Ken Sykora

Speaker 20:00

Hello, I'm Kirsty Young, and this is a download from the Desert Island Discs archive. For rights reasons, we've had to shorten the music.

Speaker 20:08

The programme was originally broadcast in nineteen sixty two.

Presenter0:24

Desert Island discs.

Presenter0:34

Each week, a well-known person is asked the question, if you were to be cast away alone on a desert island, which eight gramophone records would you choose to have with you?

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As usual, the castaway is introduced by Roy Plumley.

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How do you do, ladies and gentlemen?

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Our castaway this week is a very popular broadcaster. We've heard him presenting many record programmes and programmes on jazz, and he's also an exceedingly accomplished guitarist. It's Ken Sikora.

Presenter1:00

Ken, how do you think you would take to being a a solitary exile?

Presenter1:05

I might actually enjoy it, just for a while.

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Is there any one thing you would be happy about having got away from?

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Apart from the usual sort of.

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Blessings of civilization like smells and noises, I think I'd be glad to get some leisure to not only to think but to do practical things with my hands, which I don't have time to now. Yes. We've heard you talking about records um often enough on the air. You you must know thousands. You think that's going to make it more difficult for you than for most people to narrow your choice down to eight? Oh, indeed, yes. I've I've had uh long, long thoughts about this. It's difficult enough, you know, to get down to a nice sort of fat hours programme of records. Um

Presenter1:45

And to get down just to eight records is basically failed.

Ken Sykora1:47

This is a basic age.

Presenter1:48

Yes. Did you have any plan in setting about making your choice?

Presenter1:53

Only that um I suppose over the last eight or nine years my own taste in music has become very much more broad minded.

Presenter2:00

And in fact, now I try and sort of encourage other people's tastes to be the same, and and so consequently I would like to take with me

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to as as lar as large an extent as possible, a cross section of my tastes. Mhm. What's the first one you've chosen? Well, this first one is um a little piece of South American music from the Lonely Mountains of the Andes.

Presenter2:19

Uh it's played on two flutes, which I think are made of silver, but could be made of clay. I can remember during the war when we were short of musical instruments, I was tried to make uh

Presenter2:31

pipes out of reeds and things like that. One day I shall.

Presenter2:34

But in the meantime I'd like to listen to Los Incas playing the theme de huaino.

Ken Sykora2:39

Uh

Presenter2:40

Uh

Ken Sykora2:40

Uh

Presenter3:11

Theme, The Hawaino, played by Los Imcas. What's your second choice, Kev? Well, my second choice is a piece of music from the repertoire Duke Ellington.

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When I was very young I started to buy records,'cause in those days they were all seventy-eights, and it was possible, even when I was at school, to sort of save

Presenter3:31

Perhaps a shilling a week by walking to school or playing football on the way to school and that sort of thing. And of course a brand new record would only cost one and thruttens or two shillings in those days, and now you started collecting these sort of thrutny and forkney ones from junk shops.

Ken Sykora3:39

I guess those days

Presenter3:45

And somehow I found myself with a collection of Ellington, and quite honestly I've never looked back. So this really has to represent all the Ellington records.

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uh that I like. This particular one is a piece of mood music.

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That's called dusk.

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But actually it could quite easily be sunrise or hot afternoon on the desert island.

Presenter5:08

Duke Ellington and his orchestra Dusk

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Talking some personal background. Sikora is a very unusual name. Yes, my father was Czech. He came from Bohemia, which makes me, I suppose, a genuine Bohemian. Yes. Were you born in London? I was born in London, yes. My mother was Swiss and my father Czech. They settled in London.

Ken Sykora5:19

Genuine Birken

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Did you hear a lot of music in your home as a child?

Presenter5:28

Uh quite a lot, yes. My father was an amateur musician.

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My sisters, who were both eight and nine years older than me, were given a proper training in music and then as soon as they were able to they gave up playing, which rather disappointed my father I think, so consequently I wasn't trained. And after about three or four years I was clamouring for musical instruments. What particular instrument, the guitar right away? Well stringed instruments, which eventually focussed onto a guitar at least uh I thought it was a guitar, because the actually the first instrument that I bought

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was through one of these mail order advertisements on a in a Saturday morning newspaper, which sort of said guitar, five shillings, I thought marvellous you know, off goes the five bob scrounge from various people.

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And back came a potty little wooden box called ukulele. Well, the ukulele doesn't take very long to learn, and uh the interest quickly wore off. But I did in fact um

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About the same time when I was about twelve years old, managed to buy my first guitar, which was a four string tenor guitar.

