Basil
Kirchin first started playing the drums in December 1941 at The Paramount,
Tottenham Court Road, London, where his father Ivor had the resident band.
In those days life as a civilian was not an easy one, the family having
to spend every night in the underground tube station as the German blitz
raged overhead. The work schedule also was a demanding one commencing at
3 p.m. every afternoon and carrying on until 5.45 p.m. Then, after a quick
meal, the band would return to The Paramount to play from 7 p.m. until
11.45 p.m. The band worked 14 sessions per week other than every alternate
Monday night, which was the only time that they had off. Basil was so consumed
with music, however, that even on his night off he would usually join in
with the relief band, in order to broaden his very youthful experience.
Eventually,
the war came to an end, and, having enjoyed (in the true sense) a baptism
of fire, Basil was ready to take his place in the wider world of music.
After five years, to their great credit, his parents realised that it
would be in the best long term interests of their son to let him accept
one of the many offers that had been coming in, which he did, joining
a newly formed band called Harry Roy and His New 1946 Orchestra. This
was literally the first of the "big bands" and Basil was featured
as a solo drummer. Harry Roy had his own night club, the renowned "Milroy"
and was also under contract to produce seven broadcasts every fortnight
for the BBC.
During
the period of his membership with the Roy Band Basil learned to play every
kind of music in jobs ranging from theatre tours to concerts, dances,
night clubs, jazz clubs and hundreds of hours spent in broadcasting
and recording studios. By the end of the 1940's he had joined the Ted
Heath Band, at that time the most highly regarded in Europe, and several
continental tours followed.
Mike
Senn:
I
was on lead alto in one of the first bands that Basil led, (without
Ivor) in the early fifties. We went to a residency at the Ritz, Manchester.
Although we had rehearsed, the band was rough, and I am reliably informed
that Mr. Binks (the demon manager) phoned Mecca headquarters and got
us the sack the first night. We lasted a month, at the end of which
Binks had the grace to say that if the band had sounded at the start
as it did at the end, he would not have complained. It is hard to remember
the guys, or their names after all this time. But in the trumpets were
Ronnie Baker (not the alto player) and Paul Berman. Johnny Weed was
on piano. The tenors were Roy Sidwell and Gray Allard. We had some tenor
leads (Four Brothers style) played by Roy and Gray. I got some flak
from musicians in Manchester for having a "funny tone" on
alto, the Four Brothers sound apparently not having reached there then.
The next time I played with the Kirchin band
was at the Royal Tottenham; this was with Basil and Ivor. The personnel
included Harry South on piano. Trumpets were Stan Palmer, Trevor Lannigan,
Tony Grant. Saxes: Me, Roy Sidwell, John Xerri & Lennie Dawes on
baritone.
A bit later they went on the road, and enjoyed their greatest success.
I had left and the lead alto during this time was Brian Hayden.
It is interesting to note that one reason for the band's success was
the ban on jiving. In dance halls then, you were only allowed to jive
during Latin American sets. Basil solved this by playing a lot of LA
sets, to the kids' delight. (Mike Senn)
The
Kirchin band, co-led and directed by his father Ivor, originated when
Basil took their London-based band up to Edinburgh for a residency at
the Fountainbridge Palais, beginning there on September 8th, 1952. The
band made several broadcasts from Fountainbridge with the following line-up:
Tony Grant, Stan Palmer, Bobby Orr, Norman Baron, trumpets; Ronnie Baker,
Duncan Lamont, Pete
Warner, John Xerri, Alex Leslie, saxes; Harry South, piano, Ronnie Seabrook,
bass, Basil Kirchin, drums, Johnny Grant, vocals, John Clarke, arranger,
Ivor Kirchin, leader.
The
Fountainbridge was followed in November 1953 by an engagement at the Plaza
Ballroom in Belfast, Northern Ireland, which lasted until March of the
following year. During this period the band recorded a thirteen week commercial
radio series with the singer Ruby Murray for Radio Luxembourg. Near the
end of the engagement in Belfast Bobby Orr left with embouchure problems,
switched to drums and became one of the finest drummers in the country.
After a string of appearances at various ballrooms the band took up summer
residence at the Royal, Tottenham. There Jimmy Paxton and Buddy Featherstonehaugh
joined for a short time on alto and baritone, to be replaced later by
Mike Senn and Roy Sidwell.
Ron
Simmonds: Basil was a great drummer,
one of the best, and I enjoyed playing with the band, mostly on record
dates and TV shows. It was a demanding book, especially exciting for
trumpets. Occasionally either Bobby Pratt or myself would get booked
to play on Ivors broadcasts or record sessions. On the records
Bobby went by the pseudonym of Big Tarp, because he was under contract
to Ted Heath at the time.
Shortly
after this Ivor Kirchin was involved in a serious car accident and asked
Basil to take over the leadership of the band whilst he was in hospital.
