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Doug Ramsey on Jazz and other matters...

Allan Ganley

April 4, 2008 by Doug Ramsey

Ganley.jpgAllen Ganley, who died last week at the age of seventy-seven, was the preferred drummer not only of many of his fellow British musicians, but also of visiting Americans. He backed Stan Getz, Peggy Lee, Mary Lou Williams, Jim Hall, Art Farmer, Blossom Dearie, Roland Kirk and Freddie Hubbard, among many others.

For years, Ganley was in the quintet and big band led by the volatile tenor saxophonist Tubby Hayes. There is in this video clip from 1965 a prime instance of Ganley driving a band and soloing. The piece is “Killers of W1”. (W1 is London’s West End). The trumpeter is Jimmy Deuchar. In the same YouTube neighborhood you’ll find several other clips of Ganley with Hayes. He is also prominent on the Hayes CD Tubbs.

For a review of Ganley’s career, see his obituary from the Telegraph newspaper. The three men in the obit photograph are (l to r) Ganley, Victor Feldman and Ronnie Scott.

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Comments

  1. Mel Narunsky says

    April 4, 2008 at 10:00 pm

    See also Steve Voce’s obituary in the Independent newspaper
    http://www.independent.co.uk/news/obituaries/allan-ganley-drummer-of-faultless-instinct-who-played-with-all-the-jazz-greats-804925.html

  2. Don Emanuel says

    April 5, 2008 at 5:07 pm

    Thanks Doug for the mention of Ganley’s death. We are still reeling over here at the loss. One of the UK’s greatest musicians who appeared to have played with everyone of note. I saw him probably more than any other drummer, especially in the late fifties and sixties and whatever the context his playing was always appropriate and musical.
    I saw him last year in concert with Johnny Dankworth and Cleo Laine and my friends and I were knocked out that he was still playing as well as he ever had, at the age of 76.
    Reference the photo you mentioned in the obit. I am sure that it was drummer, composer, pianist Tony Crombie on the right and not Ronnie Scott.

Doug Ramsey

Doug is a recipient of the lifetime achievement award of the Jazz Journalists Association. He lives in the Pacific Northwest, where he settled following a career in print and broadcast journalism in cities including New York, New Orleans, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Seattle, Portland, San Antonio, Cleveland and Washington, DC. His writing about jazz has paralleled his life in journalism... [Read More]

Rifftides

A winner of the Blog Of The Year award of the international Jazz Journalists Association. Rifftides is founded on Doug's conviction that musicians and listeners who embrace and understand jazz have interests that run deep, wide and beyond jazz. Music is its principal concern, but the blog reaches past... Read More...

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Doug’s Books

Doug's most recent book is a novel, Poodie James. Previously, he published Take Five: The Public and Private Lives of Paul Desmond. He is also the author of Jazz Matters: Reflections on the Music and Some of its Makers. He contributed to The Oxford Companion To Jazz and co-edited Journalism Ethics: Why Change? He is at work on another novel in which, as in Poodie James, music is incidental.

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