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Local shop

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Cost thirty shillings.

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Now you had no idea, of course, at this time of being a professional musician. What was it your first ambition to be?

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I wanted to have something to do with maps, plans, diagrams, something like that, possibly an architect, but uh my m my maths was against that, so eventually I became a geographer.

Ken Sykora6:45

So then

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Yes. You read geography at Cambridge? I took a degree in geography eventually, geography and economics. Yes. Were you keeping up your music?

Presenter6:55

I was playing all the time, playing in school concerts and things like that.

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And then eventually, um when I went to Cambridge I joined the Cambridge University Dance Band. I joined it the year after Jimmy Edwards left. I believe you were discovered there.

Ken Sykora7:03

Hi, Joe.

Presenter7:08

I was discovered when we were playing at a dance opposite the Giraldo Orchestra. They were the sort of big band of the year, and this was the big ball of the year, and we were playing alternate hours with them. After a couple of hours I was sent for, and I thought, well, what on earth have I done wrong?

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But in fact, uh

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They invited me to play on one of their Sunday concerts, which of course at that time were a rarity. There were very few Sunday concerts. I was to be a guest soloist. Well, I was only seventeen, quite irresponsible. I still had no thoughts of being a professional musician. I just went along. I hadn't prepared anything, and I found myself the other soloist with George Shiring.

Presenter7:42

You were in distinguished company. What did that lead to, again?

Presenter7:46

Well, it led to some offers to turn professional, which I didn't accept. I wanted to get as much of my

Presenter7:52

university career in as I could because I was due for call-up, so in fact what it did lead to was five years in the army. Yes. The army took you to the Far East, I believe. Yes. Where where particularly?

Presenter8:01

To India, Burma, Malaya, Places Beyond. Mm-hmm. In the intelligence core. Yes.

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Well, let's break off at this point and have your third record. What shall we have next?

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My third record really connects up two things. One is

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The fact that I did start collecting records when I was very young

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And uh at that time the man who was really leading the field was Bing Crosbie.

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In fact, Crosby himself sort of reflects the history of popular music.

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And when I was in Burma with the Fourteenth Army, we got stuck for a few weeks in one place, and we got to know the local villagers very well, and they had one Crosbie record in their collection, and this was it. It's easy to remember.

Ken Sykora8:41

It's easy to remember

Ken Sykora8:46

What's so hard to forget?

Ken Sykora8:51

I hear you whisper

Ken Sykora8:53

I'll always love you.

Ken Sykora8:56

I know it's over and

Ken Sykora8:59

Yeah.

Ken Sykora9:02

It's easy to remember

Ken Sykora9:07

But so hard to forget.

Presenter9:11

Being Crosby, it's easy to remember.

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How long were you in the Far East, Ken? I was out for over four years. And when you were demobilised, back to Cambridge? No, back to London. I took a degree at uh London School Economics. Yes.

Presenter9:25

Presumably, of course, in in the army you'd more or less dropped your guitar playing? I did really give up playing guitar, I suppose, for eight years altogether, the army, and when I came back to university. What did you do after you left university?

Presenter9:37

I took a diploma in education and became a teacher. Yes. And after a couple of years of teaching I eventually s took up the guitar again. Mm-hmm. You never had a guitar lesson, is that true? I've never had a lesson, no, but I wouldn't recommend it to anybody else. You learned the hard way. I did indeed.

Presenter9:54

Classical as as as well as jazz.

Presenter9:57

Well, I think to become um a proficient classical guitarist you've got to devote a very large amount of time to it, and to become a really good classical guitarist it just has to be your life.

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Um the guitar is such an enormous

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uh instrument, or at least it has an enormous repertoire.

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But

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Any one individual can only hope to play a little bit of that. My particular bent was to jazz guitar, but I always appreciated, I think,

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Pretty well every other form of guitar playing.

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Until very recently.

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What do you mean by that? Well, some of the noises that are produced now are not the guitar music they're they're mechanical or electrical noises. Yes, I think I know the ones you mean. Well let's have another record. Well this is a guitar record and um

Ken Sykora10:31

Oh, I see guitar music there then.

Presenter10:40

by one of the greatest of classical guitarists, Segovia.

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And I'd like to combine this with another great love of mine, which is the music of Bach.

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So this is Segovia playing a Bachevat.

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Yeah.

