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to Chapter 12
13
Keep
Music Live
Musicians
playing in theatres – incidental music,
opera, musicals; in Music Halls – conditions
– playing for jugglers, trapeze artists
and the Diaghilev Ballet Company and
Sir Harry Lauder; for the ‘silent cinema’;
for dancing.
Since
men and women first started to make
noises that through time developed into
music, those who made the sounds and
those who have heard them had to be
in the same place at the same time.
The Musicians’ Union’s long-time clarion
call ‘Keep Music Live’ represents how
musicians responded to the erosion of
the relationship music makers and their
audience had always had until the invention
of moving pictures, sound recording
and broadcasting changed this relationship
for ever.
When
my father became a professional musician
in 1906, aged 12, there were more musicians
playing in theatres of one kind or another
than anywhere else. There was also a
great deal of employment in hotels,
restaurants and cafes, and on bandstands
in the parks. During the summer months
most seaside resorts had Pierrot shows
and a band on the Pier or on the Municipal
bandstand and a few of the larger resorts
had orchestras with as many as 40 or
50 players. Musicians, as in nearly
all cultures, were required whenever
and wherever there was dancing.
Gradually
from 1927 onwards, when the ‘talkies’
supplanted silent films and more and
more people had wireless sets and gramophones,
the number of musicians employed for
outdoor entertainment reduced. There
were still a considerable number of
musicians employed playing in hotels,
restaurants and cafes until the start
of the war in 1939, but the call-up
of musicians to the armed forces and
rationing reduced their number considerably
and within a few years this field of
employment had virtually disappeared.
In 1942, when I joined the profession,
there was still a good deal of employment
in theatres and Music Halls, though
nothing like as much as in my father’s
day. Dancing continued to be extremely
popular, providing one of the main opportunities
for men and women to meet each other
outside the workplace.
Musicians
playing in the Theatres
At the
beginning of the 20th century
many musicians were employed playing
for a variety of theatrical entertainment
in the London theatres. There were musical
comedies and operettas, such as The
Arcadians, The Chocolate Soldier and
Naughty Marietta, the Gilbert and
Sullivan operas, and seasons of opera
and ballet at the Royal Opera House,
Covent Garden and Drury Lane Theatre.
After a successful London run productions
would usually go on tour to the larger
towns all over the country.
Many
theatres employed a trio or quintet
to play ‘Incidental music’ before the
performance of plays, between the acts,
during the intervals and at the end
as the audience was leaving. Some productions
had music especially written for them
when there might be a small orchestra
of as many as twenty players to play
background music in appropriate places
and, as in a number of the Shakespeare
plays, to accompany songs, as well as
play incidental music. Some of this
music, such as Roger Quilter’s incidental
music for As You Like It, the
music Delius wrote for Hassan and,
most famous of all, the beautiful music
Mendelssohn wrote for A Midsummer
Night’s Dream, has become
part of the concert repertoire.
An essential
talent required by all theatre musicians
is the ability to sight-read quickly
and accurately. Wherever musicians were
employed there was usually less time
allowed for rehearsals in my father’s
day than there is now. When a show was
on tour there would seldom be more than
one rehearsal for the local musicians
to run through all the music and, of
course, for a deputy there was none.
When one goes as a deputy one will not
have seen the music before and will
often find that the manuscript, from
which one has to read the music, is
in poor condition because during the
rehearsals and on the tour, which nearly
always precedes the London opening,
a good many changes to the original
production and music may have been made.
Some sections may have been cut and
then, possibly, reinstated; some of
the notes may have been altered and
in places additional music may have
been inserted – and then taken out again.
More often than not these alterations
will have been made by each player in
their own part at the time. All these
amendments will have been recognisable
to the player, but for anyone seeing
the music for the first time and not
being accustomed to the writer’s possibly
rough and ready music penmanship, they
can be very difficult, sometimes even
impossible, to decipher.
