[Dixielandjazz] Henry MacKenzie Obit - (Top British Clarinetist/Tenor Sax man)

[Marek Boym]

Well, I would not go as far as calling H. MacKenzie "one of the top
three..," but I have quite a few recordings of his, with heath and
others, and he is never less than excellent.  A wonderful musician.
Cheers.
Support live jazz (while you still can...)

On 09/10/2007, Steve Barbone <barbonestreet at earthlink.net> wrote:
> Henry MacKenzie, not well known in the USA yet an excellent jazz reed man,
> passed away. One of the finest obituary writers IMHO, jazz writer Steve
> Voce,  wrote this which appeared in "Independent" in Great Britain.
>
> Cheers,
> Steve Barbone
>
>
> Henry MacKenzie, clarinettist and tenor saxophone player: born Edinburgh 15
> February 1923; married 1936 Barbara Holton; died Carshalton, Surrey 2
> September 2007.
>
> Henry MacKenzie, who became famous with the Ted Heath band, was a virtuoso
> and a perfectionist. Although he was one of the top three jazz clarinet
> players in Britain for more than half a century, he didn't think he was any
> good.
>
> "In all the years we were married, I never heard him say that he was pleased
> with one of his performances," said his wife, Barbara. "When he'd come home
> after a job I'd ask him how it went and he'd always say something like 'I
> came in too soon' or 'It didn't sound the way they wanted it'."
>
> Starting on accordion when he was 11, MacKenzie played euphonium in a local
> Boys' Brigade band. He didn't take up the clarinet and saxophone until his
> late teens. During the Thirties he worked in Edinburgh in a band led by the
> violinist George Adam. He played in an Army band during the Second World War
> when he was in the Royal Army Service Corps. He was a founder member of the
> legendary Tommy Sampson band in 1947, staying till 1948, and with it toured
> Britain, Italy and Germany. Briefly with Paul Fenoulhet in 1949, he joined
> Ted Heath in September of that year and stayed for 18 years until Heath's
> death.
>
> MacKenzie got the job in the Ted Heath band because Heath, a disciplinarian,
> had fired his tenor player Johnny Gray for wearing a shirt without a button
> at the collar while on the bandstand. "After the Tommy Sampson band it was a
> bit strict," he told Sheila Tracy, the writer and broadcaster.
>
> With Tommy if you got to the coach half an hour late it didn't matter, but
> when I first joined the Heath band I noticed the difference because I got
> there 10 minutes late and the coach had gone. I got a train and made it in
> time. You could never be late for rehearsal, death was the only excuse.
>
> One memory I have of Carnegie Hall, apart from being petrified because
> everyone in New York was there that night, was I'd broken my mouthpiece and
> I had to play with a borrowed one. You hear so much about Carnegie Hall and
> when you find yourself actually there it's a bit frightening, but I think
> you reach a point where you say, "To hang with it, I don't care if they like
> it or not, just go on and play",' and it was a big success.
>
> I suppose if you were speaking to him you would call him Ted, but if you
> were speaking to someone else you would refer to him as Mr. Heath, although
> I don't think I ever called him Ted.
>
> MacKenzie's solo playing with the band had the fine combination of symphonic
> technique and jazz fire that epitomised the work of clarinettist Jimmy
> Hamilton with the Duke Ellington band. Five years ago I asked him to join me
> in a broadcast where I planned to play his recording of "Henry IX", the
> track written for him by the arranger Johnny Keating, and tracks by peers of
> his like Benny Goodman and Artie Shaw. The idea was that MacKenzie would
> talk about the music between the records. We had three telephone
> conversations throughout which he agonised about the idea before declining
> with "Who wants to know what I think, anyway?"
>
> Fellow members of the Heath band recall MacKenzie's dour sense of humour.
> After Heath's death the band was reassembled by his trombonist Don Lusher
> and on occasion by one of the trumpets, the distinguished Stan Reynolds.
> "There goes Stan, putting the band together again. Doomed to failure . . ."
> said MacKenzie lugubriously.
>
> "Henry was so shy that he'd never ever begin a conversation," Lita Roza,
> singer with the Heath band, told me. "You'd always have to be the one to
> speak first. The boys had a joke thing going accusing Henry and Ted Heath's
> secretary Margaret of being in love with each other. All imagined, of
> course, but Henry would blush furiously when they pulled his leg about it."
>
> Such a good clarinet player was never going to be short of work, and when
> Heath died MacKenzie became a busy freelancer, working for big names like
> Henry Mancini, Nelson Riddle and Billy May. He often played with the
> trombonist George Chisholm and with Stan Reynolds and of course with Don
> Lusher's version of the Heath band. He backed Tony Bennett, Nat King Cole,
> Johnny Mathis and Shirley Bassey amongst many others. Throughout the
> Nineties he led his own quintet.
>
> Although he was 86, MacKenzie had never been in hospital in his life until
> two weeks before his death.
>
> Steve Voce
>
>
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