper (tpt) - replaced later in 1952 by Tony Bagot; Frank Joynson (dms);Bryan
Haughton (pno); Ron Baker (on guitar - a veteran of Manchester
Grammar School's 1936 early non-commercial Jazz band "The Heat
Spots" - run by under-14-year-olds). At a rough guess, Rod joined
after Alan Hare took over from Don Simmonds as leader.
In 1959, Alan Hare, FRICS (a highly qualified Surveyor), left for a
Colonial Service post in Hong Kong, from where he was to return in
1963. Tony Charlesworth (trumpet/vocals) took over the Blue Note
Jazz Band in 1959, renaming the band Tony Charlesworth's New Orleans
[Jazz] Band, with Bryan Haughton now on banjo [due to a drastic
non-Chicago-style band policy - which Eric Welch, their excellent
Chicago-styled clarinettist, seemed to have accepted stoically]. By
now Rod must have spent some years in the band.
Band names in this outfit were on a mercurial turnover at the time.
In January 1960, the band became Rod Hopton's Jazzmen, as Rod had
replaced Alan Hare on trombone. Bryan was now back on piano [another
change in policy - common during that period]. The band was once
again renamed Tony Charlesworth's, ... Jazzmen, Sextet, etc.,
reflecting a new Mainstream bias, after late 1961; then the name
reverted back to Rod for a while. Rod, playing in the two bands,
eventually decided to join The Saints. So the band became Tony
Charlesworth's band, once again. By the time Alan Hare returned from
Hong Kong in 1963, his old buddy Rod was a permanent member of The
Saints. Alan was immediately invited by bandleader Roy Bower (tpt)
to join the Southside Jazzmen, resident at the Black Lion, which he
did, on piano this time, as the late John Featherstone had shortly
before become the piano man in Joe Silmon's Dixielanders, formerly
Tony Smith's Jazzmen.
Eventually, Rod developed the rare quality of being able to blend in
smoothly and effectively with any band he played with, and on free
nights from the Saints, would freelance here and there, as we all
did. An excellent player, a great vocalist with a gentle voice
delivery and a thorough gentleman always, success was almost forever
guaranteed. He was, in fact, of noble lineage. I came across
references to several of his ancestors in my own historical and
genealogical research, including a 'Sir Rodney Hoptone' around 1350
A. D., most definitely a member of his family, an actual 'knight
errant'.
According to Rod's article on the band,
he joined the Saints Jazz Band in 1962. He said, "1962 was an
outstanding year for the Saints, with an appearance on the TV show
'Thank Your Lucky Stars along with pop stars Billy Fury, Carl Denver
and Vince Hill, in which the band was miming to their recording of
"Roses Of Picardy", made for Parlophone". The reason for the miming
might have been two-fold. Parlophone (E) 45-R 4907 with "Roses of
Picardy" and "There'll Be Some Changes Made" on it, was recorded
with slightly different personnel, and this might have created legal
problems. The recording had been made in April that year (1962). The
personnel on the recording is listed as: Barry Dixon (tpt); Rod
Hopton (tbn) who had replaced Fred Fydler the previous year; Alan
Radcliffe (clt); John Fish (pno); Jim Ashe (bjo); Reg. Kenworthy
(d/bs) Merton Kaufman (dms). By the time of the above TV show, the
personnel was listed - and photographed - as: Dizzy Burton (tpt);
Rod Hopton (tbn); Alan Radcliffe
(clt); John Fish (pno); Jim Ashe (bjo); Reg. Kenworthy (d/bs); Denis
Grundy (dms). See photograph below.
Rod and I were in both The Saints in the 60s 70s, when I replaced
Randy Colville around 1974, and in the 80s (myself intermittently by
then) and in Colin Tomkin's Jazzmen in the 80s and, as far as I can
recall, Rod stayed with The Saints until the boys and the lovely
Julie Flynn, vocalist with the band, and the dearest of long-term
friends, played the last session at the Valley Lodge, Wilmslow,
which I think was 1982, but I stand to be corrected, after which the
long-serving outfit disbanded permanently in 1984. Saints Personnel
towards the time the Saints disbanded: Julie Flynn (vocals); John
"Ed" Fish (pno); Reg. Kenworthy (d/bs); Mike Carnie (dms); Denis
Gilmore/Ian Royle (cnt/tpts) [alternating]; Rod Hopton (tbn); Joe
Silmon (reeds).
