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Tuning in…
Castaway
1 appearance
Jazz trumpeter and veteran radio presenter best known as the deadpan chairman of Radio 4's 'I'm Sorry I Haven't a Clue'.
On the island
Eight records
Well, I go to that time when I was learning the drum with Mr. Glass, and he first of all took me up to the Victoria Barracks up in Windsor, waiting for the band to come out of the barracks and lead the guard, the new guard, up to Windsor Castle, where they do the changing of the guard. And I can remember still the thrill of hearing the command, by the left, quick march, and then you'd have the five beat roll on the drums. So I'd like to have a record by one of my heroes. Kenneth Alford. The British Malt King. His most famous march has been very badly treated, rude words have been put to it. And so on, but it's always a favourite of mine and has in one section of it a countermelody, which is absolutely beautiful.
Second record goes to a love that I shared with my father of the monologues that were recorded in the mid thirties by Arthur Marshall. And my father and I used to love this. It was at one of the meeting points, you know, there was and we p both played golf and we so that we had quite a lot of time together. Most a lot of it was r it was heaving with laughter at at Arthur Marshall's Description, for example, is in the role of a schoolmistress taking the children on a nature walk.
This is part of that emotional thing. It's a a recording of Benjamino Gigli in nineteen thirty six singing what I call uh Handel's Largo. And um after uh leaving school, leaving Eton, I went to South Wales with a cousin of mine. to Port Obad and um I suppose we were uh saved from utter boredom. in the evenings by the fact that he had a blind up gramophone.
Marion Williams and the Stars of Faith
It's a Gospel number sung by one of the greatest of all Gospel singers, Marion Williams, through his absolute tornado of passion. And I love it.
Humphrey Lyttelton and His Band
My fifth record is uh it's it's a little bit of a narcissistic uh uh entry because um but it's also nostalgic because um I used to know and um and listen to one of the Mississippi Blues singers called Big Bill Brunzy, who is a fabulous guitar player and singer. And uh we heard that he'd got throat cancer and had had to have the whole of his v voice box taken out. Terrible thing for a s you know, performer of any kind. And so I wrote a piece which was based loosely on a melody that I associated with Big Bill, Big Bill Blues.
That's My HomeFavourite
Yes, indeed. And um uh it'll d it'll recollect one of those moments when we saw him off at I think it was King's Cross station and we set up uh on one of those huge great baggage trucks. So we set up outside his carriage. He got into his seat. We played one tune. We played another tune. And another tune after that. And he went on, the train was fifteen or twenty minutes late in pulling out of the station. And I remember I played this number, That's My Home, as part of that farewell. and uh he hopped across the carriage and he opened those little windows that you could open on one of those carriages and he cut his head half out and he sang the words of this song. And that would be a that would be a fran fantastic memory to keep.
My son's record arises from something that I discovered. People have said to me, and I don't. Uh I've never recognized it myself. That there's something about my timing. But in point of fact, somebody sent me uh an L P of one of the old Kenneth Horne shows Round the Horn, and I always used to listen to that when it was a regular broadcast, and then I'd forgotten about it. I um suddenly realized that I recognised in Kenneth Horn's approach to the thing, something of what I do. And so I've realized that he was a huge influence on me. It may be due to the fact that he was I'm I'm I'm alleged to be on the posh side, and he was also posh, and so he was doing much the same thing that I was doing.
Next record will bring a little gaiety. into into my life. There's been some quite sad things in my music. I've always had a a wish that I'd learned to play the piano and had been able to play it like Fat Swallow. And also the fact that song pluggers used to go round in the thirties giving people sentimental songs to sing, and why they ever went in a studio where Fat Swallow was, I don't know, because uh he used to slaughter them and as he does indeed with a thing called It's a Sin to Tell a Lie.
In conversation
Presenter asks
1:24What is it about the jazz that so captivates you?
Well, I've I I was fascinated by music from a a very, very early age. Uh the trumpet came quite late. I I was I had a love affair with the harmonica for a long time.
Presenter asks
2:09What was it about the trumpet that interested you from the beginning? Did something spark your imagination?
I was rather taken by the f sight of Louis Armstrong playing the trumpet. because there you were in heraldic posture with the trumpet pointing at the ceiling.
Presenter asks
2:44You are still performing at the age of eighty five. Has your appetite to perform, your appetite to tour, diminished at all?
Not in the slightest. I'm rather worried about it. No, it hasn't. I still wake up in the morning with uh with uh ideas sometimes they keep me awake at the crack of dawn ideas for things to do with the band. I've just done a recording session. We did nineteen tracks in four days and every morning I've been waking up with tunes in my head. And um as long as that goes on I want to get out there with the band and play them.
The keepsakes
The book
The Collected Works of James Thurber
James Thurber
Being interested as I am in cartooning and in humorous writing, I would take the collected works of James Thurber, the American cartoonist and humorist.
The luxury
I think I'd have to take a keyboard. ... So I'm going to take a uh have a harmonium.
Presenter asks
5:54Did you have a close relationship with your mother, though? I mean, were things good between you and Mum, or did you not really see her very often?
Oh, no, they were always good. My mother was uh she was an amazing person. She was she was very humorous. But uh my mother was uh she was a very strong woman.
Presenter asks
23:48How did Louis Armstrong's death affect you?
I have to say that it affected me more than did my own father's death. in the in the emotional sense, because of course there was music attached to it as well, and I've talked about the the emotion of music and And um it was one of the worst experiences of my life. I was absolutely knocked sideways by it. It Louis Armstrong's death, because it was such a complete part of one's life.
Presenter asks
30:39How do you think you would handle what would be the inevitable loneliness on a desert island? Do you think you'd be able to cope with that?
I've been used to loneliness ever since I got on my bike and and peddled away from my sister's terrible friends in childhood. Um and I've spent a lot of time on my own. And um The circumstances of when my wife died I looked after for a long, long time, which is a l a lonely experience in itself. So, um, you know, I and and also I've got a lovely I've got two families. Who it how lovely to have two families, uh my own blood family and the band, which is like a family.
“fact that jazz music always contains a hint of pain. And it was that emotional side of it, I think, underneath that I liked, because most of the music that I go for is is highly emotional.”
“I actually had a a quite a long depression. Through the process of sloughing off, as you might say, all the preparatory education that I'd had. Not necessarily what I'd learnt, but all the sort of um you know, uh how you behaved and w and what you were aiming for and uh to get rid of all of that. It took a long time.”
“I've been used to loneliness ever since I got on my bike and and peddled away from my sister's terrible friends in childhood.”