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U3ajazz - RIP Keith Nichols (13 February1945 to 21 January 2021) Recollections and Tributes Inbox

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u3aJazz - RIP Keith Nichols (13 February1945 to 21 January 2021) Recollections and Tributes Inbox Michael Stevens ) 4th February 2021 Following a cup of coffee and heartfelt toast to Keith this morning at the time of his funeral, I cannot but reflect that Keith would have wanted us to celebrate the joy he brought to so many of us. So now time has arrived to start the celebrations of Keith's life, in true New Orleans style, but for the covid-19 pandemic lockdown. Meantime let's reflect on his achievements and watch videos and listen to records of his performances Often when something departed from plan during a performance Keith would stop the band and exclaim "This never happened when we were with Jack Hylton!". The inspiration for our recent u3aJazz Jack Hylton virtual sessions came from a wonderful 42-minute set Keith introduced and conducted at the Mike Durham 2016 Whitley Bay Jazz Party with a 19 piece orchestra which re-created the true sound of Jack Hylton using original JH arrangements. In this Keith was backed by some of the world's finest classic jazz musicians from the UK, US and Europe. Keith displayed his customary humour and deep knowledge. You can watch this at: https://youtu.be/2oMtg6ikcwQ I shall remember Keith for his incredible intelligence & memory, humour, enthusiasm and concern for others. He was always helpful and positive with my bespoke concerts and talks for the Epsom Literary Society, Epsom & Ewell u3aJazz and other personal celebrations. Keith lived all his life in the 1930's house where he was born (his parents' house in Ilford), with his wife Eve. I once asked Keith if he came from a musical family, and his answer was no, but that his mother played the piano and sang. His father was a successful businessman with a woodyard. (I speculate that he supplied the wood to build those houses). Keith's parents recognised and encouraged his musical abilities, leading to his winning the "Under 13 Accordion Champion of Great Britain" in 1958 at the Royal Albert Hall when he was just 12 playing the piano accordion. Fortunately for us Keith declined a career in his father's woodyard. Keith has always helped and encouraged young musicians where he spotted talent, as well as helping many older musicians fallen on hard times. Keith selected only the best musicians to play in his bands, and each musician played noticeably better under Keith's direction than with other bands (as noted by Alyn Shipman in the obituary below). His enthusiasm was infectious! Tributes On Friday 29 January Enrico Tomasso, Ewan Bleach, Martin Wheatley and Tom 'Spats' Langham gave a wonderful tribute to Keith in Enrico's 'Pop Up Louis' show on FaceBook. If you have a FaceBook account you may watch it at: https://www.facebook.com/enrico.tomasso/videos/10224115446490144/ Please Fast forward the first 3 minutes silence with Rico tackling a technical hitch. Rico Tomasso remembers Keith Nichols - Jan. 29 This week's Popup Louis paid tribute to Keith Nichols. Rico Tomasso's planned duo session with Ewan Bleach changed somewhat upon the sad news of the death of Keith Nichols. Fellow musicians and friends of Keith, Tom Langham and Martin Wheatley, offered their services, making this evening's session a quartet affair. Tribute or not, a few technical glitches momentarily delayed the start. Rico wanted to crack on with a couple of numbers. First, Tears, following up with Papa de Da Da (Bleach soprano sax, Langham on banjo). Thanks to multi-tracking, Bleach played soprano sax, bass sax and piano on Midnight, the Stars and You (later in the set Bleach would go on to play several other instruments!) with Langham singing. Rico unearthed a recording of Keith Nichols introducing (and playing piano on) The Mooch, Rico playing Cootie Williams' trumpet part. More Keith, this time singing She's Perfect for Me (Wheatley, guitar). A spritely Shake It and Break It (King Oliver recorded the number) with Wheatley playing banjo, Lena from Palesteena (from way back in 1920) featuring Langham's vocals and impressive banjo playing (voice and instrument perfectly balanced using nothing more than a mobile phone!) and, with time pressing, on to a favourite 'go-to' number of Keith's putting Rico in the spotlight - Thanks a Million (Langham guitar, Bleach, tenor sax). Of course, our host sang it: Thanks a million (Keith). And to finish, Rico, á la Armstrong, with daughter Analucia singing Some of These Days. Russell Set list: Tears; Papa De Da Da; Midnight, the Stars and You; The Mooch; She's Perfect for Me; Shake It and Break It; Lena from Palesteena: Some of These Days. Rico Tomasso (trumpet, cornet, vocals); Ewan Bleach (clarinet, bass clarinet, C-melody sax, soprano sax, tenor sax, baritone sax, bass sax, piano, vocals); Tom 'Spats' Langham (banjo, guitar, vocals); Martin Wheatley (banjo, guitar), Analucia Tomasso (vocals) + a recording of Keith Nichols (piano, spoken introduction, vocals) Obituaries - Few of the obituaries mention Keith's impressive vocals and the fact that he knew the words for so many tunes. Apart from piano, trombone and tuba, Keith was also a master of the soprano sax and other reed instruments, banjo & guitar, drums, piano accordion of course, and probably more. He was a true multiinstrumentalist as well as being a wonderful all round entertainer. A number of obituaries have been published (copyrights acknowledged) including: Daily Telegraph https://digitaleditions.telegraph.co.uk/data/500/reader/reader.html?#!preferr ed/0/package/500/pub/500/page/98/article/137944 Jazz Wise Magazine BY ALYN SHIPTON (BASS PLAYER, BBC RADIO3 JAZZ RECORD REVIEW PRESENTER, AUTHOR & WRITER) TUESDAY, JANUARY 26, 2021 Alyn Shipton pays tribute to the British jazz multi-instrumentalist who died on 21 January 2021 Because Keith Nichols could play most of the instruments in a band as well as, if not better than, the individual players themselves, he garnered a special respect and affection among musicians. Watching him rehearse the Royal Academy of Music jazz big band was a delight, as he shared every level of his expertise with his young students, and infused a generation brought up on the sounds of today’s players with a genuine passion for playing music from previous eras. Although he was a junior accordion champion, Keith mainly specialized on trombone and piano throughout his playing career. He was also a talented arranger, and tackled everything from Joplinesque ragtime to 1940s big bands with flair and attention to detail. But he was never hidebound by one period of jazz or another – when I once asked him to arrange a couple of Mingus pieces for a broadcast, he obliged with a really excellent pair of charts. I first heard Keith in the mid-1970s New Paul Whiteman Orchestra with Dick Sudhalter reviving the Bix repertoire, but by that time, after finishing his studies at the Guildhall, he had already played for a couple of years with Mike Daniels’ jazz band, and worked with the Levity Lancers, bringing 1920s novelty music to the wilds of Canning Town. Thereafter Keith trod a fine line in his own work between 1920s pastiche and such fine jazz ensembles as the Midnite Follies. Over the last 40 years or so, I’ve heard Keith with ensembles of various sizes at festivals all over the UK and Europe, wearing his instrumental brilliance lightly, and bringing charm and good humour to audiences everywhere. He sometimes felt like a straining racehorse against the tempo during his solos, but I shall always treasure his grin, looking up from the piano, at the sheer joy of making music. He was a welcome dep in the London Ragtime Orchestra after our co-leader Ray Smith moved to Holland. Later we worked together on a show for the 120th anniversary of Jelly Roll Morton’s birth for the 2010 London Jazz Festival, and Keith brought music from all eras of Morton’s work back to life with panache, both for the live audience at the RAM and for Radio 3 listeners. Gigs with Keith were always an adventure, and I will never forget the caravan and the dogs, as well as his ability to transform, wherever he was, from the chrysalis of woolly hat and parka into the butterfly of suave white tuxedo for the gig itself. I had the unenviable task of following Keith as a lecturer in jazz history at the Academy, which was a very hard act to follow. Nobody has put it better than Gerard Presencer, who was head of the jazz programme when I started there: “Everyone who studied with Keith thought he was wonderful. He breathed life into early Jazz music and inspired us all.” And from the younger generation of musicians Nicholas D Ball (Drums) on FaceBook Keith Nichols was an absolute one-off: a true eccentric, an unparalleled historian and arranger of our music as well as a virtuoso multi-instrumentalist. He was also unreservedly kind, encouraging and outrageously funny in a very unique and creative way. I'll always treasure the high times I had with him on and off stage, and will ever be grateful to him for taking a (characteristically generous) punt on an unknown young(ish) drummer and taking him under his wing, at Whitley Bay back in 2014. A few memories of Keith: - Sitting in his sitting-room drinking whisky with Josh Duffee (Drummer & Bandleader, USA) for hours and hours, while he regaled us with story after story, drawn from gig memories, discussions with old musicians from when he was young, the pages of Melody Maker, and vividly-described hypothetical occurrences from his own imagination.
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