Joe Silmon (reeds); Denis Gilmore (tpt/cnt); Julie Flynn (vocals);
Mike Carnie (dms), Reg. Kenworthy (d/bs) ; John "Ed." Fish (pno);
Rod Hopton (tbn).]
Between the capitulation of The Saints Jazz Band at the Valley
Lodge, Wilmslow, (the venue photographed expertly here by our late
and old friend of all bands John Metcalfe) and the remainder of the
1980s, 90s and the Millennium to the present, Rod still continued to
freelance with several local outfits. For instance, in the 80s, he
and I were part of Colin Tomkin's Jazzmen (an excellent Mainstream
band that certainly suited my approach). We both freelanced too,
occasionally, myself with the late Maurice Pike's Panama Jazz Band,
based at Tommy Duck's on Sundays, but with quite a lot of
out-of-town bookings. In 1989 I accepted a linguistic job in
Gloucestershire and left Colin's band and the Panama in March. I'm
fairly sure that Rod continued for some months afterwards in Colin's
band, until Colin and his wife moved to Wales shortly after I left
Manchester. From then onwards, by which time I was going to be away
from the area [for the next twelve years - in a very insular Civil
Service job in Cheltenham for nine years], I somehow lost contact
with Rod. This also applied to practically everyone I knew well. The
nature of the job demanded the least contact possible with friends,
as it was a "hush-hush" type of occupation subject to extreme
regulations.
By the time I returned to the area in 2001, i. e, just after the
Millennium Bug that never was, I found that Rod had a habit of
taking things easy, preferring to concentrate on family and home.
According to his children and daughter-in-law, Rod kept up almost
daily practice on his instruments, rather than actually playing
gigs. In more recent years, especially after the death of his Wife,
a great blow to Rod and the children, he probably decided to throw
in the towel, but kept up his interest in Jazz by visiting any last
remaining outposts of the once thriving local Jazz scene, almost
invariably accompanied by his close friend Alan Hare. Once a Jazzer,
always a Jazzer.
Rod's funeral took place on Friday, 3rd of October 2014 at Stockport
Crematorium and the ceremony, attended by around eighty people,
including family, friends and a sizeable local Jazz community
contingent, was held in the Rowan Chapel, at 4 p.m. My thanks to
Stuart Renn, Tony Dunleavy & Dave Berry for the original information
and to Fred Burnett for relaying it to everyone prior to the funeral.
I am sure that everyone on the Manchester Jazz Scene, Fred and
Barbara Burnett, and all who knew Rod closely and intimately will
join me in sending our deepest condolences to Rod Hopton's family
and friends. Our thoughts and prayers are with you all.
Rest in the Peace of the Lord, dear old friend.
Joe Silmon-Monerri ("Joe Silmon")
08/10/14 -
Dear Fred,
I am
saddened to hear of the death of Rod.
He played
with Colin Tomkins Oriole Jazz Band in 1957,before Colin joined the
Zenith Six,and I joined Pete Haslam in The Crescent..later
Collegians band.
I remember
him well. We played in Rochdale and Bury, even on a float in Bury
carnival when Stan Stennett joined us.
I have been in contact with him over the last couple of years as I
was introduced to Alan Thomas who used to play trombone in Maurice
Pikes band and he had Rods phone no in his address book, so called
him one weekend in 2012 and he was so pleased to hear from us.
I then sent him a newsy letter and printed out this picture of us
from 1957 when he played with our first band ...that was before
Colin joined the Zenith Six and I joined the Crescent Jazz band,
later The Collegians.
Alan and I did call him from time to time then as he seemed lonely,
but we did notice the last time, probably about 4 months ago, he
seemed forgetful and was very quiet.
He was a lovely chap, I only remember seeing him as a young man,
over 50 years ago, but he left an impression on me as a wonderful
trombonist.
