John Burch was a British pianist, composer and band leader equally at home playing traditional jazz, bebop

Bebop

Bebop differed drastically from the straightforward compositions of the swing era, and was instead characterized by fast tempos, asymmetrical phrasing, intricate melodies, and rhythm sections that expanded on their role as tempo-keepers...

, blues

Blues

Blues is the name given to both a musical form and a music genre that originated in African-American communities of primarily the "Deep South" of the United States at the end of the 19th century from spirituals, work songs, field hollers, shouts and chants, and rhymed simple narrative ballads...

, skiffle

Skiffle

Skiffle is a type of popular music with jazz, blues, folk, roots and country influences, usually using homemade or improvised instruments. Originating as a term in the United States in the first half of the twentieth century, it became popular again in the UK in the 1950s, where it was mainly...

, boogie-woogie

Boogie-woogie

Boogie-woogie has the following meanings:*Boogie-woogie, a piano-based music style*Boogie-woogie , a swing dance or a dance that imitates the rock-n-roll dance of the 1950s*"Boogie Woogie" , a song by EuroGroove and Dannii Minogue...

 and rock

Rock music

Rock music is a genre of popular music that developed during and after the 1960s, particularly in the United Kingdom and the United States. It has its roots in 1940s and 1950s rock and roll, itself heavily influenced by rhythm and blues and country music...

.

Having started with piano lessons at age 12 he played in army bands during his military service stationed in Germany and in the late 50s toured military bases with his group, which included Graham Bond

Graham Bond

Graham John Clifton Bond was an English musician, considered a founding father of the English rhythm and blues boom of the 1960s....

. In 1959, he toured France with bassist Jeff Clyne

Jeff Clyne

Jeffrey Ovid 'Jeff' Clyne was a British jazz bassist .-Biography:...

 and saxophonist Bobby Wellins

Bobby Wellins

Robert Coull "Bobby" Wellins is a Scottish tenor saxophonist best known for his collaboration with Stan Tracey on the seminal 1965 British jazz album Under Milk Wood....

.

In 1960 he joined Allan Ganley

Allan Ganley

Allan Ganley was a respected English jazz drummer and arranger, who played with many famous names....

's Jazzmakers. In the early 60s he led a quartet and an octet with Graham Bond, Dick Heckstall-Smith

Dick Heckstall-Smith

Dick Heckstall-Smith was an English jazz and blues saxophonist. He played with some of the most important English blues-rock and jazz fusion bands of the 1960s and 1970s.-Early years:...

, Ray Warleigh, Peter King

Peter King (saxophonist)

Peter John King is an English jazz saxophonist, composer, and clarinettist.- Early life :Peter King was born in Kingston upon Thames, Surrey, on August 11, 1940. He took up the clarinet and saxophone as a teenager, entirely self taught...

, Hank Shaw

Hank Shaw

Henry Shalofsky, better known as Hank Shaw was an English bebop jazz trumpeter.Shaw played with Teddy Foster's band during World War II at the age of 15...

 and future Cream

Cream (band)

Cream were a 1960s British rock supergroup consisting of bassist/vocalist Jack Bruce, guitarist/vocalist Eric Clapton, and drummer Ginger Baker...

 founders Ginger Baker

Ginger Baker

Peter Edward "Ginger" Baker is an English drummer, best known for his work with Cream and Blind Faith. He is also known for his numerous associations with World music, mainly the use of African influences...

 and Jack Bruce

Jack Bruce

John Symon Asher "Jack" Bruce is a Scottish musician and songwriter, respected as a founding member of the British psychedelic rock power trio, Cream, for a solo career that spans several decades, and for his participation in several well-known musical ensembles...

. In 1965 he led a trio featuring Ron Mathewson

Ron Mathewson

Ron Mathewson is a Scottish jazz double bassist and bass guitarist born in Lerwick, Shetland Isles, Scotland. Mathewson is best known for his years spent working with Ronnie Scott, but has also done recordings with Stan Getz, Joe Henderson, Ben Webster, Philly Joe Jones, Roy Eldridge, Oscar...

 and John Stevens

John Stevens (drummer)

John William Stevens was an English drummer. He was one of the most significant figures in early free improvisation, and a founding member of the Spontaneous Music Ensemble .-Biography:Stevens was born in Brentford, the son of a tap dancer...

.
Other musicians he worked with include Don Rendell

Don Rendell

Donald Percy 'Don' Rendell is an English jazz musician and arranger, specialising on tenor saxophone, but also playing soprano saxophone, flute, and clarinet....

