In Memoriam

RIP Tony Kinsey 1927-2025

Long regarded as one of Britain’s finest jazz drummers and composers, Tony Kinsey’s multi-faceted musical career extends from jazz player to composer of music in many genres, including works for full symphony orchestra and chamber groups.

He was a founder member of the John Dankworth Seven, working with the band for a period of two years, leaving only so that he could concentrate more on playing in London’s leading jazz clubs. He went on to lead various Quartets and Quintets which were most successful, winning many awards and topping polls held in all the musical journals.

His groups have performed in many of Europe’s leading concert halls, and worked countless times at Ronnie Scott’s Club in London. In his playing career he has worked with many of the world’s jazz greats, including Billie Holiday, Ella Fitzgerald, Lena Horne, Sarah Vaughan, Annie Ross, Oscar Peterson, Ben Webster, Clark Terry, Sweets Eddison and many more.

Whenever possible he enjoys working and writing for his Quartet or Big Band, and in particular derives much satisfaction from the latter which, in the past,on occasion, was joined by his long time friend and colleague the late Sir John Dankworth, forming the ‘Kinsey Dankworth Orchestra’. In a review by the magazine ‘Jazz Wise” of Tony’s most recent Big Band concert the Mag’ gave the band a ‘best rating’ and described the orchestra as ‘world class’.

He has written music for a great many library production albums, and in this capacity his music has been used in the movies “The Body Guard’, “ My Best Friends Wedding”, “Killing Jessica Stein” and television productions like “The Oprah Winfrey show”, “Friends” , “Agatha Christie’s Poirot” and “Absolutely Fabulous”. He has also composed for musical theatre. In the later medium he has just finished writing a score {music & lyrics] to a book by Ray Galton and Roger Smith, called Duckin’and Divin’: [a comedy fhat swings].

One of the projects he particularly enjoyed was writing the score for Geoff Reeve’s film “Souvenir”

In television he worked on the series ‘That’s Life”, composing music for this show for three years, one of his tasks being to write a song for each show, which had to be completed within a day, working with such lyricists as Herbie Kretzmer and Sir Tim Rice.He has also written the music for several TV series including “Willo the Wisp”, “Wimpole Village”,and “Castle of Adventure”, and a great many television commercials.

A recent project completed, a work for Harmonica and Strng Quartet, will have a London premier at St Johns Smith Square on the 1st of june 2012

Tony studied percussion in New York with Cozy Cole and Bill West, and composition and orchestration with Bill Russo

RIP Jimmy Hastings 1938-2024

Here is a brief biography from Jimmy’s website giving an insight into the remarkable career of this well-loved musician and long-time member of Way Out West.

Having initially studied the piano, Jimmy took up the saxophone at the age of sixteen. It was then that he began to think seriously about a career as a professional musician.
His first move was to audition for the position of first tenor saxophone in Leslie Thorpe’s band at the Beach Ballroom in Aberdeen. He didn’t get the job. Soon after Jimmy left his native Scotland to try his luck “down south”.

Eventually he heard Humphrey Lyttelton was holding auditions for a saxophone player so he went along to have a go. This venture ended in failure as well.
It then became obvious that Jimmy’s talents (such as they were at the time) lay in other musical directions, to which end he set off on a ship to enjoy several world tours as a ship’s musician.
After returning home to England Jimmy took up residence in London and joined the Ken Mackintosh band on first tenor saxophone. Two years later he left Ken’s band to join the BBC Radio Orchestra, taking over from Art Ellefson on first tenor saxophone. During this time the BBC renamed the dance band section of the Orchestra the “BBC Big Band”.

It was during his time with the BBC that Jimmy made his first appearance on the London jazz scene with gigs at the Bull’s Head in Barnes with the late Tony Lee and Bill Le Sage respectively. At Bill Le Sage’s suggestion, Jimmy teamed up with Dave Horler for Saturday night gigs at the Bull’s Head with the Bill Le Sage trio and so the Jimmy Hastings/Dave Horler quintet was born. Dave Horler went to Germany to join the Cologne Radio Orchestra so Jimmy then teamed up with Dave’s younger brother John and initially formed the Jimmy Hastings/John Horler duo. This, in turn became a trio, quartet and quintet with the addition of guitarist Phil Lee but has now settled into a quartet with John on piano or Phil on guitar. After four years Jimmy left the BBC to begin a new career as a freelance musician. This meant that, as well as radio, Jimmy was now also playing solos on records for pop artists, recording for TV, films and commercials.

