George Melly

George Melly born 17 August 1926 (d. 2007)

Alan George Heywood Melly was an English jazz and blues singer and writer. From 1965–1973 he was a film and television critic for The Observer. He also lectured on art history, with an emphasis on Surrealism.

He was born in Liverpool and was educated at Stowe school, where he discovered his interest in modern art, jazz and blues and started coming to terms with his sexuality. This period of his life is described in Scouse Mouse, a volume of his autobiography.

He joined the Royal Navy at the end of the Second World War because, as he quipped to the recruiting officer, the uniforms were 'so much nicer'. As he related in his autobiography, Rum, Bum and Concertina, he was crestfallen to discover that he would not be sent to a ship and was thus denied the 'bell-bottom' uniform he desired. Instead he received desk duty and wore the other Navy uniform, described as 'the dreaded fore-and-aft'. Later, however, he did see ship duty. He never saw active combat, but was almost court-martialled for distributing anarchist literature.

After the war Melly found work in a London surrealist gallery, working with E L T Mesens and eventually drifted into the world of jazz music, finding work with Mick Mulligan's Magnolia Jazz Band. This was a time when jazz was very popular in Britain - a time known as the trad-boom.

He retired from jazz in the early 1960s when he became a film critic for The Observer. He also became the writer on the Daily Mail's satirical newspaper strip Flook, illustrated by Trog. He was also scriptwriter on the 1967 satirical film Smashing Time. This period of his life is described in Owning Up.

He returned to jazz in the early 1970s with John Chilton's Feetwarmers, a partnership that only ended in 2003. He later sang with Digby Fairweather's band. He released three albums in the 1970s including Nuts in 1972 and Son of Nuts the next year. He wrote a light column – Mellymobile – in Punch magazine describing their tours.

He was an Honorary Associate of the National Secular Society and a Distinguished Supporter of the British Humanist Association. He was also a member of the Max Miller Appreciation Society and on 1 May 2005 joined Roy Hudd, Sir Norman Wisdom and others in unveiling a statue of Miller in Brighton.

His singing style, particularly for the blues, was strongly influenced by his idol, the American Blues singer Bessie Smith. While many British musicians of the time treated jazz and blues with almost religious solemnity, Melly rejoiced in their more bawdy side, and this was reflected in his choice of songs and exuberant stage performances. He recorded a track called 'Old Codger' with The Stranglers in 1978 especially written for him by the band.

Technically, Melly was bisexual, but moved from strictly homosexual relationships in his teens and twenties to largely heterosexual relationships from his thirties onwards. He married twice and had a child from each marriage. He married his second wife, Diana, in 1963. Their son, Tom, was born two days after the wedding. In 2005, Diana published an autobiography of their life and (open) marriage together. In an incident that others might have considered hugely embarrassing, Diana and George participated in a televised celebrity couples quiz in the 1970s. Asked separately what made them decide to marry, Diana announced 'I was pregnant!' and George, in his turn, merely said, 'The less said about that, the better.' At the time this was considered scandalous.

He was still active in music, journalism, and lecturing on Surrealism and other aspects of modern art until his death, despite worsening health problems such as vascular dementia, incipient emphysema and lung cancer.

In addition to age-related health problems, Melly suffered from environmental hearing loss due to long-term exposure to on-stage sound systems, and his hearing in both ears became increasingly poor. On Sunday 10 June 2007, George Melly made an appearance, announced as his last ever performance, at the 100 Club in London. This was on the occasion of a fund-raising event to benefit the charity supporting his carers.

He died at his London home of lung cancer aged 80 on 5 July 2007

Billy Strayhorn

Billy Strayhorn born 29 November 1915 (d. 1967)

William Thomas 'Billy' Strayhorn was an American composer, pianist and arranger, best known for his successful collaboration with bandleader and composer Duke Ellington lasting two decades. The composition most closely associated with Strayhorn is Lush Life.

