The Ian Wheeler interview

During a tour I did with the Best of British Jazz Gala, a special all-star line picked by a German promoter for a one week tour of Germany, I had chance to sit one afternoon with clarinet legend Ian Wheeler. We talked about his last 60 years of playing jazz.
Sean: Ian how did you get into music?
Ian: In a ‘round about way I started with stringed instruments. Ukulele first and I played a little bit of piano when I was very young, about 6 or 7 years old. That did not last for very long. The I discovered George Formby.
Sean: How did you get into clarinet from ukulele?
Ian: I went via guitar. I stopped George Formby-ing and started Josh White-ing. I really wanted to play trombone. I was playing with Charlie Connor, playing guitar and Dickie Bishop was playing banjo in the band. I was also with the Mike Jefferson Trio on guitar in about 1949/50.
Sean: This was before the trad. jazz revival then?
Ian: Yes it was, this was around East London. I used to go down to a place called the Dutch House, which had a jazz club once a week. Then there was the Red Barn at Bexley. I was about 18 or 19 year old.
Sean: What were the audiences like then?
Ian: They were Contempories really, as they still are! I eventually joined Charlie Connor, although I originally wanted to play trombone. I hadn’t been able to afford one and then the trumpet player offered to sell me a cheap high-pitched clarinet for 25 Bob. Because it was high pitched one but I put a bit of string down the centre and it lowered the pitch. If you cut the string to the right length it would go a semitone down. Charlie taught me two or three notes and then next week I was playing it in public, only the two or three notes of course, but I would back Charlie with them.
Sean: Was Charlie your teacher then?
Ian: No, he taught me the rudiments but I taught myself. We all did really, we didn’t have teachers, we’d listen to records. The only lessons I ever had were a few on guitar.
Sean: What was the first gig like?
Ian: The first professional gig I ever did was a New Years Eve with a dance-band quartet. I used to be a motorcycle nut and this trio used to come and play at our club meetings sometime. Anyway, this time they had to augment to a quartet and asked me. I played a round hole acoustic guitar and played until just past midnight and got Two pounds fifty.
Sean: So gig fees have not gone up that much then?!
Ian: Not really, but that was my first paid job.
Sean: How did your association with Ken Colyer start?
Ian: I’d met most of the guys before. I had played with my own band called the River City Jazz Band, based in S.E. London. By that time I knew most of the jazz people. It was a small scene and most people knew everybody. I’d met the Cranes and Pat Halcox and we talked about forming a band together. I was with the Mike Daniels Band; he said I wasn’t very good but showed promise! I would never have been interested in jazz had my wish of becoming a pilot come true. I suffered from ill health and I ran away to sea. A friend had left me his record collection and I started listening to jazz.
Sean: Do you remember that first record that started it off?
Ian: Yes, it was an HMV of Sidney Bechet, "Texas Moaner". That was it! I was still with the Mike Daniles Band but Pat and I were thinking of forming a band together.
Pat had been playing with the Chris Barber Band, which became the Ken Colyer Band.
Ken came back from New Orleans so Pat left. Then Ken left and formed another Band with Acker Bilk, Eddie O’Donnell and Diz Disley I think was in it. Pat Halcox was asked to join Chris Barber in the summer of ‘54 and did not want to be a chemist anymore. Meanwhile I had got into listening to George Lewis, which I was impressed with, so I started going around sitting in with Ken. I must confess that I wanted to join his band so I sort of "worked it" by being there, sitting in as much as possible. Acker decided he was going to go back to Bristol so my strategy eventually worked. Ken asked me to join and that was about four or five months after Pat joined Chris. I remember when he (Pat) was asked to join we had a long discussion together at my house with my Dad, whether or not he should do the big leap to turn professional, and my Dad said "you’re young, it won‘t hurt for a couple of years". And then the same thing happened to me when a few months later when I was asked to join Colyer.
Sean: How long were you with Ken?
Ian. 1954 until 1960, 6 years. The first gig was a residency in Germany. I actually got off the sick bed to do that! I had a bout of bronchitis or something and Acker actually did the first jobs we had booked with the band in Ireland. We did two months in Düsseldorf, Hamburg, Luneberg and were the first jazz band at that time to do the German scene.