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Uh

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Segovia playing a Bach Gavot. Picking up on your career, Ken, now you were teaching. Where was this? I taught in grammar school, secondary school, and ended up as a technical college lecturer. Yes. And you were playing the guitar in the evening?

Presenter12:10

Yes, most evenings, or listening to records, or studying music, or doing something of that sort. Yes, you're really living a sort of double life. You were also broadcasting. I started broadcasting during that time, yes, doing record programmes and playing guitar. In fact, the first uh

Presenter12:26

The first programme I did as a guitarist under my own name was with my own group, which was a bit terrifying, and Bruce Turner was in the group. Not only that, but the guest artist was Stefan Grappelli, which was even more terrifying.

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Was this double life appreciated by your students?

Presenter12:43

They didn't seem to mind actually.

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They sometimes wondered uh if I was the right person, you know, they'd ask who I was. Was I uh the same Ken Sikora that played guitar.

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So

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I'd say, Well, as a matter of fact, that's my brother. They'd say, Well, but you've got exactly the same name. I'd say, Well, twin brothers

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But this was pretty hard work keeping the tool gang together. It was hard work, yes. Um

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I know, um, sometimes my

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Educational superiors would wonder whether

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My job wasn't suffering, I don't think it did. Mhm. But eventually you you gave up teaching. Eventually I gave up teaching and the nice security of a regular monthly check and superannuation and pension and all this business and uh

Ken Sykora13:23

Biffin is

Presenter13:25

Took a shot at this freelance lark. How long ago was it? That was just over four years ago. Mm-hmm.

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You've done all right since, Ken. Let's have a record number five.

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Well, I think we ought to have something cheerful. And um this is a nice sort of swingy piece of music by a young lady that I first appreciated when she was singing with Benny Goodman's Orchestra. I think she's got a very warm voice and a great stylist, Peggy Lee.

Speaker 313:50

Things are swinging

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Birds are singing

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And just what do you think those bells are doing but ringing?

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Guys they have to bring to make this whole thing right.

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And you know that things are swinging all the time.

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It the news is.

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What the blues is?

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Then we better just practice up on our ones and twoses.

Presenter14:19

Daggie Lee, things are swinging. Now Ken, since 1957 you've been working full-time in music and broadcasting and journalism, which have been the important event so far as you're concerned.

Presenter14:31

One was um a series called Guitar Club, which I suggested and uh which ran for three years, with me playing on most of the programmes and announcing them.

Presenter14:41

And this was a marvellous experience. Although it was hard work, at the same time it was very enjoyable meeting

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A lot of very fine guitarists, a lot of very interesting people.

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Another programme was those record years which ran for about a year.

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This again, you see, combined some of my own

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uh tastes and enjoyments. I mean, it went back to my youth when I s first started collecting records and I was able to do a lot of research. I mean, it was there was a tremendous amount of work attached to it, and yet it wasn't really work.

Presenter15:12

Then of course there was Roundabout. Yes, Thursday Roundabout was was our pet for three years. I was working with old Jack Singleton who's

Ken Sykora15:15

Oh.

Presenter15:20

A marvelous man, you know, with a real human touch. And now what? L. P. Parade?

Presenter15:26

LP Parade at the moment, yes, that's a a baby of mine, together with Alan Dell. Yes. We're trying to deal with the the quality popular music that seems to get left out of everything else. Mm-hmm. And Jazz Today you're doing as well. Yes, the odd jazz programmes. Now, you're one of the busiest freelance broadcasters in the business, yet you managed to live in Suffolk. How do you organise this, Gab?

Presenter15:47

Well, it is a matter of organization, really. I think it's a marvellous idea to live in the country and

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Have you any any big ambitions you're aiming at? Any pet projects?

Presenter15:58

Not really. I've got so many things, you know, I tend to be a jack of all trades in in lots of ways, although all these trades do

Presenter16:06

connect the same things. I mean my interest in in music, in the guitar, my interest in in education and so on are all combined in a lot of the things I do, so that I've got two books which I ought to get on with writing.

Presenter16:19

I produced odd little pieces of music occasionally. I'd like to do that more. If I ever won a football pool I think I'd retire for a couple of years and really study theory and composition.

Presenter16:30

Well let's have record number six now.

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Well this is a record of the Warning Concerto by Max Bruch, which I suppose it was written about a hundred years ago, but it's still really part of modern classical music.

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And uh I wonder if it possibly has anything to do with my

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Middle European descent that I sort of feel gypsy overturns in this, but I think it's a very beautiful piece of music.