These
hazards are often multiplied by poor
lighting (far worse in the early years
of the last century), difficulty in
seeing the conductor because of the
cramped conditions in the pit and the
fact that if the show has been running
for a while the conductor will frequently
take it for granted that everyone understands
his beat. He is unlikely to be in the
class of conductor I have written about
with enthusiasm and, if the show has
been on for a while, he may be rather
bored. There will be places when, because
the singer holds a note for longer than
the written notation indicates, or the
action on stage needs more time than
the composed music allows for, the music
has had to be stretched out. Some beats
will have had to be subdivided so that
the conductor has to give some more
beats. In another place he will suddenly,
without warning, start beating very
much faster to deal with a hastening
of the action on stage. If, as is quite
common, there is nothing in the part
to alert the deputy that one of these
surprising events is to occur, the result
can be a minor disaster. My own experience,
when deputising at one show, was that
it took me several visits before I could
make sense of what the conductor was
doing. One or two passages remained
un-played. Fortunately for me they were
well covered by what others were playing.
Once again the famous caution that has
saved me on a number of occasions –
‘if in doubt, leave it out’ – came to
my rescue.
The
few occasions when I have taken on the
hazardous task of being a deputy I have
found it quite terrifying. One feels
under additional pressure because, generally,
managements have an understandable dislike
of deputies and would prefer that they
could disallow them. You know that if
you make a mistake, that in itself might
be quite small, it could have a devastating
effect. If it happens that someone on
stage relies on a note or a passage
of music to make their entry and it
is missing, or in the wrong place, it
can have serious consequences and if
you were the deputy responsible it is
unlikely you will be engaged for that
show again. If you were the player who
sent the deputy you will be in trouble
and may lose your right to be away again.
When
I was engaged to play at the Royal Opera
House, Covent Garden in the quite large
stage band required in Richard Strauss’s
Der Rosenkavalier there were
only going to be two performances each
week for four or five weeks. After several
performances I was offered several lucrative
engagements elsewhere, one of which
coincided with a performance of Der
Rosenkavalier. I decided to send
a deputy, a player of some standing,
to take my place. Unfortunately my deputy
made one entry a bar earlier than the
composer had intended and it happened
to be in one of those places that was
important for someone on stage. A day
or two later, before the next performance
of that opera, I received a less than
pleasant letter from the orchestral
manager at the Opera House telling me
that my services were no longer required.
Fortunately, as I only intended to do
one of the three remaining performances
I was not too concerned.
Many
years ago, at a time when there was
a great deal of theatre work, my father,
who liked to show off his technical
skill by improvising around the music
actually written in the part, came a
cropper when he sent a deputy who played
exactly what was written. In the interval
the artists on stage came to complain
to the conductor, who was already on
his way to the deputy at whom he had
been scowling at each clarinet solo
entry, to find out why the music sounded
so different from what he was accustomed
to. The conductor was starting to give
him a hard time when the player showed
him his part. On my father’s return
the following day there was a stormy
scene and for the rest of the run he
had to be there
putting in all his additional improvisations.
My
own experience of playing for musicals
is very limited. The only
one
that I remember enjoying after the first
week or so was West Side Story,
with Leonard Bernstein’s wonderful music
and an outstanding production. The American
cast, directed by Jerome Robbins, was
tremendous and hyped up every night
at a short stage rehearsal before each
show so that when it came to the Rumble
the Sharks and the Jets were appropriately
violent in their fight. On several occasions
actors were injured
The
orchestra was made up of very good players
from both the ‘straight’ and ‘jazz’
side of the profession. There were four
of us in the woodwind section, all doubling,
that is required to play more than one
instrument. Both the alto sax players
doubled on clarinet, flute and piccolo,
another played tenor sax, clarinet,
oboe and cor anglais and I, as the ‘straight’
man, played clarinet, Eb clarinet and
bass clarinet. The string section was
outstanding, most playing or having
played in one of the major symphony
or chamber orchestras in contrast to
the brass which was made up of very
good jazz musicians. Above all we had
a great jazz drummer, Phil Seaman, who
drove the music forward when needed.
At the
same time as being the resident player
for this show I was also playing in
the Philharmonia so it was necessary
for me to be away quite a lot. I was
determined to make sure that my deputies
never put a foot wrong. I went to a
lot of trouble to see that none of the
problems I have written about assailed
them. I did it for them and also to
make sure I had no difficulties with
the management as it was rather a well
paid job. I rewrote, in very clear manuscript,
the pages where there had been changes,
and also prepared instructions telling
whoever took my place where there was
anything not clear. At that time in
the late 1950s there were not many clarinettists
who could play all three clarinets demanded
by the score; now there are very many.