Then came the West End Musicals, which began with “Treasure Island” at the Mermaid Theatre. The most recent one was the long running Gershwin musical “Crazy For You”, and there were others, including Marvyn Hamlisch’s “A Chorus Line”, Richard Rodney Bennett’s “Jazz Calendar”, Andrew Lloyd Webber’s “Jeeves”, Cole Porter’s “High Society”, Kurt Weill’s “Happy End” and Wayne Sleep’s “Dash”, which enjoyed a long run at the Apollo Victoria following a highly acclaimed national tour.
Jimmy has deputised in a wide variety of other shows – “Cats”, “Starlight Express”, “West Side Story”, “Anything Goes”, “A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum”, “Singing In The Rain”, “City Of Angels”, “Blues in the Night”, “Aspects of Love”, “The Pirates of Penzance” and “The Mikado”.

Over the years Jimmy has been a member of orchestras accompanying Frank Sinatra, Sammy Davis Jnr., Tony Bennett, Sarah Vaughan, Aretha Franklin, and many other singers, and has also worked for Nelson Riddle, Robert Farnon, Henry Mancini and Benny Carter. On the jazz scene he has enjoyed spells with Red Rodney, Art Farmer, Bill Berry, Lanny Morgan, Billy Mitchell and Al Grey.
Jimmy also appeared on the rock scene, alongside brother Pye, as the fifth member of “Caravan”, appearing on all their early albums and occasionally on stage and at radio and TV sessions. The third record “In the Land Of Grey and Pink ” gathered a gold disc for the band. They have recently enjoyed great success at several revival concerts.

About thirty years after his ill-fated audition with Humphrey Lyttelton, Humphrey telephoned to offer him the job. Jimmy is still with Humphrey’s band, and enjoying every minute of it. Although (until then) primarily a tenor player, Jimmy joined Humphrey’s band on alto saxophone, clarinet and flute in 1993. He has toured extensively with the band and featured in all of their recordings to date. During 2001 the Band joined Radiohead on their album “Amnesiac”, which featured Jimmy on clarinet. Jimmy is also a member of the John Dankworth Generation Band on baritone saxophone, bass clarinet, clarinet and flute.

Jimmy is Professor of Jazz Saxophone at the London College of Music and was also Professor of Saxophone at the Royal Marines School of Music in Portsmouth from 1998 to 2004. Always aware of his own modest beginnings, he is keen to encourage aspiring young musicians whenever he can.
These days Jimmy is much in demand at all national jazz venues, either as a solo performer or with his own quartet. He deputises regularly with many of the big bands of today, including the Don Lusher Big Band, Paul Lacey’s Back to Basie Band, the Syd Lawrence Band, the Echoes of Ellington Band and others.

RIP Mick Sexton – 1943-2023

Mick Sexton has been one of the great constants of the London jazz scene, promoting concerts, playing guitar and bass, and supporting musicians young and old with his regular attendance at gigs.

Maureen, Mick’s wife and constant companion until her death, was a great frontwoman in their enterprises while Mick kept a lower but always encouraging profile.

I first met Mick and Maureen in 1974. They were promoting gigs in Basildon, and I was with Peter Jacobsen, who they helped for many years, and Trevor Taylor. Subsequently they were involved in many jazz promotions and clubs around London, and some in Belgium. When Way Out West was founded in 2004 Mick and Maureen took on the job of operating the door, welcoming the audience and keeping the ‘business’ turning over.

Mick was also an active member of Way Out West as bass-player and bandleader with his band Torus, featuring Gary Plumley or Mornington Lockett, Jonathan Gee and Trevor Taylor.

RIP Mick Sexton, a much missed friend and supporter. Condolences to his daughters Mags, Angie and Helen.

Chris Biscoe

Mick Sexton was an early member of Way Out West since 2004.

He has been a bandleader and gig promoter since the early 1970s. After moving from London to Essex in 1966 he gradually became established in the local scene eventually forming a new band. TORUS (name contributed by then bassist John Mole) was a piano-less septet and started gigging locally from 1972 with occasional forays up to London most notably to the Bulls Head then getting into its second successful decade.

Basildon Jazz Club opened its doors in January 1975 featuring Dick Morrissey with the Pete Jacobsen trio supported by TORUS. For the next two and a half years the club hosted a galaxy of rising stars from the London Scene. The acknowledged big names like Ronnie Scott, Nucleus, Mike Gibbs and Soft Machine down through Henry Lowther, Barbara Thomson, Alan Skidmore, Don Weller, Stan Tracey, John Taylor, Gordon Beck et alia.

The club gradually morphed into a less full-on affair into effectively a weekly residency for TORUS with a monthly guest star. The band itself had shrunk to a quartet built largely around the prodigious talents of Pete Jacobsen on piano but with Mick Sexton, Gary Plumley and Trevor Taylor completing the lineup. The band built up a keen following for the sort of acoustic fusion of their repertoire with material taken from Keith Jarrett, Steps, Chick Corea and Weather Report. This was a regular fixture on the Essex scene until 1989 when TORUS disbanded and the members went their separate ways.