, Rahsaan Roland Kirk

Rahsaan Roland Kirk

Rahsaan Roland Kirk was an American jazz multi-instrumentalist who played tenor saxophone, flute and many other instruments...

, Freddie Hubbard

Freddie Hubbard

Frederick Dewayne "Freddie" Hubbard was an American jazz trumpeter. He was known primarily for playing in the bebop, hard bop and post bop styles from the early 1960s and on...

, Red Rodney

Red Rodney

Robert Roland Chudnick , who performed by the stage name Red Rodney, was an American bop and hard bop trumpeter.-Biography:...

, Jon Eardley

Jon Eardley

Jon Eardley was an American jazz trumpeter.Eardley first started on trumpet at the age of 11; his father had played in Paul Whiteman's orchestra. He played in an Air Force band in Washington, D.C. from 1946 to 1949, then played with his own quartet in D.C. from 1950 to 1953...

, Kathy Stobart

Kathy Stobart

Florence Kathleen "Kathy" Stobart is a British jazz saxophonist. Her concentration is on tenor sax.Stobart first learned piano as a child. After picking up saxophone, she first played locally in Newcastle and then in London in the 1940s with Denis Rose, Ted Heath and Jimmy Skidmore. Later that...

 and Eddie Vinson

Eddie Vinson

Eddie "Cleanhead" Vinson was an American jump blues, jazz, bebop and R&B alto saxophonist and blues shouter. He was nicknamed Cleanhead after an incident in which his hair was accidentally destroyed by lye contained in a hair straightening product.-Biography:Vinson was born in Houston, Texas...

, and in 1984 he re-formed the octet with Dick Morrissey

Dick Morrissey

Richard Edwin "Dick" Morrissey was a British jazz musician and composer. He played the tenor sax, soprano sax and flute.- Background :...

, at the same time playing with UK jazz-funk

Jazz-funk

Jazz-funk is a sub-genre of jazz music characterized by a strong back beat , electrified sounds, and often, the presence of the first electronic analog synthesizers...

 band Morrissey - Mullen

Morrissey - Mullen

Morrissey Mullen was a British jazz-funk/fusion group of the 1970s and 1980s.Considered one of the most popular jazz groups in London, the band was led by Dick Morrissey on tenor and soprano saxes and flute, and Jim Mullen on guitar, who joined forces in 1975, their playing together for sixteen ...

.

As a composer, he wrote "Preach and Teach" (1966) which provided the B-side of Georgie Fame and the Blue Flames

Georgie Fame and the Blue Flames

Georgie Fame and the Blue Flames were a noted British rhythm and blues/soul/jazz/ska/pop group of the 1960s. They had been the backing band for Billy Fury but, after being dismissed at the end of 1961, their pianist Georgie Fame took over as vocalist and they went on to enjoy great...

' hit "Yeh Yeh

Yeh Yeh

"Yeh Yeh" is a Latin soul tune that was written as an instrumental by Rodgers Grant and Pat Patrick and first recorded by Mongo Santamaría on his 1963 album Watermelon Man . Lyrics were written for it shortly thereafter by Jon Hendricks of the vocal group Lambert, Hendricks & Ross. This version of...

" and was also recorded by Buddy Rich

Buddy Rich

Bernard "Buddy" Rich was an American jazz drummer and bandleader. Rich was billed as "the world's greatest drummer" and was known for his virtuosic technique, power, groove, and speed.-Early life:...

. He composed Fame's follow-up, "In the Meantime", and also its B-side, "Telegram".

He dedicated his "Resurrection Ritual Suite" to Dick Morrissey and on his death had just completed a tribute to Ronnie Scott

Ronnie Scott

Ronnie Scott was an English jazz tenor saxophonist and jazz club owner.-Life and career:Ronnie Scott was born in Aldgate, east London, into a family of Russian Jewish descent on his father's side, and Portuguese antecedents on his mother's. Scott began playing in small jazz clubs at the age of...

 called "Just By Chance".

He was also a teacher on the Barry Summer School jazz-education project which was attended by pianist Keith Tippett

Keith Tippett

Keith Tippett is a British jazz pianist and composer.Tippett, the son of a local police officer, went to Greenway Boys Secondary Modern school in Southmead, Bristol. He formed his first jazz band called The KT7 whilst still at school and they performed numbers popular at the time by The Temperance...

.

See also

Ian Carr

Ian Carr

Ian Carr was a Scottish jazz musician, composer, writer, and educator.-Early years:Carr was born in Dumfries, Scotland, the elder brother of Mike Carr...