Musicians
in the Music Halls
The
Music Halls were the most popular form
of entertainment for at least 30 years
or more before 1900 by when there were
music halls in even quite small towns.
Conditions and pay for the musicians
were poor and for the mainly working
class audience the seating arrangements
varied but were generally lacking in
quality and comfort. Some music halls
were in pretty rough areas where, if
you were sitting in the stalls, you
might be unfortunate enough to receive
a piece of orange peel (or worse) on
your lap or head. In the large towns,
on the No. 1 circuit, they were quite
grand, with red plush, comfortable seats
(and no orange peel), serving a more
discerning and affluent clientele.
In London
the best music halls were very fine
indeed and attracted a high-class clientele,
which used to be called the ‘carriage
trade’. My father played at one when
he was a young man, the Palace Theatre
in Shaftesbury Avenue. Here the conductor
was the renowned Herman Finck; his composition
In the Shadows was for many years
very popular and to be heard in restaurants,
on bandstands and, until the 1950s,
it was often in the programmes of the
many light orchestras broadcasting at
that time. He was a good theatre conductor
and something of a disciplinarian. It
seems that my father frequently got
the sack because he sent deputies without
first getting permission, but as he
was such a good player Finck would give
him back his job each time. It was a
job worth having and very well paid.
It was truly a Palace of Varieties with
artists of many kinds and it was chosen
as the venue for the first Royal Command
Performance in 1912. The programme would
usually consist of 10 or 12 acts, or
‘turns’, and would include at least
one comedian or a double act, a song
and dance group , a singer or group
of singers, a comedy or dramatic sketch,
tap dancers or adagio dancers, who would
sometimes do the Apache Dance. An up-dated
version of this dance was used very
effectively many years later in On
Your Toes, the Rogers and Hart musical
in which the jazz ballet, Slaughter
on 10th Avenue, with
choreography by George Balanchine, was
a ‘show stopper’. The rest of the programme
would be made up of, perhaps, jugglers,
magicians doing card tricks or other
sleight of hand deceptions, animal acts,
a hypnotist, a contortionist, balancing
acts that had tumblers and trapeze artists.
Musical groups, often dressed as Gypsies
or Russians and playing appropriate
music, were very popular. Some of the
musicians might be genuine Gypsies or
Russians, though a good many had never
been further east than Whitechapel in
the east-end of London.
The
Palace Theatre was so highly thought
of that the Diaghilev Ballet Company
and on one occasion Anna Pavlova, were
willing to appear there. Pavlova, after
her career as the most celebrated ballerina
of her time, continued to dance as a
soloist; her pièce de résistance
was Le Sygne (The
Swan), to a movement from
Le Carnival des Animaux by Saint-Saëns.
It was assumed that with a name like
Tschaikov, and a noticeable foreign
accent, my father would speak Russian,
and that he would be able to interpret
for her, but as he had come to England
when he was only five or six years old
he remembered only a very few words
of Russian and was of no help.
The
conditions for those working in the
music halls in the London suburbs and
around the country were quite different
to those my father enjoyed at the Palace
Theatre. The expected standard of performance
and quality of the music was usually
not very high. There would be new artists
each week, bringing their own set of
parts for the orchestra. The parts were
often in a very poor condition, well
worn and covered in the markings of
the many musicians who had attempted
to play from them over the years. There
would always be a rehearsal on Monday
morning when the parts were handed out
along with arcane instructions from
the conductor, perhaps ‘2,2,1 and coda’,
or 2,3,2, and coda or whatever was required.
2,2,1 and coda meant that you were to
play the first section of music twice,
the second section twice, the third
section once and then, at a sign, go
to the section marked coda, bringing
the music to an end. There would probably
be brief instructions about getting
faster and slower to match whatever
was required on stage. The drummer had
a particularly difficult job. He had
to play the necessary ‘effects’ for
the comedians and clowns when they fell
over or hit each other. For them he
might have to bang the bass drum or
cymbal, hit the wood-block or blow a
whistle; for jugglers, tight-rope and
trapeze artists a side-drum role would
usually be required before an especially
difficult or hazardous trick. He had
to be very wide-awake as no two performances
would ever be just the same. With 10
to 12 turns to rehearse there was no
time for much refinement. I am thankful
I never had to do work of that kind,
and particularly that I didn’t have
to go as a deputy.
