Biography
Hank Shaw emerged among the earliest British jazz artists to embrace the rising bebop style. Observers widely regard this uncommonly impassioned and inventive musician as Europe’s finest bop trumpeter. Born Henry Shalofsky in London on June 23, 1926, Shaw began his professional life at fifteen by directing a dance ensemble under the name of Teddy Foster while World War II called many players to service. The wartime absence of numerous competitors allowed Shaw to advance rapidly through the London scene, accompanying Oscar Rabin, Frank Weir, and Tommy Sampson in swift succession. Exposure to Dizzy Gillespie in 1946 led Shaw to adopt the bebop idiom completely, an allegiance he maintained for the rest of his career. The following year he journeyed to the United States to observe the movement at its source, yet a denied work permit redirected him to Canada, where he performed behind Oscar Peterson and Maynard Ferguson. Returning to London late in 1948, Shaw joined Ronnie Scott, John Dankworth, and other local bop enthusiasts in founding the celebrated Club Eleven collective. That autumn he appeared with them on recordings issued as Alan Dean’s Beboppers, later valued as among the first British documents of the style. After Club Eleven dissolved, Shaw enlisted with Vic Lewis’ progressive big band. One year later he made his initial European circuit behind vocalist Cab Kaye. Brief dance-band engagements followed before he joined Jack Parnell in mid-1953 and moved to Ronnie Scott’s new nine-piece group the next year. From the mid-1950s onward Shaw remained a constant presence in British jazz, both as a preferred session musician and as a regular figure on the London club circuit. The purity of his tone earned particular notice, matched by remarkable agility and sustained energy. In 1959 he recorded the cult classic Southern Horizon with Jamaican saxophonist Joe Harriott and performed in groups led by Tony Crombie, Don Rendell, and Tony Kinsey. He also directed his own quartet, which frequently topped bills at the 100 Club. An extended association with Stan Tracey reached its high point with the 1969 album The Seven Ages of Man. Shaw then entered the quintet known as the Bebop Preservation Society with pianist Bill Le Sage; in 1974 the group toured with American trumpeter Red Rodney. Accounts indicate Shaw outperformed the visiting bop figure each night, effectively answering any claims of British jazz’s inferiority. He continued with the BPS on and off for more than twenty-five years and spent roughly two decades with the John Burch Quartet until failing health prompted retirement in the late 1990s. Shaw died in Kent, England, on October 26, 2006.