This cutting from the Bury Chronicle on the
Oriole Jazz Band page sees him as a
young 24 yr old and fills in a space that Joe didn't know!.....and
Joe is fantastic at all these records!!
Brenda Canty
Forrest (nee
Tomkins)
08/10/14
-
I am sorry to hear of the death of Rod Hopton. When I was fifteen
years old in 1960 I formed The Apex Jazz Band with Rod on trombone.
We rehearsed in his mother’s front room and played at local youth
clubs. As none of us could drive, we sometimes travelled by bus,
with the drums under the stairs and the bassist on one of the triple
seats nearest the entrance, with his instrument in front of him in
the aisle. People may remember that these triple seats faced one
another across the aisle.
When I first asked Rod to join the band he said that he was sorry,
but he had just decided to change to playing drums. However I
persuaded him to stick to the trombone and join the band and from
then on he abandoned his idea of becoming a drummer.
Barrie Quilliam
13/10/14 -
During the second half of the 1980s Rod and I
were fellow members of The French Quarter. Rod was an excellent
trombonist and we enjoyed several happy years together. In a band of
New Orleans believers and devotees Rod and I were the agnostics
which gave us a certain bond. We had a number of catch phrases, all
but one of which I’ve forgotten: at the end of each gig one of us
would announce: “finished with engines”, the signal for the
amplification to be switched off.
With The French Quarter we played at Enkhuizen Festival, Rod, Alma,
Meryl and I taking a later Suckling Airways flight from Manchester
to Amsterdam (the rest of band having preceded us with KLM). The fun
began at the airport when with five minutes left before scheduled
take-off we (in International Departures) had found no flight
information. A public address announcement summoned us to Internal
Departures (a labyrinthine contraflowing journey), so that we
arrived late at the ’plane, a high-wing twin piston-engined Fokker
(yes, really). The dozen or so businessmen comprising the rest of
the passenger complement viewed us with ill-disguised scorn for
delaying the flight, the craft taking off almost immediately. A
touch down scheduled for Ipswich (International?) was diverted to
neighbouring RAF Wattisham because of a dispute between the Suffolk
airport authorities and Suckling. Interesting features of the low
altitude flight included apparently passing over every airfield
between Manchester and the East Anglian coast (a safety measure?),
and use of the toilet permitted only after lunch had been served,
the facilities doubling as a galley. A bonus was the splendid view
of the Dutch bulb fields in Spring. Although the return, en masse
with KLM, was much enlivened by banter from Les Moore and Ron McKay,
the flight itself was rather prosaic. For some years Rod and I had
much amusement recalling the outward journey.
After Rod and I had left The French Quarter we exchanged Christmas
cards regularly. I last saw him a few years ago where he was playing
at one of Graham Brook’s Wilmslow jazz nights, trying, I think, to
re-ignite his musical career, though I don’t think it took off. He
also played drums in small groups, and possibly continued this after
his main tromboning days. Rod was a great pie-eater, and took almost
as much pleasure in anticipating his return journey via a pie
emporium as in playing the gig. I was saddened to learn of his death
(Alma had predeceased him), and will remember him as a fine musician
and as an entertaining and considerate companion.
The
first band that I can recall Rod being a part of, from my researches
and not by personal experience as I was not yet involved on the
local scene, was Alan Jackson's Apex Jazz Band (that's Manchester's
'Alan Jackson', not the formerly London-based modernist). The Apex
Jazz Band was set up in 1951 by Alan as the Apex Jazz Club, at
Frascatti's Restaurant/Pub. on Oxford Road, near the old Clarendon
then. It later moved up the road to the corner of Brunswick Street.
The boys played in and around central Manchester, for most of this
period boasting a residency later at the Thatched House Hotel, in a
cul-de-sac near the corner of Cross Street and Market Street. The
band had the following personnel between 1951 and 52. Alan Jackson
(tpt/clt/vocals, leader); Ted Lucas (clt); Rod Hopton (tbn); Jack
Farrer (d/bs); Frank Booth (bjo); Ronnie Arnold (dms). 