Sean: How did the German audiences differ from what you had back in London?
Ian: At that time the German audiences were businessmen, with nightclubs made up to look like jazzclubs. Ken thought it was great. We played every night, long sessions from half past eight until two the next morning, four at weekends. The way we did it was we would play three numbers, take a break and so on and then take a long break so they could sell the beer and food. We were not blowing our heads off. We all thought we had iron lips and thought we would blow everybody off the stage when we came back to England. However, our first job we did when we got back was a concert and we played for two hours. We were not used to playing that long!
Sean: How did you bump into Rod Mason?
Ian: Rod had been with Acker I think. I decided for various reasons to move to Cornwall and along with Jimmy Garforth we ran a small scuba diving company. This was in the 1970’s. I had heard of Rod and gave him a ring and he asked me to join his band. I’d been with Chris Barber for eight years by then and left him to go down to Cornwall. The first band with Rod lasted about six months when Rod went back with Acker, so I formed a local band. I was doing the scuba diving and playing a bit. Then Rod came back, having left Acker so we formed the Rod Mason-Ian Wheeler Band, which, though I say myself, was a damned good band.
Sean: Who was in the band then?
Ian: Jimmy Garforth, Chris Haskins, Dicke Bishop and then Pete Sumner, Bobby Fox, Rod and myself. We were really big in Germany and used to sing a song about how good it was to be back on the road, and we really meant it then. A big time promoter in Hamburg wanted us to be his "top" band and asked us to spend two thirds of the time in Germany but the other guys did not want that, so that was it really. Then Rod wanted to team up and form what he called the Bad Joke Band. This is when it all fell apart. He wanted to stay working in and around Plymouth so I decided that was enough and I teamed up with Keith Smith. He had been working in Denmark with Papa Bue but came down to Cornwall and we formed Hefty Jazz, which was the remnants of one of the little bands I was running down there. Hefty Jazz was only a front line. Bobby Fox, Keith Smith and myself. We would pick up a rhythm section and toured all over, East and West Germany for example. I lived in Denmark for a while too and for a few months joined a band before moving back to England. I also took a pub in Saltash for about a year that had a big music room.
Sean: So you were a promoter?
Ian: Not really, I was promoting my own band! Then Chris Barber asked me to rejoin so I did.
Sean: How long were you with Chris?
Ian: Altogether, 27 years in total.
Sean: So you know each other quite well?!
Ian: Yeah! I have a lot of respect for Chris really. He would go through a thing like doing a lot of Kurt Weil numbers. When I left the first time he was doing things like the Battersea Rain Dance and then he decided he wanted to do more New Orleans things so I rejoined. It was when Norman Emberson was on drums. When I left he started running the big band, which he is running to this day. He is very enthusiastic for anything he does and really believes in what he does. Because he is so good at business and what he does he can say "hang the rest of you" and do it, which is a nice position to be in. I do respect him.
Sean: Tell us about the favourite record that you ever made?
Ian: Oh, it was a duet with Ed Hall, High Society. The most annoying thing is that although it has been reissued four or five times, it has never said who was on it. It was with the Chris Barber band but it was just Ed and I who started it until right at the end the band comes in. It really is, to me, the epitome of what I love. It worked so well. That is really something! It was when Ed Hall came over for a two or three-week tour and we went into the recording studio and right out of the blue we just did it. It may sound terribly big headed but sometimes you can’t tell if it was Ed or me, it just worked. He took me right up there to be with him. Anyway, that is my greatest moment and most annoying.
Sean: Word has it you are bit of a genius constructing things?
Ian: It has always been my hobby, since I was about eight I’ve made flying model aircraft. So, it is a thing I can spend my spare time in. I did photography too, but it was just a craze.
Sean: What advise would you give any up and coming jazz musicians?
Ian: Exactly the same advice I gave about forty years ago…"don’t listen to me, listen to the originators!".
Sean: That sounds advise Ian, and many thanks for your time.
Sean Moyses.
http://www.seanmoyses.com/