By the
1930s there were fewer music halls though
some of those that remained had quite
good orchestras. I remember going to
see pantomimes at Christmas time at
the Shepherd’s Bush Empire and Chiswick
Empire. The orchestras at both were
considered good enough to make regular
broadcasts. The popularity of the cinema
and television gradually killed off
most of the few remaining Variety Theatres,
as Music Halls came to be called. The
last one to close was the Metropolitan
Edgware Road, in London, finally bringing
to an end a tradition of remarkable
popular entertainment where there was
a real interaction between the performers
on stage and the audience.
Not
long before it was to be demolished
I did a couple of recording sessions
in the old ‘Met’, when we recorded some
of the old music hall tunes made famous
by artists like Sir Harry Lauder and
the Chocolate Coloured Coon. It was
sad to see its former glory, now faded
and in such poor condition and know
that it was soon to be pulled down.
Playing
for the ‘Silent’ Cinema
The
arrival of the cinema was the first
of the early 20th century
inventions to have a profound effect
on the lives and employment of musicians.
It was welcomed by them because it brought
an ever increasing amount of employment.
There were musicians in every ‘silent’
cinema in the country and by 1914 it
was estimated that there were more than
3500 halls throughout the country showing
films. Quite a number of them had been
theatres and music halls and though
a few of them did for a time also have
some stage performances it was not long
before these ceased. Villages, not large
enough to support a theatre, could afford
to have a cinema, with seating for as
few as 80 or 100 because cinemas required
so much less labour and were therefore
much cheaper to run. But, it seems silence
was not golden and every cinema had
to have music to accompany the films.
In the small cinemas there were usually
less than four players and in many of
the smallest only a pianist or piano
and violin, but in the large cities
– London, Manchester, Glasgow and a
few other large towns – there were orchestras
of anything from thirty to sixty musicians.
While
it lasted the ‘silent’ cinema provided
an enormous amount of employment, in
some cases to players of a standard
not much higher than an average amateur
though in the best cinema orchestras
there were many fine players. In 1927
when The Jazz Singer, the first
sound film, was released, ironically
a ‘musical’, it was estimated that the
majority of musicians were working in
cinemas. Over the next five years the
number of ‘talkies’ increased until
by 1932 they had completely taken over.
As a result more than 15,000 musicians
were thrown onto the labour market,
at a time when there was already considerable
national unemployment.
Some
of the musicians outside London and
one or two other places were able to
return to the jobs they had given up
for the more financially and personally
rewarding career as a musician. Some
of the best players continued to have
successful careers once the ‘talkies’
arrived, but there were far too many
excellent players for the amount of
employment available and a good many
were reduced to playing in the streets
in an endeavour to stave off complete
ruin. It did at least give them the
opportunity to keep playing, in the
hope that they might at some time find
employment again. If musicians are to
maintain their playing ability they
need to play their instrument regularly,
everyday if possible.
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In
the 1930s when I was a child, I remember
an elderly man who used to walk round
our neighbourhood playing the violin.
As he walked down our road people would
throw pennies out of their windows to
him. One day when it was raining he
sheltered in the porch of our house.
Seeing him my mother invited him in
for a cup of tea and as they talked
it turned out that my father had known
him many years previously. After that,
every time he came round our way he
would come in for a cup of tea and a
piece of my mother’s celebrated Dundee
cake.
When
a new film arrived it was the job of
the leader of the group or the ‘musical
director’ in each cinema to select the
music he or she thought most suitable
to accompany it. The cinema would own
a library of music similar to that played
in the restaurants and on band stands
in the parks and sea-fronts. Once again
the arrangements made by Emile Tavan
came in useful as they could be used
by whatever size band the cinema could
afford. If there was a chase, ‘hurry
music’ would be chosen; for the love
scenes, sentimental themes; for fights,
loud music with plenty of bass drum
and the clashing of cymbals (or in their
absence loud thumping on the lowest
notes of the piano) was essential.
