[Dixielandjazz] Stan Greig Daily Telegraph

[ROBERT R. CALDER]

I'm not sure who wrote the item below -- 

Stan's enthusiasm for his near neighbour Michael Foot wouldn't have endeared the Daily Telegraph to him


and the name Dr. McJazz seems to be a mistake.
Sandy Brown's McJazz album is wonderful indeed,  but still plain McJazz --

Where is the modern university with the intelligence to award it a doctorate?  


Robert R. Calder 


Stan Greig
Stan Greig, who has died aged 82, was, as both pianist and drummer, a fixture  in some of the best-loved British jazz line-ups of the last 50 years –  playing behind Humphrey Lyttelton, Acker Bilk and George Melly among others. 

Stan Greig 
DAILY TELEGRAPH  6:40PM GMT 26 Nov 2012
Stanley Mackay Greig was born at Joppa, near Edinburgh, on August 12 1930. His  father tuned and repaired pianos, and also played the drums. While a pupil  at the Royal High School, Edinburgh, Greig fell in with a cabal of schoolboy  jazz fanatics, including the clarinettist Sandy Brown and trumpeter Al  Fairweather. They formed a band, devoted to the classic jazz of the 1920s,  with Greig playing piano. He found, however, that the instruments he was  expected to play were so decrepit that he borrowed his father’s drums and  played them instead. 
He took up his father’s trade and worked with him – with a break for National  Service in the Royal Engineers – until the age of 24. By this time his  reputation as a drummer had grown, and he moved to London to join Ken  Colyer’s band. A fellow recruit was the clarinettist Bernard “Acker” Bilk. 
From Colyer, Greig moved in 1955 to Humphrey Lyttelton’s band. His drums can  be heard on Lyttelton’s 1956 hit record Bad Penny Blues. At that very moment  the Suez crisis occurred and he was recalled to the Army as a reservist. On  his return to Lyttelton’s band, he was forced to share the job with Eddie  Taylor, his temporary replacement; Greig soon left to tour as piano  accompanist with the American singer Brother John Sellers. 
He followed this by joining Bruce Turner’s new band, in whose somewhat  unstable line-up he played either piano or drums, as required. Between 1957  and 1962 Greig was a regular at recording sessions led by Sandy Brown, Al  Fairweather or both. They constituted one of the most creative partnerships  in British jazz of the period, and their albums, such as Dr McJazz and Al &  Sandy, are acknowledged classics. 
In 1960, at the beginning of the “Trad Boom”, Greig joined Acker Bilk’s  Paramount Jazz Band, then approaching the peak of its fame, as pianist. For  the next eight years he toured endlessly, for the final two years with his  old friend Al Fairweather also aboard. At the end of this even the  enthusiastic Greig felt the need for a change and, for the best part of a  year, he ran a coffee shop at Potter’s Bar, north London. 
When he returned to music it was initially as a freelance as, from the 1970s  onwards, there were fewer bands around, and more temporary alliances. He  briefly formed a band with the clarinettist Dave Shepherd and played in the  trio of bassist Johnny Hawksworth. 
He also did solo piano work, as a result of which he formed the view that a  “piano bar” pianist could get by anywhere in the world, so long as his  repertoire contained three tunes – As Time Goes By, Misty and The  Entertainer. 
He then returned for a while to piano tuning, which he found surprisingly  enjoyable because of the people he met. He even tuned Mick Jagger’s piano.  At the same time, between 1975 and 1985, he formed and led the London Jazz  Big Band, a 15-piece orchestra including many prominent players. Greig  conducted it, wrote some of the arrangements, did the booking, fixed the  musicians and even constructed the music stands out of hardboard. It was  never financially viable, but acquired a devoted following. 
From 1977 to 1980, Greig played piano with John Chilton’s Feetwarmers,  accompanying George Melly, then led his own Boogie-Woogie Band and toured  Europe with the Harlem Blues and Jazz Band. In 1985 he rejoined Humphrey  Lyttelton, remaining for almost 10 years before returning to the freelance  life, until ill health forced his retirement. 
Stan Greig was married and divorced twice. He is survived by both wives, and  two daughters and one son from his first marriage. 
Stan Greig, born August 12 1930, died November 18 2012