Len Skeat is an English

England

England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...

 jazz

Jazz

Jazz is a musical style that originated at the beginning of the 20th century in African American communities in the Southern United States. It was born out of a mix of African and European music traditions. From its early development until the present, jazz has incorporated music from 19th and 20th...

 double-bassist born in east London, perhaps best-known for his work with the Ted Heath

Ted Heath (bandleader)

Ted Heath, musician and big band leader, led Britain's greatest post-war big band recording more than 100 albums and selling over 20 million records...

 band and younger brother of Bill Skeat (saxes).

During the 1970s he was highly in demand and thus almost resident at the Pizza Express and Pizza On The Park Jazz Clubs in London, where he played with 'everybody and was also a member of the trumpet, guitars and bass quartet known as Velvet.

Skeat has recorded with some prominent jazz artists, such as Mel Tormé

Mel Tormé

Melvin Howard Tormé , nicknamed The Velvet Fog, was an American musician, known for his jazz singing. He was also a jazz composer and arranger, a drummer, an actor in radio, film, and television, and the author of five books...

, Ben Webster

Ben Webster

Benjamin Francis Webster , a.k.a. "The Brute" or "Frog," was an influential American jazz tenor saxophonist. Webster, born in Kansas City, Missouri, was considered one of the three most important "swing tenors" along with Coleman Hawkins and Lester Young...

, Billy Eckstine

Billy Eckstine

William Clarence Eckstine was an American singer of ballads and a bandleader of the swing era. Eckstine's smooth baritone and distinctive vibrato broke down barriers throughout the 1940s, first as leader of the original bop big-band, then as the first romantic black male in popular...

, Lionel Hampton

Lionel Hampton

Lionel Leo Hampton was an American jazz vibraphonist, pianist, percussionist, bandleader and actor. Like Red Norvo, he was one of the first jazz vibraphone players. Hampton ranks among the great names in jazz history, having worked with a who's who of jazz musicians, from Benny Goodman and Buddy...

, Scott Hamilton

Scott Hamilton (musician)

Scott Hamilton is a jazz tenor saxophonist, born in 1954 and associated with swing and mainstream jazz.-Biography:He emerged in the 1970s and at the time he was considered to be one of the few musicians of real talent who carried the tradition of the classic jazz tenor saxophone in the style of...

, Helen Merrill

Helen Merrill

Helen Merrill is an internationally known jazz vocalist.Merrill's recording career has spanned six decades and she is popular with fans of jazz in Japan and Italy as well as in her native United States...

, Lou Rawls

Lou Rawls

Louis Allen "Lou" Rawls was an American soul, jazz, and blues singer. He was known for his smooth vocal style: Frank Sinatra once said that Rawls had "the classiest singing and silkiest chops in the singing game"...

, Harry Edison, Denny Wright

Denny Wright

Denny Wright was a jazz and skiffle guitarist, who performed with Stephane Grappelli, Lonnie Donegan, Johnny Duncan , Digby Fairweather, Ella Fitzgerald, Billy Eckstine, Fapy Lafertin and many other musicians, including young rising stars such as Bireli Lagrene and Nigel Kennedy...

, Digby Fairweather

Digby Fairweather

Digby Fairweather is a British jazz cornettist and broadcaster.-Biography:Fairweather has been a professional jazz musician since 1 January 1977, but worked for seven years previously with several local jazz bands in the Essex area and recorded his first album in 1975...

, Spike Robinson

Spike Robinson

Henry Berthold "Spike" Robinson was a tenor saxophonist. He began playing at age twelve, making recordings with famous jazz and bop musicians on several labels including Discovery, Hep and Concord. However, he sought an engineering degree and followed that profession on a fulltime basis for nearly...

, Eddie Lockjaw Davis, Stephane Grappelli

Stéphane Grappelli

Stéphane Grappelli was a French jazz violinist who founded the Quintette du Hot Club de France with guitarist Django Reinhardt in 1934. It was one of the first all-string jazz bands....

, 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 :...

, Charly Antolini

Charly Antolini

Charly Antolini is a Swiss jazz drummer.Antolini started playing the traditional Swiss Basler drum and in 1956 went to Paris where he played with Sidney Bechet, Bill Coleman among others, and playing in the Oldtime Jazz Band "The Tremble Kids" with trumpeter Oscar Klein and clarinettist Werner...

, Bill Watrous

Bill Watrous

William Russell Watrous III is a jazz trombonist. He is perhaps best known by casual fans of jazz music for his rendition of Sammy Nestico's arrangement of the Johnny Mandel ballad "A Time for Love," which he recorded on a 1993 album of the same name...

, and Randy Sandke

Randy Sandke

Randy Sandke is a jazz trumpeter and guitarist.In an interview with Larry Kart he said: "I got into jazz kind of chronologically, beginning with Bix and Louis, then Dizzy, Clifford Brown, Miles, and Freddie Hubbard. I also studied at Roosevelt University with Renold Schilke, a legendary teacher...

. He was also a member of the Eddie Thompson

Eddie Thompson (musician)

Eddie Thompson b. London 31 May 1925, d. 6 November 1986 was a British jazz pianist.After studying at the same school for the blind as George Shearing, Thompson recorded with Victor Feldman in the late 1940s. In the 1950s he worked with Tony Crombie, Vic Ash, Freddy Randall and Tommy Whittle and...

 Trio and Charly Antolini

Charly Antolini

Charly Antolini is a Swiss jazz drummer.Antolini started playing the traditional Swiss Basler drum and in 1956 went to Paris where he played with Sidney Bechet, Bill Coleman among others, and playing in the Oldtime Jazz Band "The Tremble Kids" with trumpeter Oscar Klein and clarinettist Werner...

's Jazz Power.

Discography

with Bill Watrous

Bill Watrous

William Russell Watrous III is a jazz trombonist. He is perhaps best known by casual fans of jazz music for his rendition of Sammy Nestico's arrangement of the Johnny Mandel ballad "A Time for Love," which he recorded on a 1993 album of the same name...

• 1982: Bill Watrous in London

with Spike Robinson

Spike Robinson

Henry Berthold "Spike" Robinson was a tenor saxophonist. He began playing at age twelve, making recordings with famous jazz and bop musicians on several labels including Discovery, Hep and Concord. However, he sought an engineering degree and followed that profession on a fulltime basis for nearly...

:

• 1984: Spike Robinson - Eddie Thompson Trio / At Chesters Volumes 1 & 2 (Hep Records
  Hep Records
  Hep Records is a Scottish record label specializing in both new and reissued jazz music. The label was founded in 1974 by Alastair Robertson in Edinburgh.-Past and present artists:*Don Lanphere*Jessica Williams*Jim Mullen*Tommy Smith*Michael Hashim...
  
  )
• 1986: In Town with Elaine Delmar (Hep Records)
• 1987: The Gershwin Collection (Hep Records)

with Charly Antolini Jazz Power:

• 1989: Cookin' (L+R Records)
• 1990: Charly Antolini Meets Dick Morrissey
  Charly Antolini Meets Dick Morrissey
  Charly Antolini Meets Dick Morrissey is the second album recorded by Swiss drummer Charly Antolini and UK tenor sax player Dick Morrissey. The tracks are jazz and pop standards and were recorded live at Pizza Express' Pizza on the Park, London on 5 December 1990.- Track listing :#"Secret Love"...
  
  
• 1993: Right-On
  Right-On
  Right-On is the third album of jazz and pop standards by Swiss jazz drummer Charly Antolini featuring UK tenor sax player Dick Morrissey.- Track listing :#"The Night Has a Thousand Eyes"...
  
  (Bell Records)