JAZZ AT THE RHYTHM STATION
RAWTENSTALL
01706-214039.
Enquiries - Tommy Melville-0161 –624-2077.
THE VERY BEST OF JAZZ VENUES TUES 8.30-11.00pm.
Featuring The Tommy Melville Quartet Plus Special guests.
TUESDAY March 6th 2007 ADMISSION £9. 00
TO-NIGHT’S GUESTS
Bobby Wellins &Benn Clatworthy
Bobby Wellins (TENOR SAXOPHONES)
Born Glasgow, 24th January 1936. Father played sax and clarinet, mother a singer. Started on Alto sax with lessons from his father, who also taught him basic harmony on the piano. He later took a three- year course at Chichester College of Further Education studying keyboard harmony. 1950-52 was taught clarinet at the RAF school of Music, Uxbridge. 1953 onwards he worked with dance bands in the London area. In the late 1950’s,he began to specialise in improvisation and joined Tony Crombie’s band ‘Jazz Inc’, in which he met Stan Tracy.
He worked with Stan Tracy’s Quartet during the 1960’s, playing on the classic album
‘Under Milk Wood’. Bobby Wellins was absent from the jazz scene for a number of years, then in 1976 he formed a Quartet, and with Don Weller a Quintet. He then was able to perform regularly and start recording again.
Bobby Wellins is, and always has been, an original. He has his own distinctive sound and he phrases with the immense elegance. His taste in saxophonist run from Charlie Parker and Lester Young to John Coltrane and Zoot Sims but while embodying most of their virtues, he sounds like none of them.
When asked what makes up his musical philosophy he says I just want to play beautifully, speaking in that strong London accent he has never lost despite being a resident of Los Angeles for the past 20 years
I love to play soft ballads that give people a chill,
I want to play fast tunes that make feel like you are on a roller coaster, as musicians We have a responsibility to move and stir their emotions musically that is.
Benn was grabbed by jazz as a teenager growing up in south London, after being born in Hastings into a very artistic family his father is a well known sculptor his grand- mother
was Gertrude Laurence .Fascinated by the sound of jazz he was determined to learn more, he was encouraged by the
likes of the late Ronnie Scott and he went to Berklee in Boston to study. Benn Clatworthy
Jazz is something that agrees with my system, it affects me and I want to affect it back. It’s like falling in love with a woman. She gets to you and then you want to get to her. Then you’re caught in the trap’’ I think he is well and truly caught . You too can be caught by Benn’s charm humour, and above all his enthusiasm for what he loves most of all ,playing jazz.
All other enquiries to D.Dundon 0161-796-0275