‘Trade
shows’ were held, usually in the morning
in one of the large London cinemas,
to provide the opportunity for cinema
owners from all over the country to
see new films and decide if they wished
to show them. After a while some of
the major films from Hollywood arrived
with their own especially composed music
for performance in the big cinemas where
there would be a large orchestra. With
especially composed music it was quite
straightforward, except that it must
be remembered that as there were no
rehearsals everything had to be sight-read.
But when there was no music composed
especially for the film and instead
sections of music had been selected
from overtures, symphonies, selections
from operettas, musical comedies and
novelty numbers it was more difficult.
On those occasions there would be a
great pile of music on the stand and
when a light flashed one had to go immediately
to the next selected piece. For those
who had the necessary technique and
quick responses to do this these engagements
were some of the most financially rewarding
for the orchestral or ‘band’ musician.
Playing
for Dancing
The
traditional area of employment for musicians
has always been to provide music for
dancing. The coming of the gramophone
and the increasing availability of recordings
made from about 1901 onwards were by
1920 to bring about some big changes
and the need for another kind of musician.
At the
beginning of the 20th century
the music for dancing was provided for
the upper classes by groups of musicians
very similar to those who played in
the restaurants and on the bandstands,
anything from a trio to a group of five
or six players, violin, piano and drums
with a flute, clarinet or trumpet added
depending on the money available. At
a grand ball there would probably be
two or three violins, perhaps a viola,
a cello and a double bass (nowadays
often called a ‘string bass’ to distinguish
it from the ‘electric bass’ now dominant
outside orchestral circles), a flute,
clarinet, trumpet, piano and drums.
If it was a very grand occasion a trombone
and a second clarinet and second trumpet
might be added.
For
most working people, in town or country,
dancing would probably be inside or
outside a pub, depending on the weather.
On Saturday night it could be at the
farm, Village Hall or Town Hall. Often
a single fiddler, pianist or accordionist
would be the only musician employed,
possibly a member of the community with
some natural talent. At a wedding or
some other special occasion they might
be able to afford a violin, double bass,
and drums plus a flute or clarinet or
trumpet if there were local players
available.
Whether
grand or not, the dances would be sequence
dances such as the waltz, perhaps the
St.George’s Waltz, the Valeta or the
Eva Three-step. There were also the
one-step, two-step, tangos and fox trots
(still called saunters in Britain at
that time). There were also the ‘turning
couple’ dances, the Waltz, Polka and
Schottische and the set dances such
as the quadrilles, contra or country
dances, and some of the older dancers
still enjoyed the Lancers. At the same
time as sequence dancing, the younger
members of the upper classes had come
to prefer free style though the less
well-off remained keen on the sequence
dances.
From
about 1910, when the first ragtime records
began to be issued in Britain, followed
by more jazz type music, keen dancers
in Britain started to hear about dances
that were already becoming popular in
the USA, and the music to which they
were being danced. The new dances often
had rather amusing names such as The
Turkey Trot, Bunny Hug, and the Lindy
Hop. At the end of the war in 1918,
many women, who had been increasingly
employed in the factories producing
armaments and uniforms, as well as the
men weary from life in the services,
were ready for something new and exciting.
In Europe,
from the beginning of the 20th
century, the Military bands had started
to give the saxophone a more prominent
role; then, in America, the Gilmore
and Sousa Show bands started to feature
the instrument. Just as recordings were
becoming more available, Rudy Wiedoft
began recording saxophone solos, many
written by himself. He was a virtuoso
and a charismatic performer whose most
well known composition, Waltz Vanite,
was tuneful and difficult, and it
inspired many young players to follow
his example. In the 1920s there were
more and more young musicians who wanted
to play the saxophone. In fact it became
a craze that, with the influence of
recordings from America, was to change
the personnel in the bands that played
for dancing and lead to what came to
be called Dance Bands. They were to
provide the music for dancing until
the end of the 1950s, when the advent
of new forms of popular music once again
changed the music and the bands young
dancers preferred.
