R.I.P.: Allan Ganley

Allan Anthony Ganley, drummer, composer and arranger

(pictured above with Martin Taylor and Dave Green)
born in Tolworth, Surrey, on March 11, 1931;
died in Slough, Berkshire, on March 29, 2008.

I was introduced to Allan Ganley's artistry in 1982 (by Helcio do Carmo, then the Int'l A&R for RCA Brazil) through his impeccable and very classy (not to say very "filmy" also) performance on a sumptuous version of Claude Bolling's "California Suite" recorded by virtuoso London-based (and San Francisco-born) female flutist Elena Duran with pianist Laurie Holloway trio. Immediately, I began to give airplay to some of the tracks from that album (most notably the lovely "Hanna") on the TUPI-FM radio station.

Allan also appeares in two other albums I enjoy listening very often: Jim Hall's "Committment" (Horizon/A&M) and Clark Terry's ballad masterpiece "Clark After Dark" (MPS).
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The obituary published on the "London Independent" follows:

Allan Ganley - Drummer of faultless instinct who played with all the jazz greats
by Steve Voce
London Independent, April 5, 2008

"Allan Ganley was the perfect jazz drummer. He could play with faultless instinct and delicacy in any style and had what seemed to be a supernatural understanding of how the giants of jazz wished to be accompanied. Despite his huge musical abilities, he had no ego and he was able to fit seamlessly into any band, large or small. Musicians knew this, and he was always the first-call drummer for both British and American jazz players. He was, perhaps, the greatest player with brushes apart from the American giant Louie Bellson.

The list of those for whom Ganley played is so comprehensively extensive that it becomes irrelevant. It ranges from Bert Ambrose's dance band to the rich extravagances of Roland Kirk, from Stephane Grappelli and Yehudi Menuhin, to Dizzy Gillespie and Peggy Lee.

Ganley came into professional music as the dance bands faded away and Charlie Parker and Dizzy Gillespie were heralding modern jazz. The clarinettist Dave Shepherd, with whom Ganley was to work regularly throughout his life, remembers their first meeting in an Italian restaurant near White Hart Lane in London. "I'd heard of this quartet in the cafe that played jazz. It was called the Celestino Quartet. Celestino played accordion and Allan was on drums. I often pulled his leg about it in later years."

After his National Service in the RAF, Ganley worked, in 1953, in the big bands of Ambrose and of the showman drummer Jack Parnell. In the autumn of that year, he began an association with John Dankworth that was to last for the rest of his life. The Johnny Dankworth Big Band played its first notes at the Astoria Ballroom in Nottingham on 23 October 1953. From the outset it was an all-star affair, with Keith Christie, Tommy Whittle, Pete King, Ronnie Scott and Dudley Moore, as well as Ganley, in its ranks. Ganley stayed with the band for two years.

Aside from the Dankworth band, he found time to play in Kenny Baker's Dozen, perhaps the most popular broadcasting jazz group ever, and to co-lead his own band, the New Jazz Group, with the pianist Derek Smith. He played in the Jazz Today group, widened his experience with trips to Los Angeles and New York in 1955, and then worked in the band on the liner Queen Mary in 1956.

On his return, he flew back to the States to play there with Ronnie Scott in early 1957. In 1958 he formed, with the baritone sax player Ronnie Ross, the very successful quintet the Jazzmakers, which survived for two years. He crossed the Atlantic yet again in 1959, this time to appear at the Newport Jazz Festival and was back there again, this time with the Jazzmakers, in 1960, to play as part of a Vic Lewis touring unit.

Tubby Hayes grabbed Ganley for his quartet in January 1962 and the drummer stayed with Tubby until 1964. This gave him plenty of time to work as a studio musician -- although self-taught, he had by now become a master instrumentalist who would be in constant demand for almost 50 years. He was also to become a consummate composer and arranger.

Ganley appeared in the eccentric and unsuccessful film All Night Long (1961), a jazz retelling of the story of Othello, which featured Dave Brubeck and Charlie Mingus, disgruntled by the British musicians who played with him on the soundtrack ("Who invented jazz?" asked Mingus. "Tubby Hayes and Kenny Napper?").

Ganley gained vital experience and new friendships when he became the house drummer at Ronnie Scott's Club, working between 1964 and 1967 with visiting Americans like Stan Getz, Art Farmer and Roland Kirk. He also played at Annie's Room with the singer Annie Ross in 1965 and continued to play for John Dankworth and his wife, Cleo Laine.

In February 1967 he joined Joe Wylie's band in Bermuda, taking a break to study for four months at the Berklee School of Music in Boston. This study was vital to him in his composing and arranging work.

When he returned to Britain in 1976 and resumed session-playing he was immediately called upon to work with Nelson Riddle, Robert Farnon and Henry Mancini. The jazz jobs proliferated and at this period he backed Dizzy Gillespie, Peggy Lee, Blossom Dearie and Al Haig, among other visiting Americans. He formed his own irregular big band, which played whenever it could be assembled, surviving up until last year. He began to write for the BBC Radio Big Band, the BBC Radio Orchestra and for the various manifestations of the Dankworth family.

The singers Ganley backed regularly included Cleo Laine, Marian Montgomery, Elaine Delmar, Georgie Fame and Carole Kidd. He played in the Pizza Express All Stars and the Great British Jazz Band. Dave Shepherd remembered a recent job at Bridgnorth in Shropshire with the latter: "We played at a place called The Theatre on the Steps. The area was on two levels and the theatre was half way between them. The only way to get to it was either down 48 steps from the top or up 52 steps from below. After he'd carted his drum kit up the steps he turned to me and said to me with feeling, 'This is the very last time I play here!'"

Ganley's keenness for golf and tennis, both of which he played enthusiastically to the end of his life, had kept him fit over the years.

Up until the week of his death he had led a regular Sunday-lunchtime jazz gig at Jag's in Ascot, where he lived. Different musicians, all keen to take the chance to play with such a wonderful accompanist, joined him each week. On the Sunday before his death the group included his lifelong friend Dave Green. The two played together so often as a rhythm section that they were known as "Gang Green".

Ganley had been working over the last two weeks on music that he had written for a jazz festival to be held in Norwich in May. His 10-piece band was to have included Green, John Dankworth and the American players Ken Peplowski, Scott Hamilton and Dan Barrett."