[Dixielandjazz] Terry Lightfoot RIP

[Graham Martin]

Hi All,

Yes Gerard, that is sad news coming hard on the heels of the death of
British jazz trumpet player Kenny Ball. Coincidentally Terry had a number of
connections with Kenny Ball, in that Kenny was his trumpet player in the
early years and then Terry played clarinet with Kenny's Jazzmen for a while
in 1968. Also Terry's brother Paddy Lightfoot played banjo in Kenny's
Jazzmen for many years as I mentioned in my post about Kenny's passing.

This is a link to the Telegraph news about Terry:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/obituaries/9936081/Terry-Lightfoot.html

Some of the names of the stars of the British Traditional Jazz era ("Trad
Boom") of the mid-50's to mid-60's will be unfamiliar to many of the readers
of this newsletter correspondence but they all contributed to raising jazz
to the level of popular entertainment in Europe - something that did not
occur in the United States, or Australia if it comes right down to it. Of
course, we poms remain loyal to our roots. After the boom most of those trad
stars played some very nice mainstream tinged jazz. That is the main reason
that so many American 'hot' jazz musicians have been able to tour Europe
with such great success right up to the present.

Terry Lightfoot's original band was styled as a New Orleans band and
certainly his early playing was very much in that vogue. However, his band
always had a somewhat 'British' sound and my N.O.-playing mates would deny
that he was ever very loyal to their style of jazz. I never had that problem
with Terry and I always thought he was an accomplished jazz clarinet player.

Terry Lightfoot perhaps did not have quite the same success as Barber, Ball
and Bilk (The Three B's) but he was extremely popular around the local jazz
clubs and I saw his band many, many times. Hey, even my favourite trombone
player Roy Williams played in Terry's band. In fact, if I am not mistaken,
this is Roy playing with Terry in the 1962 film "It's Trad Dad":

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gjgVY2vQumU

Further, in this set of more modern clips, Roy is again guesting with Terry:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wTiLRYXYPIE

Vale Terry. I remember you well and you did a fine job for jazz. 

Best,

Grah

Graham Martin
REDLAND BAY, Queensland
AUSTRALIA

-----Original Message-----
From: Gerard Bielderman [mailto:gerard.bielderman at telfort.nl] 
Sent: Saturday, 16 March 2013 5:37 PM
To: DJM List
Cc: Dixieland Jazz Mailing List
Subject: [Dixielandjazz] Terry Lightfoot RIP

Just heard the news that British clarinet player and bandleader died
yesterday, March 15, at the age of 76.
Another of my British trad heroes gone....

Gerard Bielderman