Billy Strayhorn was born in Dayton, Ohio. He began his musical career in Pittsburgh, where he studied for a time at the Pittsburgh Music Institute, wrote a high school musical and, while still in his teens, composed Lush Life, a work that had the world weariness of an older man. He met Duke Ellington backstage after an Ellington performance in Pittsburgh in 1938. Here he first told, and then showed, the band leader how he would have arranged one of Duke's own pieces. Ellington was impressed enough to invite other band members to hear Strayhorn. At the end of the visit he arranged for Strayhorn to meet him when the band returned to New York. Strayhorn worked for Ellington for the next quarter century until his early death from cancer.

Strayhorn's relationship with Ellington was always difficult to pin down: he was a gifted composer and arranger who seemed to flourish in Duke's shadow. Ellington may have taken advantage of him, but not in the mercenary way that others had taken advantage of Ellington; instead, he used Strayhorn to complete his thoughts, while giving Strayhorn the freedom to write on his own and enjoy at least some of the credit he deserved. Strayhorn, for his part, may have preferred to stay out of the limelight, since that also allowed him to be out of the closet in an era and a community that did not tolerate gay artists.

Strayhorn composed the band's theme, Take the A Train, and a number of other pieces that became part of the band’s repertoire such as Satin Doll. In some cases they were listed as Strayhorn compositions, while others were listed as collaborations with Ellington or were credited to Ellington alone. On the other hand, Ellington gave Strayhorn full credit as his collaborator on later, larger works where Strayhorn and Ellington worked closely together.

Strayhorn's arrangements had a tremendous impact on the Ellington band. Ellington always wrote for the personnel he had at the time, showcasing both the personalities and sound of soloists such as Johnny Hodges, Harry Carney, Ben Webster, Lawrence Brown and Jimmy Blanton, and drawing on the contrasts between players or sections to create a new sound for his band. Strayhorn brought a more linear, classically schooled ear to Ellington’s works, setting down in permanent form the sound and structures that Ellington sought.

Strayhorn’s own work, particularly his pieces written for Johnny Hodges on alto saxophone, often had a bitter-sweet, languorous flavour. He wrote his last pieces while dying from cancer; he delivered his last piece, Blue Cloud, to Ellington while in the hospital. Ellington included that piece, renamed Blood Count, on the album, ...And His Mother Called Him Bill, that he recorded several months after Strayhorn's death as a tribute to his friend and collaborator.

As an out gay black man in the first half of the twentieth century, Strayhorn was unusual indeed - especially considering that no other jazzmen were openly gay. But unconcerned about appearances, Strayhorn refused to don a façade of heterosexuality.

Most of his time was spent out of the spotlight, so his sexuality simply was not an issue in his career or in his relationship with Ellington. It may, however, explain why he seemed to avoid the spotlight and let Ellington receive credit for their collaborative work.

Upon learning that the collaborators' published works were all copyrighted by Ellington, who received the royalties, Strayhorn became understandably dismayed - though it was really the lack of independence in his own career, rather than the money, that bothered him.

While Strayhorn refused to pity himself or complain to friends and family, it was clear that he was often unhappy with his failure to receive credit for work that had helped make Ellington rich and famous.

His drinking, friends noticed, escalated considerably as the years passed. Consequently his health began to deteriorate, which affected his work and activities. Although Strayhorn, a civil rights advocate, attended the 1963 March on Washington with Martin Luther King, Jr., an acquaintance of his, he did not feel well enough actually to march.

The reason for his physical decline soon became clear. In early 1964, he was diagnosed with oesophageal cancer - a type of cancer usually stemming from use of alcohol and tobacco, both of which Strayhorn indulged in heavily.

The following year, Strayhorn played the only concert showcasing him without Ellington's presence, name, or influence. The concert at the New School in New York City completely sold out. It was, alas, one of Strayhorn's final accomplishments.

After a tracheotomy and the subsequent removal of his oesophagus, Strayhorn finally succumbed to the disease. He died prematurely on May 31, 1967, at the age of 53, leaving behind a legacy deserving of far more recognition than it garnered for decades to come.

Happily, he is now recognised as a major figure in American music, one who immensely enriched jazz music by investing it with complexly orchestrated form.