[Dixielandjazz] Ian Wheeler obituary

[Dingo]

Oh Dear ...... not another gone !! A great musician. Thanks for posting the 
sad news, Steve.
~~
Dingo :~((


----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Steve Voce" <stevevoce at virginmedia.com>
To: <roadie at btinternet.com>
Cc: "Dixieland Jazz Mailing List" <dixielandjazz at ml.islandnet.com>
Sent: Monday, July 04, 2011 9:47 AM
Subject: [Dixielandjazz] Ian Wheeler obituary


> From today's The Independent
>
>>
>>
> Ian Wheeler: Musician who played clarinet, saxophone and harmonica with 
> Chris
> Barber
>
> *By Spencer Leigh*
>
> Monday, 4 July 2011
>
> Chris Barber's Jazz And Blues Band
> has seen many changes in personnel over its 57 years of existence, and Ian
> Wheeler gave more years of service than most.
>
> He played clarinet, alto and
> soprano saxophone and harmonica and he was with the band from 1961-68 and 
> from
> 1979-98. He spoke of his invitation to join in December 1960 as "the best
> Christmas present ever".
>
> Ian Wheeler was born in Greenwich
> in 1931 but the family moved to Blackheath when he was four. He was good 
> at art
> and woodwork and his main interest was in model aeroplanes. Because he 
> liked
> George Formby, he took up the ukulele when he was 14 then moved to the 
> guitar.
> At 17 Wheeler joined the RAF as a trainee pilot but was discharged on 
> medical
> grounds. He went into the merchant navy in 1949 and travelled around the 
> world.
>
> In hospital, he heard recordings
> by the blues singer Josh White and tried to play like him, but the other
> patients told him not to sing. Once discharged, he played guitar for 
> Charlie
> Galbraith and Mike Jefferson and their bands. He was then in Charlie 
> Connor's
> band and was attracted to his clarinet. He bought one for 25 shillings but 
> it
> had no reed and for a time he wondered why he could get no sound from it.
>
> He and some musicians would
> practise in the woods and he formed the River City Jazz Band in 1952, with
> himself on clarinet. He moved to a more prestigious band led by Mike 
> Daniels,
> who told him, "You're not much good yet, but you've got promise and I'll
> take a chance." When he left for another spell in hospital he was
> replaced, but rejoined on soprano sax.
>
> He left again following a car
> crash but was invited to replace Acker Bilk in Ken Colyer's Jazzmen. He 
> played
> with them from 1954-60. He formed the Sims-Wheeler Vintage Band with Acker
> Bilk's trumpeter, Ken Sims. At Christmas in 1960 he got the call to 
> replace
> clarinettist Monty Sunshine in the Chris Barber Band, and stayed until 
> 1968. It
> was a hard task to replace the popular Sunshine, but he developed a warm 
> sound
> and he also added saxophone to the line-up.
>
> He was strongly featured on Best
> Yet (1962), playing alto on "Basin Street Blues" and soprano on
> "Yvette". In 1961, the EP Introducing Ian featured four of his solos.
> When the band toured with Sonny Boy Williamson in 1964, Wheeler was 
> impressed
> with his harmonica playing and within a month, he was playing it on stage.
> Wheeler, and John Slaughter on electric guitar, developed a Chicago blues
> sound, and "Down Home Rag", "Saratoga Swing" and
> "Harlem Bound" became part of the repertoire. Wheeler left during the
> making of Battersea Rain Dance.
>
> Wheeler had his own band from
> 1970-73 and was then in a band with Rod Mason. He was with Keith Smith's 
> Hefty
> Jazz, rejoining Barber in 1979; by then they were the eight-piece Chris 
> Barber
> Jazz&  Blues Band. They made the double album Barbican Blues (1982) and
> many others. In his later years, Wheeler worked occasionally in scratch 
> bands.
> He released Ian Wheeler At Farnhams Maltings in 1993.
>
> /Ian Gordon Wheeler, musician: born
> Greenwich 13 January 1931; died June 2011./
>
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