This engendered a desire in Basil to have his own band. However in practice
Basil found his first band, although small in number, extremely difficult
to deal with, due to having to handle the day to day business management
and at the same time continue to write his own music, which, being original,
required many hours of rehearsal. This, together with Ivor Kirchin's
return to fitness, resulted in the birth of a new idea the creation
of a jointly led big band to be fronted by Ivor, who would also manage
all the business side, leaving Basil free to play the drums and utilise
his creative energy in creating the music and perfecting its
performance.
The
new line up consisted of four trumpets, four saxophones and three rhythm
literally everything about the concept was new and it caught on
very rapidly. At the end of the first year, for instance, the band had
broken attendance records wherever it played, and after only ten months
in existence was voted the fourth best band in the Melody Maker poll.
In
the following year two major record companies were bidding for the
Kirchin Band, Decca, and EMI's Parlophone label under George Martin.
The band made four singles and an EP for Decca and a further two singles
for Parlophone with whom they eventually signed, as they were allowed
considerably more musical control by George Martin. A substantial amount
of recording took place between 1951 and 1957 under both their own name,
and several other splinter groups.
Outside
of the music business the band had acquired a number of illustrious fans, including
Sean Connery, Jose Ferrer, Rosemary Clooney, William Bendix, Dana
Andrews, Elizabeth Taylor and her then husband the late Mike Todd. The
band were also extremely popular at this time with the general public
and played their first Poll Winners Concert to a standing ovation. It
was during this period that many friendships within the business were
forged that still exist today, stronger than ever. These include the entire
Duke Ellington Orchestra and Count Basic's Band of that time, as well
as dozens of jazz musicians whose names are legend.
Billy
Eckstine and Sarah Vaughan would only tour England if the bands
agent, Harold Davison, promised that they could have the Kirchin Band
to accompany them. One point that should be mentioned here is that Basil
and Ivor were the first band to take their own P.A. system around with
them. This meant that Basil, who was obsessive about recording everything
the band did, even rehearsals, could get very good recordings, as his
tape recorder was plugged direct into their P.A. system. Because of
this the following Billy Eckstine eulogy was actually on tape, recorded
at the last show of a concert tour in Bradford's Alhambra Theatre:
"As
most of you know, I once had a band of my own with Charlie Parker and
Dizzy Gillespie, amongst others whose names may be known to you, but,
I must tell you that I have been standing in the wings for every single
show this week without missing one of their spots, and never in my life
have I heard such a band. It is very difficult for me to believe that
they are not American let alone that they are not coloured ladies
and gentlemen please, your applause for what I sincerely believe to
be one of the great bands in the world today, to be ranked alongside
Duke, Count and Dizzy I give you the Kirchin Band."
Another
tour de force occurred at the band's fourth Poll Winners Concert which
again took place at the Albert Hall following their rendition of a 12
minute version of the jazz classic "Sing Sing Sing". The end
of the piece brought the entire Albert Hall audience to its feet in spontaneous
applause and it was only with some difficulty that the stage manager and
promoters were able to persuade an excited audience that an encore was
out of the question because other bands were waiting to follow in their
wake.>Having by now gained acceptance on an international basis, Basil
found he was trapped within the image of wild uninhibited music, this
in spite of the fact that over 40% of his output was not the wild stuff,
but beautiful orchestral tones and colours woven into music. Also he was
burning to write more "expanded" music.
There
was only one way to do ithe disbanded the band in spite of the furore
that caused and the next years were spent around the world. There were
5 months in the Ramakrishna Temple at Dakshineswa on the River Ganges
in India, some time in America visiting friends made during an earlier
sellout tour, that the band had done in exchange for Norman Granz's
'Jazz at the Philharmonic', and two years in Australia. It was here that
Basil suffered a blow which has never healed.
During
those years of the band, every note ever blown was recorded, and Basil
had compiled nine 7" tapes that contained only the absolute cream
of the wild stuff and five 7" tapes of the gentler side of the band.
Every track was actually perfect, even by his own perfectionist standards,
and of some titles there were two and even three different takes, many
recorded years apart and sounding like totally changed pieces of music
in the time honoured tradition of jazz.
In
effect the tapes were literally "his life" encapsuled for all
to hear. They were with him on board the ship which arrived at Sydney
harbour at about 5.45 on a Friday afternoon. The main luggage in the
hold could not be collected until Monday so Basil went to the new flat.
Monday late afternoon he got a very apologetic phone call from the docks
telling him they were very sorry but, as the net containing the luggage
was being swung over to the docks, something had snapped and everything
had dropped into the sea.
When
they were eventually retrieved, full of water, they were left stewing
over the whole weekend on the dockside instead of Basil being contacted
immediately to see if anything could have been salvaged. Tapes, writeups,
publicityeverything was ruined. That was itperfection
gone, and only word of mouth now to verify.
