My memories of the Guv,nor by Udo Schneider

Previously published in the Ken Colyer Trust Newsletter of March 1992

It must have been in about 1953 when my interest in traditional jazz began to grow. The first record from the UK having fascinated me was the one with those "hated and maligned Saints," as Ken entitled them, with the longest title I know. In order to get the number of this record, I wrote to "Uncle Bill" Crozier at the British Forces Network at the end of 1954, and was lucky to get his reply with the Parlophone number in March 1955. Normally BFN (now BFBS) did not correspond with German civilians. I bought the 78rpm record and must admit that I wasn't much enthusiastic about the reverse side being I'm Travelling, but it was the first contact I had with Ken. The LP New Orleans to London became a favourite of mine, but during the second half of the fifties I favoured the bands of the two bandleaders who commercialized what they learned from Ken, being Chris and Acker.

On March 18th, 1959, Ken Colyer's Jazzmen and George Lewis gave a concert in the town hall of Wuppertal. That was my first opportunity to see and listen to Ken and his Jazzmen live. From that day my interest in Ken's music grew permanently. On several visits to London in the first half of the sixties I attended as many sessions as possible at the 51, but found it quite difficult to get in personal contact with Ken. I found him extremely taciturn.

During the second half of the sixties, Ken toured Germany nearly every year. At that time he and his Jazzmen became my favourite band. On October 25th, 1967 they played in the great hall of a secondary school in Wuppertal. After the session I invited the band to my private party cellar, but, except Malc Murphy, who accepted my invitation, they were too tired. I never asked Malc what he told the rest of the band about the party at my place, but, when I invited the band on their next tour to Germany, all of them accepted. That was on October 28th, 1968. In the meantime, I had found out drambuie to be one of Ken's favourite drinks. We had a wonderful party, and from that day our personal contact improved. During the following years the band came to my place regularly, whenever they had a day off on their tours of Germany.

Once Ken asked me if I knew Lee Collins. When I said I didn't, he promised to send me a tape with recordings of Lee's. A few weeks after his return, he really sent me the tape with the Jones and Collins Astoria Hot Eight in New Orleans, and a session of Ken Colyer's Jazzmen of May 16th, 1966 in London.

In September 1970, two friends of mine - one of them being Werner Finkensieper, who is a member of the Trust too - and their wives accompanied me on a trip to England, because I had heard of a canal boat shuffle to take place in Birmingham on September 5th with the Jazzmen and Ray Foxley. We hired a car to get there from London and had an unforgettable session on the boat. Unfortunately, the piano on the boat was so terribly out of tune that Ray couldn't play with the band. So he filled the intervals, but had difficulties because some keys didn't work. I recorded the whole session and Maeve noted down each title for me. (Editor's note. Maeve Rosenberg and her husband Les were passionate followers of Ken. Maeve knew the titles of Ken's entire repertoire and would compile a list of the tunes played at every session she attended)

One day in April 1971 Malc Murphy called me from London telling me that Ken was going to retire at the end of May. This bad news filled me with sadness, and I decided to go to England for a week to listen to my favourite band for the last time. I took a brand new Uher Royal De Luxe tape recorder and a Semmheiser microphone with me, had a wonderful week with the band touring Southern England and recorded each session from May 17th to 21st.

In 1973 I read about a "Hot Jazz Meeting" in Hamburg with the reassembled Crane River Jazz Band. As I intended to undertake a trip to Moscow in May, I went via Hamburg, enjoying an unforgettable night with the Cranes in the sold out Congress Centrum.

In Spring 1975 I spent the Easter holiday in England. On that occasion I attended Ken's All Stars at the Red Lion, Hatfield. Then I met Ken again at the Jazz Weekend in Dillenberg, Germany on June 6th, 1979. The last time I saw him was in the Barrelhouse Jazz Club, Essen on November 1st 1985, where Ken played with the Red Beans from Bonn. That night a friend of mine took a photo showing Ken and me. Did he forebode that it was the last meeting?

In May 1986, I wrote to Ken asking him if he was able and willing to come over to Germany in 1987 for a tour, during which I wanted him to celebrate my 50th birthday with the band, but, unfortunately, he refused because he didn't feel well enough.

The way I came to learn of Ken's death was quite unusual. On March 20th, 1988, my family and I were returning from our holiday in Lanzarote, Canary Islands. When entering the plane I chose a Welt am Sonntag, a Hamburg newspaper. The plane was still on the ground when I found a notice about Ken's death, filling me with deep mourning.

When in May 1988 there was no reaction to Ken's death either in the Jazz Podium, the German monthly jazz magazine, or in the few traditional jazz features of WDR (Westdeutscher Rundfunk), I found out by calling them that they had not been informed. So I wrote an obituaty for the Jazz Podium, published in June 1988, and helped Hans W. Ewart to produce a 45 minute commemorative feature for Ken, broadcast on June 18th, 1988.

My lovely daughter Britta, who was just 5 years old when Ken died, takes much interest in traditional jazz. She still regrets that she never met this great musician, whose sidesmen she knows quite well from the tours I organise now and then.

By the way, whenever three of my local friend and I talk about Ken, which we do quite often, we just call him "Chef."

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