GOODBYE, PETER KING — Spike Wells

Pete died on Sunday 23rd August.

Others will write sensitively and more knowledgeably about his life and career as a whole. Including perhaps something about his latter years of physical pain.

But I feel a strong need to share my personal memories of him from a more carefree decade.

A man who was not only a world-class alto saxophonist but was able, among other enthusiasms, to build award-winning model aeroplanes and compose an opera about the Zyklon B poison gas which was performed in New York was clearly an exceptional and extraordinary human being.

Although he was revered far and wide as a jazz genius, he lived a shy life for most of his years in his modest rented end-of-terrace house tucked away behind the Putney Bridge Road. I was a guest there several times. His irreplaceable wife Linda would serve crabsticks, sandwiches and other delights as we sat in the small garden. I’m talking about the 1980s.

But my first encounter with Pete was when he came up as a guest in 1965 to play at our university jazz club. He was on tenor and he amused us afterwards by giving a demonstration of the sort of rock and roll honking he was required to produce in whatever commercial outfit he was making a living with.

He seemed reluctant to leave, asking if there were any parties that night in Oxford we might move on to. He said he didn’t relish returning to the London flat where his unpredictable wife of the time, singer Joy Marshall, might be looking for trouble. (I believe Peter agreed to marry her so that she could get a UK work permit. I know that she was having a passionate and stormy love affair with Tubby Hayes.)

It was only 3 or 4 years later that I was playing with Pete again, because he was a regular member of the reed section in Tubby’s big band and I had become the drummer. He was a featured soloist of course and you can hear him roaring on Dear Johnny B if you go to the “music” page and click on Tubby’s big band broadcast from October 1969.

It was later on, however, long after Tubby’s death, that I really got to know Pete and play for some years in his own group.

Pete wrote an autobiography entitled Flying high (referencing soaring alto and model aircraft, I guess). He devotes a few pages to the period I’m talking about. I quote:

Pat Smythe encouraged me to work with my own band. He arranged several BBC Jazz Club broadcasts with himself on piano and me as nominal leader. I needed to surround myself with musicians who wanted to help build a group with its own identity. There was only one problem. No-one had shown the remotest interest in recording me as a leader. But in 1982, thanks to Tony Williams and Spotlite records, that changed.

This accords with my diaries for 1980-81. Quartet broadcasts with Pat Smythe and then John Horler on piano. And an album recorded for Spotlite in the Summer of 1982 called New beginning. This was followed by another Spotlite record in January 1983 called East 34th Street, which was very well received.

A third recording for Spotlite in May 1984 (90% of 1%) featured the full final quintet with Henry Lowther on trumpet, John Horler, Dave Green and myself. It was recorded live in the dining hall of University College Oxford, my old college! Pete observes in his book: I like to think that album managed to capture the quintet when it had settled into a well-integrated unit.

When Pete originally added a trumpet to the band, he used Dick Pearce. A video exists of a TV show we recorded in Scotland in early 1983. Unfortunately, Dick had other commitments and was replaced as a permanent addition by Henry Lowther.

The beauty of the quintet was that it encouraged Pete to play other people’s compositions as well as his previous recipe of his own tunes and standards. John and Henry contributed strong material to the repertoire and we also tackled new compositions by Herbie Hancock (“Eye of the hurricane”) and Freddie Hubbard (“Take it to the ozone”).

The quintet: left to right - Pete King, John Horler, Spike Wells, Henry Lowther, Dave Green

The band worked pretty solidly for the next few years.

Apart from a staple diet of BBC broadcasts and one-nighters at pubs and clubs, in October 1983 we did two week tour all over the country with only two nights off. We appeared at the Paris Jazz Festival in November 1984 and toured Scotland for a week in December. Four thoroughly enjoyable days in Portugal in 1985 visiting Lisbon and the beautiful university town of Coimbra and two short trips to Belfast. (Glad I’ve kept my diaries!)

A very happy postscript was a reunion appearance some twenty years later organized by Neil Ferber for his Appleby Jazz Festival in 2004.

I am gradually unearthing cassette recordings from the old days and have come across a cracker: part of our set at the Pendley Manor jazz festival on June 7th, 1985. I have put these tracks at the front of this week’s “Music” page playlist and, as Ronnie Scott would say, if you enjoy them half as much as I have, then I’ve enjoyed them twice as much as you……..

The sublime John Horler, affectionately known to Bill Kerr and all Hancock’s half-hour fans as “Tub”

I’ve been in close contact with pianist John Horler over the last few days and he has put his feelings into print for me to share:

“It was the highlight of my jazz career working with the bands of Pete King, especially the quintet. Seems a long time ago that Pete and Lin used to babysit for Poppy and me, which of course it is! Pete was a master of what was called be-bop, but that was the foundation, because he embraced all music. I cannot speak too highly of my musical colleagues Dave, Spike and Henry. Each had his own musical identity which merged with Pete to produce a marvellous band. The word “great” is used too often but Pete King definitely was. I learned so much from him and being part of that rhythm section was an incredible experience.”

John, Dave, Henry and I are still coming to terms with Peter King’s death. He was such a joy to play with. He was warm, friendly and down to earth on and off the stand and at home and yet still seemed to be living in his own weird and wonderful world wherever he was.

He wrote about me in Flying high: [A totally natural jazz drummer generating tremendous swing and drive,] he has an offstage personality that exudes the rarefied air of the university professor. He is a law unto himself.

Oh Pete, I could say the same thing about you……………….