Fast Forward to 2011 and the remaining band members decided to reform. Pete Jacobsen had died in 2002 but his place was taken by Jonathan Gee who had been a frequent substitute for Pete back in the day.

The following review which appeared in Sebastien Scottney’s award winning Blog, London Jazz News brings the TORUS story up to date.

Torus – (Great Northern Railway Tavern. 18th April 2013. Review by Brian Blain)

The great Torus revival is gathering momentum, and, on a recent Thursday night at the new venue in Hornsey’s Great Northern Railway Tavern, a good sized crowd was treated to a blistering programme out of the 80’s that largely passed the English audience by at the time.

Jonathan Gee filled the piano chair which originally belonged to the great Pete Jacobson in the then Essex based band and though the piano’s projection in the first set left something to be desired, Gee’s natural energy and ebullience was a dynamic addition to a kicking rhythm section all evening.

Although the leader is bassist Mick Sexton – behind the scenes stalwart of the Way Out West musicians’ collective- Jaco Pastorious’ classic Three Views of a Secret was largely given over to Gary Plumley, surely the best under the radar tenor saxophonist around, and throughout both sets on great favourites like Steps Ahead’s Islands, a funky ballad by Mike Mainieri, Keith Jarrett’s Questar and even the straight ahead swing of Tea Bag, when Sexton’s long note bass lines really sang, Plumley was passionate, melodically sure, and both free or blues soaked funky, as the material demanded.

FMR label boss Southend drummer Trevor Taylor mainly functions in the free improv area which meant that his fills and patterns always had the element of surprise without losing grip on the groove held steady by Sexton.

In sum: a wonderful night of jazz of the kind that I never expected to hear on the live circuit again.

RIP Eddie Harvey 1925-2012

Founder member of Way Out West

After studying classical piano as a child, Eddie Harvey played the trombone as a teenager and became a pioneer of the Traditional Jazz revival in the 1940s. He later became part of the modern jazz movement with Ronnie Scott and John Dankworth, eventually becoming a member of the John Dankworth Seven and various big bands in the 1950s as a trombonist and pianist. He also arranged and composed music for the British bands of Humphrey Lyttelton, John Dankworth and Jack Parnell (at Associated TV and “Sunday Night at the London Palladium”).

As one of Great Britain’s foremost jazz instrumentalists, he toured opposite the famous Gerry Mulligan and Modern Jazz Quartets. Eventually he went on to play with American bands including Woody Herman and Maynard Ferguson, and to write music for the Benny Goodman Orchestra.

During the 1960’s he qualified as a teacher and was appointed as assistant master (music) at Haileybury College, Hertford. During this period he also directed Summer Schools for the Jazz Centre Society and conducted an Arts Council tour performing Tony Coe’s major composition “Zeitgeist”. During his time at Haileybury he developed the distinct but related ideas for teaching jazz in education and education in jazz. He left the school in 1984 to concentrate on putting these ideas into practice.

Eddie subsequently worked for the Arts Council of Great Britain and many County Music Authorities providing INSET training for teachers, working in colleges and schools and eventually sitting as a member of the Music Panel of the Arts Council for a number of years. From 1985 to 2003 he was Head of Jazz Studies at the London College of Music and Director of the London College Big Band. In 2004 he taught at the Royal College of Music and directed their big band.

From 1990, Eddie played a significant part in designing the Royal Schools of Music Jazz Piano examinations and syllabus as well as providing piano, ensemble and trombone pieces for the curriculum. He was also an external examiner for the Trinity College of Music.

Over the years he wrote music for many singers including Cleo Laine with the Duke Ellington Orchestra in the US, Christmas music for the St George’s Chapel choir and orchestra at Windsor Castle, and compositions for the Dankworth Generation Band. 2003 saw the completion of commissions for a large classical ensemble, the Kew Wind Band. 2004 witnessed the success of the Ealing Comedies Suite as a finale of the Ealing Jazz festival. This was a multi-media event blending the music played by three bands with the projection of excerpts from five of the famous English films.

In 1998 he was presented with a BT British Jazz Award (Soloist) and in March 2005 received an award for services to jazz education (Lifelong Learning, Further and Higher Education) from the Parliamentary Jazz Society. This was presented by Dr Kim Howells MP, Minister of State, at the House of Commons.

Eddie Harvey wrote two books: Teach Yourself Jazz Piano, published by English Universities Press and Jazz in the Classroom, published by Boosey & Hawkes

He also edited Jazz with the Greats: an analysis of great jazz solos, by Chris Goddard, published by Faber & Faber.