Ken Colyer

Ken Colyer ranked among England’s foremost practitioners of traditional jazz, yet his impact might have remained strictly domestic had one offshoot project not set in motion sweeping shifts across popular music. Having taught himself trumpet and guitar, he helped establish the Crane River Jazz Band in 1949 and stayed with the New Orleans-styled ensemble until 1953, though he departed its ranks late in 1951 to enlist in the Merchant Marines and reach New Orleans for sessions with local masters. After arriving back in England in March 1953, he entered an ensemble originally assembled by Monty Sunshine and Chris Barber; the unit soon adopted the name Ken Colyer’s Jazzmen. In the manner of his earlier group, Colyer’s programs featured an embedded “band within a band” interlude meant to trace jazz to its origins through guitar-driven, rhythmically charged adaptations of American folk forms that audiences came to call skiffle. His exit from the Jazzmen in 1954 allowed the remaining players to regroup under Barber and banjoist Lonnie Donegan, whose skiffle single “Rock Island Line” soon ignited the interest of a young Liverpool musician, John Lennon. From that point Colyer divided his efforts between trumpet-led traditional jazz outfits and guitar-based skiffle ensembles, cutting numerous sides for English Decca. The lyrical, Bunk Johnson-inspired trumpet lines he contributed to his jazz units imparted a signature character, while his skiffle aggregations projected a deeper blues sensibility than most British counterparts, shaped by the Leadbelly 78s he had acquired in New York at age nineteen. Throughout the middle fifties his jazz ensemble stood alongside Barber’s as one of Britain’s premier traditional groups, its roster at various times including Acker Bilk, Ian Wheeler, and Mac Duncan. Colyer continued directing bands through the sixties and seventies, pausing only for periods of illness, and simultaneously operated his own KC imprint, presented concerts at his Studio 11 club, and resurfaced in the early eighties fronting the All-Star Jazzmen.