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Keith Humble, the Music-Maker with a Message

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Keith Humble, the Music-Maker with a Message Keith Humble, the Music-Maker with a Message Iohn Whiteoak Melbourne, Australia and the international con- industrious, inventive stock, people who were good at temporary music community suffered a great loss on putting things together.6 Keith brought all of these I 23 May 1995 with the passing of Keith Humble: Aus- qualities, and more, to his own music-making. tralian composer, pianist, conductor, improviser, theo- Keithbeganhiseducation at Westgarth State School rist and founding Professor of the Department of Mu- (later Westgarth Central School) and went on to Uni- I sic, La Trobe University. Even though Keith received versity High School for a little over two years until he, the Order of Australia (AM) for services to Australian in his own words, 'dropped out' at fifteen years of age music in 1982, few Australians genuinely understand to pursue a musical career. Neither his primary nor his the significance of his contribution to contemporary secondary schooling provided him with any formal music, and this is not likely to occur until scholars music training. begin to assess his life's work from the enlightened Keith was an only child and his parents were a perspective of musical creativity that Keith himself cheerful, self-sacrificing couple who supported his promoted for more than three decades.l In this article, early career with every resource they could muster. As it is only possible to indicate something of the depth they were not musically inclined, Keith did not have and breadth of the musical knowledge, experience and the early exposure to musical culture commonly asso- expertise that Keith was able to offer Australian musi- ciated with outstanding musical careers. His two cal development and to survey a few aspects of his successive piano teachers, Miss Butcher and Miss life's work, his ideas and his opinions2 Only the Estcourt, were competent, conscientious, firm and very earlier, lesser known part of Keith's career is outlined supportive, but there was seemingly nothing excep- in any detail in order to allow discussion to extend tional about their teaching. While Keith showed an beyond a mere biographical sketch. What follows is a early aptitude for both music and sport, he was some- simple tribute toKeith, whom the respected Australian what disadvantaged in the former by his limited hand- composer and former Age critic, Felix Werder, once span and in the latter by his short stature. described as being 'without question the finest all- A clue to Keith's success is provided by his friend, round musician this country has produced since Percy colleague and former biographer, the late Laughton ~rain~er'.~ Harris. In a recent conversation, Harris described Keith was born in Geelong in 1927, on the eve of the Keith's most outstanding qualities as fearlessness, de- Great Depression and at the close of theexciting and termination and a refusal to compromise.7 It was relatively optimistic period known as the Australian probably the early appearance of these particular quali- Jazz Age. It was in the midst of the Depression that ties coupled with a deep sense of gratitude to his Leslie and Victoria Humble moved to Melbourne with parents, teachers and others (mentioned below) that their son Keith where they settled in the working-class encouraged Keith to become a quite outstanding pian- suburb of Northcote. ist, even before leaving for England in late 1949. Keith's working-class and non-musical family back- From about nine years of age, he appears to have ground is sometimes commented upon.4 It should also entered as many piano contests as was humanly possi- be noted that until the Depression, the Humbles had a ble.8 At the end of 1943, he toured Tasmania billed as high social profile in Geelong and their achievements 'the Brilliant Boy Pianist' and shortly afterwards he form part of Victoria's history. The Humble Foundry passed his London College of Music Licentiate with in Geelong especially designed and built numerous 93%. His scrapbook of newspaper cuttings shows that machines, bridges and steam pumping engines to gov- in 1947 his first year at the Melbourne Conservatorium, ernment specifications. It manufactured Victoria's he was dux of the year, winning both the Ormond prize first refrigerator, its first wool press and its first motor and the Lady Turner prize. The following year he car. The founder of the family firm, William Humble, again won the Ormond prize, and also won the Open was the Mayor of Geelong in 1888, and one can find Concerto section of the South St Eisteddfod at Ballarat both a Humble Wharf and a Humble street in g eel on^.