Between
1910 and 1920 the new dances were played
by the same kind of bands as before
except that the wind instruments, in
particular the cornet or trumpet, were
given the melody more frequently. If
you are willing to accept the sound
quality you can hear what these bands
sounded like on a number of recordings
made at that time. To those brought
up listening to CDs it may come as a
shock to hear what delighted even the
most discerning music lovers well into
the 1930s.
After
1920 the old style dance orchestra now
rapidly became the Dance Band with the
saxophones replacing the violins and
cello and the brass instruments playing
a bigger part in carrying the melody.
Naturally, it was where the Upper Class
danced (yes, class was still very important
then), that the new style music was
played and the bands were first heard.
This was to be the Jazz Age, the era
of the ‘flapper’, with much shorter
skirts, the Charleston and High Jinx.
Older folk saw this as the road to ruin
and the loosening of moral restraint.
30 or so years later quite a few of
those who had danced to the ‘sinful’
saxophone could be heard saying the
same thing about Rock and Roll and jitterbugging.
Dancing and the music for dancing have
a lot to answer for and no doubt will
continue to do so. For some strange
reason the saxophone continued to be
associated with sin even as late as
1945. At the Three Choirs Festival held
in Worcester that year, it is reported
that in a part of Vaughan Williams’s
Job, where there is a solo for
the saxophone, the ecclesiastical authorities
demanded that the movement in which
the saxophone was heard be omitted.
They did not want the profane sound
of the saxophone to be heard within
the Cathedral.
As always
the size of the band would depend on
the venue and the clientele. Most bands
had 7 or 8 players; a big band in the
1940s might have as many as five saxes,
four trumpets, three trombones, guitar,
bass and drums. In the night clubs and
hotels, where the Jack Hylton, Roy Fox,
Jack Payne, Lew Stone, Ambrose, Billy
Cotton and many other bands played in
the 1920s and 1930s, the players were
paid by the week, in what might be called
a ‘full-time’ engagement. In time the
top bands would become Show Bands often
being top of the bill at music halls
and in due course broadcasting regularly.
The BBC was to have its own resident
band, Henry Hall’s BBC Dance Band.
Many
of the best players were in the big
name bands, though some of the very
best actually wanted to play jazz There
has never been enough work in Britain
for a musician to earn his living entirely
by playing jazz so those musicians with
families settled for the next best thing,
playing commercial dance music. However,
the vast majority of musicians playing
for dances were not in the name bands.
They were predominantly free lance musicians.
Some were full-time musicians, but many
more were part-time, more usually known
as semi-pros. The latter earned their
living in many different ways: as clerks,
manual workers, professional men, including
quite a few school teachers.
I first
met Jack Brymer, the doyen of clarinettists
until his death in 2003, when we both
joined the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra
in 1947. Previously he had been a schoolmaster
who also played five or six nights a
week in ‘gig’ bands. He told me that
quite frequently he earned more from
playing in the bands than he did as
a schoolmaster. But being a schoolmaster
was regular employment he could rely
on, and there would be a pension when
he retired.
There
were as many gig bands as years later
there were to be pop groups, but there
were also a lot of free-lance ‘pick-up’
bands, groups of musicians that were
engaged for ‘hops’ in the local Town
Hall, Dance Halls, Working Men’s Clubs
and anywhere else large enough. The
new bands varied just as much as the
old-style bands had always done. Now
a trio would be piano, bass and drums,
or the same group with a front man playing
clarinet, saxophone or trumpet, depending
on the funds available. Larger bands
with 2 altos and a tenor sax, two trumpets
and trombone and a rhythm section, and
the ‘big’ bands and swing bands of the
30s and later might have two altos,
two tenors and a baritone sax, three
trumpets and two or three trombones,
guitar, piano, bass and drums, and often
one or two vocalists. There was a vast
amount of employment for free-lance
full and part-time dance musicians.
The best paid work, Hunt Balls, Debutante
Balls, Marriage Receptions, University
celebrations and Barmitzvahs, was mainly
done by the considerable number of free-lance
musicians based in London.
From
1920 onwards the separation of those
musicians playing ‘straight’ music -
orchestral musicians – and those playing
‘dance’ or jazz orientated music increased.
For some years this led to them joining
separate organisations that would look
after their employment protection. I
will return to this topic in a later
chapter.
Chapter
14