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Uh The Violin Concerto by Max Bruch.

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Part of the slow movement of Max Brooks violin concerto number one with David Oistrach as the soloist.

Presenter18:07

Douglan, what about your

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Being a cast to win in a practical sense, I think your years in the Far East should be useful to you.

Presenter18:15

They should be really. I suppose for about three years I never slept under a roof. In fact, we didn't have any tents or anything like that either, so

Presenter18:22

I should be able to build some sort of comfortable hole or bivouac or something of that sort. Yes. And what are you going to eat?

Presenter18:30

Well, I've never fished. That's uh something that uh

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I must uh learn to do later on. I think I might enjoy it, but uh I'm very keen on gardening. Ah

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I would uh have to start from rock bottom and uh see what there was to plant.

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Yeah, I believe sailing's a hobby of yours. Sailing is, yes, one of my

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Most important hobbies when I've got the time.

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It might be useful too, because I I wouldn't like to count up the number of the hundreds of hours I've spent on on uh renovating and refitting different boats at different times. Yes, could you build a craft with no tools?

Presenter19:06

I think I might be able to, because when I was out in in the Far East I remember seeing Malayan fishing boats and uh Chinese fishing boats, and I was very friendly with some of the fishermen.

Presenter19:16

And they were built with no nail screws or any metal pieces at all.

Presenter19:23

Well, I think that's pretty good. I mean, after all, I was a geography, so I was trained.

Ken Sykora19:26

Of course.

Presenter19:28

Wally, if you could construct a craft, would you try to escape, or sit it out on the island?

Presenter19:33

Well, I don't think I'd like to face a long, lonely sea voyage, you know, over uncharted waters with no sight of land. I think on the whole I would um build a craft purely for sort of practical use and use and leisure, for fishing and so on, and stick it out on the island.

Presenter19:50

Disk number seven, what not

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This is a piece of um

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South American music, which, um well, I say South American, it's really Latin it's Latin American because it comes from Mexico. The Trio los panchos, uh one of

Presenter20:05

Mexico's best trios

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This is a piece of music that I came across a few years ago when we started Guitar Club, and I began to meet a lot of people who had uh interests in other types of guitar music. This struck me as a particularly beautiful tune.

Presenter20:18

And this record I don't think has ever been issued over here, although other groups have sung it and played it. But this is the Los Panchos version of Una Avanturamas.

Speaker 320:30

Long que meces con lo capacido.

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In your favourite feline.

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Col la Lora que diega, mueremi corazón.

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Just take it so

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Jump into the mass for a

Presenter20:57

Una avantiora más played by the Los Panchos trio. And now we come to your last one. What's that going to be?

Presenter21:04

My last record well, it must be one of Django Reinhart, because Django, this French gipsy guitarist, I think is one of the

Presenter21:12

greatest natural musicians of this century.

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Uh he's been

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A man, a guitarist, whom I've met and admired.

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Well, pretty well ever since I started playing guitar.

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This is, I think, his best-known composition, and I know it's the one that he liked best.

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And although it's rather sad, and this particular recording was only made about a month before he died,

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Nevertheless, it's a beautiful piece of music. I'd like to have it with me. It's uh Django's Nuage.

Presenter22:42

Django Reinhardt playing his own composition, Nouage.

Presenter22:46

Oh, there you are eight, Ken. If you could only have one, which would it be?

Presenter22:50

It would have to be the Django, I think. The last one. Yes.

Ken Sykora22:52

Yeah.

Presenter22:53

And one luxury to take to a desert island. Is a wife a luxury?

Presenter22:58

Wives aren't allowed to be fragile.

Presenter23:00

I think I would take my guitar, although um mind you, having it there, I'd probably play a lot and it uh would be work. Plenty of spare strings. And one book apart from the Bible and Shakespeare. I should think with the Bible and Shakespeare there would be enough literature and uh

Presenter23:16

food for poetic reading. I think something very practical. I thought about um possibly a a book on small boat design but uh in fact um most of my my life has been spent on the sort of humanities and the arts and I think what I would like is something that would um give me the sort of basis of science, you know, right from the principles upwards.

Presenter23:37

Something perhaps like Hogburn's Sands for the Citizen. It's over a thousand pages, which is good money's worth for a start. Yes, indeed.

Presenter23:45

You shall have it. And thank you, Ken Secora, for letting us hear your choice of desert island discs. Well, thank you for inviting me to this salubrious island. A pleasure. Goodbye, everyone.

Speaker 224:06

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