By
Easter of 1961 Basil had been back in England for some months, staying
with Ivor and Kay who were living in Hull. Ivor, again highly successful,
had the resident band there. Basil spent his time writing scores for "imaginary"
films and recording them with the help of a friend, Keith Herd, a local
lad of enormous talent in electronics who had his own recording studio.
When the work was finished Basil went to London and, slowly, via a lot
of "ghost writing", work started to come in under his own name.
From
then onwards Basil was responsible for producing a truly. impressive range
of work in films, television, documentaries and theatre, much of it
utilising new concepts never before tried in these medias, and setting
trends and styles that now today are imitated all over the world. Again,
a selection of some of the more popular works are catalogued at the end.
In the middle 1960's several further important landmarks in Basil Kirchin's
life were reached. One was that he met his present wife Esther a Swiss
lady and they were married in 1968.
The
second was that in 1964 he had discovered a musical concept that more
than anything else validates him as being one of the great innovators
of the post war years. Called "Worlds within Worlds" the concept
is still so startling today that it requires a place all of its own in
this review, involving, as it does, sounds never before heard by human
ears.
It
should be remembered that at this stage technology and recording equipment
had not been developed to anything like its present levels. However,
by 1967 a Swiss man called Kudelski, who worked for Nagra, a Swiss firm
of tape recording manufacturers, had designed a machine and microphone
that was at last sufficiently sophisticated to enable Basil to create
the reality of his vision. Because of its very importance, from a subjective
point of view to its author, it would perhaps be a better testament to
"Worlds" to quote the opinion of David Greene, the world
renowned film producer, director and writer who produced the following
sleeve notes for the two record companies involved in its recording and
production.
DAVID
GREENE ON WORLDS WITHIN WORLDS
In
this work Basil Kirchin has created his own musical language. Nothing
less would have enabled him to express a musical vision so utterly
personal.
It
is a vision of intense pain, and equally intense love.
Music,
like other forms of art, has experienced a revolution during the last
fifteen years. The traditional concepts of melody and harmony have not
merely been changed, they have been supplanted by entirely new goals.
New
destinations sometimes necessitate new modes of travel. Or is it that
new modes of travel open up visions of new places to go? In Basil Kirchin's
case his present position has been reached after many years of travelling
along more traditional music routes.
Composers
having pushed orchestral timbres to their furthermost extremes are now
turning to "ExtraMusical" sounds. This work incorporates
both.
Soprano
saxophone, Bassoon, Marimba, Organ, Cello and Bass have been combined
by painstaking editing, with animal cries, birdsong and the amplified
sound of insects, to make music of almost overwhelming power and originality.
Kirchin has orchestrated his instrumental and wildlife voices so that
they blend. A "slowed down" canary performs a duet with the
soprano saxophone, and both are joined by a robin and a blackbird in a
quartet of great beauty and complexity. The awesome growl from the depths
of a lions throat is accompanied by marimba and guitar in another astonishing
section.
Remarkable
throughout the work is the playing of Evan Parker on soprano saxophone.
His incredible virtuosity extends the vocabulary of that instrument.
Rock,
Jazz and "legitimate" music have come so close together that
the boundaries between them have grown fainter, and in some cases are
no longer discernible. "Worlds within Worlds" is by a composer
who can think and feel in each of these three areas and is the first truly
important work to be thus all embracing. It is in every sense music of
our time. When you enter the sound worlds of Basil Kirchin it isn't much
use taking along your favourite map, because this is new territory, and
you very soon realize you haven't been there before!Yet far out is near
when you get there. As the strange and beautiful landscape becomes familiar
you find rewards not to be found nearer home, which makes it a trip well
worth taking.
For
this is music that cannot be experienced at a distance. You have to go
there. "And once there" says the composer, "the listener
is on his own. My aim is to take him there and then leave him to whatever
he is looking for. In this way "Worlds" is a different personal
experience for each listener who makes the trip with me".
The
journey image is not far fetched, because Basil Kirchin has travelled
deep into the largely undiscovered territory of "inner sound".
Using slower and slower tape speeds he has "stretched" sounds
until fantastic patterns appear which are inaudible at normal speed. This
sloweddown world resembles the surface of another planet, abundant
with granules, rills, and even mountains never before contemplated
by man. And these wondrous new sound shapes form the basis of "Worlds
within Worlds". Sometimes separated from one another, other
times, during hundreds of hours of painstaking editing, mixed into new
patterns of aweinspiring density.
But,
original though the method of composition may be, its the result that
counts, and here Basil Kirchin has used all his musical powers to produce
an album which, on repeated playing, becomes more and more emotionally
gripping.
