Colin Bray
"Life is a Cabaret"
To some performers, jazz is a serious business. Not so multi-instrumentalist Colin Bray. The level of musicianship may be seriously high but, with a mischievous grin, he sets about entertaining his audience, be it on piano, soprano sax or vibraphone, with a true cabaret performance.
Colin is a Londoner, born in Cricklewood, although he moved to the country during the war. He had piano lessons at school but, he says: “I only got as far as playing Clair de lune – slowly”. His jazz epiphany came about when, as a teenager in the mid-50s, he went into HMV, Oxford Street, to buy a pop 78. Playing it in a listening booth, “I heard from the next booth this amazing sound of a high clarinet sailing over other jazz instruments. It turned out to be Benny Goodman playing One O’Clock Jump from his famous 1938 Carnegie Hall concert. I was hooked – I wanted to be Benny Goodman. From then on swing clarinet was my favourite thing. I wanted to be Artie Shaw, to be Pete Fountain, then I discovered the heady bebop delights of Buddy De Franco”.
Consequently Colin had given up the piano by his early 20s and, failing to emulate his clarinet idols, he took up soprano saxophone. He recalls: “In the early 60s I formed my own band playing in North London pubs, particularly The Castle in Childs Hill. The band became very popular as I made sure that the other musicians were vastly better than me. They included, Colin Smith on trumpet, John Picard on trombone and Stan Greig on piano. We attracted a number of well-known sitters-in, such as Joe Harriett, Freddy Cole (Nat’s brother), Joe Daniels and Mike Cotton. At that time I was known as ‘The Coat’ due to the dirty mac that I wore when performing. When we moved to The Gatehouse in Highgate, the band attracted a large quantity of well-known actors and pop-stars who were usually inebriated by the time the interval arrived!”
In time, keeping the band going became difficult, so Colin joined a quartet with Tony Lee on piano, Jack Fallon on bass and Tony Crombie on drums. They played a regular lunchtime gig at the Kensington Hilton for a number of years. When that eventually folded in the noughties, “I found my saxophone playing wasn’t in so much demand, so I set about studying jazz piano. For me Teddy Wilson was the real man – what a superb artist. After a while I was auditioned by the Alan Gresty/Brian White band as their pianist and, somewhat surprisingly, they took a gamble and offered me the job.” And he is still playing with them years later.
Adding a further musical string to his bow: “I now also play vibraphone with any band that will have me, such as those of Laurie Chescoe, John Petters and Jackie Free. Again, it’s the swing of small-group Benny Goodman that I’ve aimed for, with Lionel Hampton as my model. John Petters has very successfully recreated that style in quartet concerts. My aim is to make sure the audience is entertained in a humorous manner without compromising the musical standard. Sometimes the audience wants me to talk less; other times the audience wants me to play less!” (More often they are calling for more – RC)
“I also, from time to time, do a jazz cabaret act combining playing various musical instruments (including a sopranino saxophone, xylophone and baby-clarinet,) with mini lectures about the song writers. I have performed this in England, Scotland, and the USA.”
Looking back over his career Colin admits that, while jazz has always played an important role, since retiring from a ‘proper job’ six years ago, it has been a life-enhancing Godsend. “It’s one job I never want to retire from”. Entertaining people is remarkably rejuvenating and, as the song says, ‘Life is a cabaret, old chum’.
Author: Ray Crick, Theydon Jazz Club