Features

Ivor Lee

Pop Into The Past: Ivor Lee

Local music expert Pete Chambers takes a look back at the best in pop music from the past and present that came from our area.

Every other Friday from 3pm, Pete will be on air to talk about the bands, singers and songs that made Britain swing during the 50s, 60s, 70s and beyond. You can also take a trip down memory lane with the songs themselves.

Ivor Lee by Pete Chambers

Ivor Lee is one of those special kind of people that Coventry should be proud of. This is a man who loves his music, and Ivor’s music is jazz. He is a man on a mission and will do all he can to promote the genre in the city he lives.

Jazz entered his life at the tender age of thirteen, “The BBC rarely featured jazz” He recalls, “the only programme I can remember was World of Jazz on a Saturday afternoon around the time of  Sports Report. It was on because my dad was waiting for the football results. It was on that programme that I heard Anybody Hurt? by Gloria Wood and I became a jazz fan”.

He started to buy the Melody Maker and the Jazz Journal, in the back of the Journal was listings of new releases from people like Sam ‘The Man’ Taylor, Louis Jordan and his Tympany Five and Moon Mullican Moondog.

Even better than that was the comprehensive broadcast listings in the Melody Maker. “The best radio programme was RTF 1860Metres long wave” Ivor reveals, “one hour of Gospel and Sunday afternoon 4-15 till 5-00 Jazz, Sweets, Bird, Dizzy, Miles and anybody else you cared to name. I would dash home from school in the dinner hour to hear Jack Dieval with Jumpin’ with Symphony Sid a super catchy riff. But the very best was The Voice of America broadcasting on the 31 and 41 metre band from Tunis.  Four hours of jazz a night, year in, year out Introduced by Willis Conover. No problem then for me to stop in and do my Technical College homework”.

About 1962 after the Trad. Boom, The more trite Rock and Roll acts began to take over followed by the likes of the Beatles, The Stones etc and Soul Music. Jazz was on the decline I went to hear The Buddy Rich Band at the Hippodrome about 1968/9 there were only sixty people in the upper circle. Buddy said  “you had better applaud or the band will come up an beat you up”, implying there was more folk in the band than in the audience.

Finally in the 1970’s I saw Blood, Sweat and Tears and War a double bill. Only enough to fill the first two rows of the front stalls bought tickets, the theatre closed the circles and brought us all down front. I sat with a reporter from the New Musical Express and he said “ if he had not seen it with his own eyes he would not have believed such poor attendance for such a fine programme”.

Ivor is still very much involved in promoting jazz, especially at The Corner Pocket Jazz club, based at Bablake Old Boys Club, he organises one jazz gig every second Tuesday in the month. He is also part of the Coventry Jazz Festival Committee. I’ll leave the last words to Ivor himself. “I think it is good idea for musicians in the popular field to go and listen to jazz/blues more often. It did the Stones and their contemporaries no harm there is a wealth of music in the jazz field to be found. Get to know the various styles. I suppose listen to as much live music as possible and then go and develop your own style”.

Ivor will be joining Bob Brolly and Pete Chambers on Friday 14th July for another helping of Pop Into the Past, that promises to have a distinct jazz flavour about it.

Melody Maker and the Jazz Journal, in the back of the Journal was listings of new releases from people like Sam ‘The Man’ Taylor, Louis Jordan and his Tympany Five and Moon Mullican Moondog. Even better than that was the comprehensive broadcast listings in the Melody Maker. “The best radio programme was RTF 1860Metres long wave” Ivor reveals, “one hour of Gospel and Sunday afternoon 4-15 till 5-00 Jazz, Sweets, Bird, Dizzy, Miles and anybody else you cared to name. I would dash home from school in the dinner hour to hear Jack Dieval with Jumpin’ with Symphony Sid a super catchy riff. But the very best was The Voice of America broadcasting on the 31 and 41 metre band from Tunis.  Four hours of jazz a night, year in, year out Introduced by Willis Conover. No problem then for me to stop in and do my Technical College homework”.

About 1962 after the Trad. Boom, The more trite Rock and Roll acts began to take over followed by the likes of the Beatles, The Stones etc and Soul Music. Jazz was on the decline I went to hear The Buddy Rich Band at the Hippodrome about 1968/9 there were only sixty people in the upper circle. Buddy said  “you had better applaud or the band will come up an beat you up”, implying there was more folk in the band than in the audience. Finally in the 1970’s I saw Blood, Sweat and Tears and War a double bill. Only enough to fill the first two rows of the front stalls bought tickets, the theatre closed the circles and brought us all down front. I sat with a reporter from the New Musical Express and he said “ if he had not seen it with his own eyes he would not have believed such poor attendance for such a fine programme”.

Ivor is still very much involved in promoting jazz, especially at The Corner Pocket Jazz club, based at Bablake Old Boys Club, he organises one jazz gig every second Tuesday in the month. He is also part of the Coventry Jazz Festival Committee. I’ll leave the last words to Ivor himself. “I think it is good idea for musicians in the popular field to go and listen to jazz/blues more often. It did the Stones and their contemporaries no harm there is a wealth of music in the jazz field to be found. Get to know the various styles. I suppose listen to as much live music as possible and then go and develop your own style”.

Ivor will be joining Bob Brolly and Pete Chambers on Friday 14th July for another helping of Pop Into the Past, that promises to have a distinct jazz flavour about it.