The
previously released Parts 1 and 2 of "Worlds within Worlds"
were scored for a jazz sextet and various bird, animal, and amplified
insect sounds. Parts 3 and 4 are touchingly notable for the inclusion
of the autistic children of Schurmatt, both "as themselves",
and, treated with the aforementioned technique until totally
unrecognisable. Other sounds are extracted from the following
sources: 1 gorilla, 2 hornbills, 4 flamingo's, various amplified
insects, animals, birds, jets and other engines, and the sounds of the
docks in Hull. The integrated music played for Basil by several close
friends is scored for 1 flugel horn, 1 alp horn, 2 woodwind, 1 cello,
1 arco bass and one organ. So my advice to purchasers of this
record is to put it on, turn it up, and happy landings!
It
is of great significance that Basil Kirchin had only been in a position
to produce these works by courtesy of the Arts Council of Great Britain,
who had given him a special award presenting him with, amongst other things,
a Nagra tape recorder, a special telescopic microphone and equipment to
enable him to pursue this totally original concept. This, in the event,
also led to his gravitating to Switzerland on a permanent basis. Fortunately
in those days the money required to purchase all the necessary sophisticated
musical equipment and to move to Switzerland was readily available.
It was in this phase of his life that further difficulties arose which
were to cause great problems for Basil.
The
first record company completely botched the release. Not even living
up to the terms of the contract regarding distribution and P.R. they were
forced to free Basil from it or face a court case. While still smarting
from the experience and praying that the "secret" wouldn't be
exposed, Basil was approached by a good friend who worked for another
record company and who promised that if they brought out the other two
movements they would not change anything or remix as the
other company had while Basil was in Switzerland working on the other
movements. Basil agreed to this but in the event they too proved to
be untrustworthy, doing the very things that in their promotion they
had put the first company down for, and, bringing out "their"
version of "Worlds".
It
seemed that the main objection was squeamishness because of the autistic
children of Schurmattwhatever, suddenly records of "Whales"
started to appear, birds were chirping away in music, and the whole concept
was out in the open. Fortunately to date, no one has applied the laws
of physics to the sounds to break them down to first, molecules, then
atoms, protons, neutrons or electrons in the technique described by David
Greene, yet this is why "Worlds" works all the time while
listening, one is aware that no human ears have ever heard these
sounds before, coming as they do from a different world in time.
Very depressed by all these politics,
Basil determined to go right back to the thousands of hours of recorded
sounds and "out takes" and do it all over again as it had been
originally. The two record companies having the original masters, apart
from "their" version of them, it was the only way to restore
"Worlds" to what it had been. It was a labour of love of course,
but now, finished, at least the original concept is preserved, and stands
as a monumental "first", it took until 1978 as, to augment
their income in order to continually update the equipment, Basil had to
do more film, t.v. and ghosting work. Once again however his distinct
personal style, even in so called "orthodox" music was recognised
in a film going the rounds in America and Robert Weibach, a good friend
from over there whom Basil had done much work for, found the Kirchin phone
number in Turgi, Switzerland, and phoned from Hollywood to say he had
a thirteen week film series to do for television in England, and ask Basil
if he would do it? Basil of course accepted as the series meant guaranteed
work for a period of five months which would produce more earnings than
he would normally have achieved in a full year.
Basil
and Esther decided that they would move to a small seaside village called
Hornsea on the East coast of Yorkshire which was only a few miles from
his parents retirement home in Hull and the studio belonging to his friend
Keith (where Basil had mixed down the "homemade" versions of
"Worlds"). The plan was that when the series was finished everything
else would be conveniently available for Basil to take on the next stage
of the "Worlds" project. Within a short period of time the
couple had moved to Hornsea to a cottage overlooking the sea and suddenly
the first two episodes of the television series had been recorded. Everyone
involved with the series was deeply impressed by Basil's music and he
received great personal praise from the normally reserved session musicians.
Some
of Basil Kirchin's works (from 1961 onwards)
Doctor Phibes (Film)
The Mutations (Film)
I Start Counting (Film)
Wars Of The Roses (TV Film)
The Shuttered Room (Film)
Negatives (Film)
The Strange Affair (Film)
Assignment K (Film)
Strategic Command (Film)
The Madison Equation (TV Film)
Ronnie Barker Playhouse (TV Comedy Series)
Indian Guide ("pure" Indian music) (TV Film)
Paris (Film Documentary)
The Freelance (Film)
The Suspended Fourth (Film)
Richard
the Third (modern "Sound Score" for Stratford Shakespeare
Theatre)
"Pure Asian Music" (Chinese Porcelain Exhibition "Tang"
Period -
Berkeley Square, London)
"Worlds Within Worlds" Parts 1 & 2 L.P.
"Worlds Within Worlds" Parts 4 & 5 L.P.
Photographs
of the Kirchin Band kindly supplied by Pete Warner
Copyright
© 2000 Jazz Professional. All Rights Reserved
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