^ and the state-wide Royal Schools Scholarship. This Therefore in trying to understand the Humble phe- scholarship provided two years of free tuition at the nomenon, we should note that Keith was born of-at Royal Academy of Music, London. During 1949, his least on the Humble side of the family--determined, final year of study in Melbourne, he topped the Keith Humble. Director's 'score' for 'Nunique IV' (1969). Context 10 (Summer 1995/96) Conservatorium honours list and won both the Wright An important manifestation of his exposure to big Prize and the State Government Plaque of Honour. band Swing was a later preference for types of improvi- In the 1949 State Finals of the A.B.C.'s Annual sation that were tightly framed within some form of Concerto and Vocal Competitions, his performance, predetermined structure. accompanied by the Victorian Symphony Orchestra, In the early 1950s, Keith moved from London to was rated well above that of all the other pianist Paris where his studies eventually led him to the con- entrant^.^ The recording of his performance of ductor, critic, composer and theorist, Ren6 Leibowitz, Khachaturian's Piano Concerto in Db major from this a former pupil of Webern. He subsequently worked as contest demonstrates the explosive intensity that Keith Leibowitz's assistant, copying parts, accompanying was able to bring to his playing.10 In addition to his and doing anything else required of him. At last he had many public performances, the people of Northcote set found his 'living composer'. Through Leibowitz in up a special public fund to assist his overseas studies. particular, he developed a lifelong passion for the This culminated in a farewell concert on 25 October elegance, discipline and logic of serialism. The most 1949 at the Melbourne Town Hall in which Keith important event of this period however, was the begin- performed with the 3DB Symphony Orchestra. Later, ning of a lifetime partnership with the talented pianist at the Royal Academy in London, he went against his Jill Dobson, whom he married in 1955.16 Without her piano teacher's advice and took the Academy's piano unfailing support, many of the events described below performance exam (L.R.A.M.) prematurely. He still probably could not have occurred. received 95% the highest mark seen there since the end In 1956, Keith returned to Melbourne to take up a of the war.11 position at the Melbourne Conservatorium. He ar- The intensity of this early performance background rived bursting with ideas and enthusiasm to contribute suggests why, later, he so consistently upheld the to Australian musical development. What he encoun- notions of the performer/composer and collaboration tered was a closed culture-an inward-looking com- between performer and composer, as opposed to that munity deaf to his ideas, music and general approach of the composer who works only with the notated to teaching. His return-of less than a year's dura- representation of sounds. tion-was a confidence-destroying disaster that forced Keith held a lifelong conviction that a continuum of his sudden departure to Europe, and from which he practice exists between improvisation and composi- took several years to recover. tion. This was undoubtedly also influenced by the fact Keith spent a considerable portion of the 1950s, that he was a jazz musician in the 1940s. As a teenager, both before and after his disappointing return to Aus- Keith-like his colleagues Don Banks, Douglas Gamley tralia, touring Europe as an accompanist to vocalists and others-found jazz improvisation to be a useful such as Ethel Semser, John Riley and Robert Gartside, outlet for his creative urge. In the culturally isolated and also the cellist Marcel Hubert. His comprehensive Melbourne of the time, these musicians experienced collection of programs and review cuttings illustrates the impression that there were no living composers. To the astonishing amount of accompanying that he un- quote Keith, they felt that 'to be a composer you had to dertook in the 1950s, and suggests why he later main- be dead'.12 Keith did not draw a line between jazz and tained a connection with the lieder tradition, as both a other forms of improvisation. At the Conservatorium, composer and an accompanist.17 he was commended by Roy Shepherd among others The 1960s were the major turning point for Keith. for his non-jazz improvisation at the piano; at the same By 1960 he had fully recovered from his setback in time, he had also begun to improvise in the style of Australia and had also gained more experience as Bach to a jazz rhythm section with some of his jazz Leibowitz's assistant in various recording and teach- colleagues.13 Nevertheless, he enjoyed listening to ing projects. In 1960, Keith founded and began to direct and playing specific styles of jazz for their own sake. the Centre de Musique (CDM), a fluid collective of As a student, playing jazz also provided him with a performers and performer/composers based at the much needed source of income.14 American Center for Students and Artists in Paris.18 Keith arranged for and led groups such as his 1948 By the mid-1960s, the CDM had performed a remark- All Star Orchestra at Ziegfield's Palais, Hawthorn.
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