Ronnie Stephenson
Encyclopedia
Ronnie Stephenson was an English
jazz drummer.
As a boy, he wanted to become a tap dancer like his idol Gene Kelly
, but he was persuaded by his father and his brother to take up the drums.
He already played his first gig in public in the same week as he took his first drum lesson at the age of 14 and was soon working with pianist elder brother Bob's band, and then with the Ray Chester’s Sextet.
When he was 16, he joined the singer Lita Roza
, a national star who had left the Ted Heath
band to tour the variety theatre circuit as a soloist. The 10 months he spent with her was to be of great experience in the music business.
He was conscripted into the Army and served in The Royal Signals Band. He was demobbed in 1957.
Stephenson had a close association with Ronnie Scott
and the Club, spent two years in Ronnie Scott's Quartet, and accompanied many visiting stars.
He toured Germany with Tom Jones
in 1969 and then took up the resident drum chair with the Kurt Edelhagen
Band after moving to Cologne with his wife Jean, daughter Kim, and son Carl. After three years with the Edelhagen band, he teamed up with pianist Paul Kuhn in Berlin and toured all over Europe with a variety of bands and artists.
He joined the Theater des Westens orchestra in Berlin in 1981, and remained there until his retirement on health grounds in 1995.
He also taught at the University of Berlin from 1990 to 1993.
He retired from music on medical advice, and settled in Scotland, where he turned to golf as a restorative, becoming a member of Strathmore Golf Club.
He performed or recorded with Sonny Rollins
, Stan Getz
, Wes Montgomery
, Zoot Sims
, Quincy Jones
, Paul Gonsalves
, Johnny Griffin
, Roland Kirk, Gerry Mulligan
, Sonny Stitt
, Barney Kessel
, Benny Golson
, Benny Goodman
, Nelson Riddle
, Ella Fitzgerald
, Mel Tormé
, Ronnie Ross
, Stan Tracey
, Ted Heath
, Dick Morrissey
, Terry Smith
, Jack Parnell
, John Dankworth
, Tubby Hayes
, Cleo Laine
, Kurt Edelhagen, Peter Herbolzheimer
, Horst Jankowski, Paul Kuhn, Rolf Kuhn, Kenny Clarke
, Victor Feldman
, Heinz von Hermann and Hans Rettenbacher, among many others.
In addition to his many jazz connections, he also played with pop stars such as Tom Jones
, Matt Monro
, Tony Bennett
, Engelbert Humperdinck
, Cilla Black
and Shirley Bassey
.
He also played on the Bond
themes Diamonds Are Forever
and You Only Live Twice
and on other film scores including Chitty Chitty Bang Bang
.
His grandaughter Lucille, born in 2001, now lives in East Sussex.
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 drummer.
Biography
Stephenson was one of the most in-demand drummers on the British jazz scene in the 1960s.As a boy, he wanted to become a tap dancer like his idol Gene Kelly
Gene Kelly
Eugene Curran "Gene" Kelly was an American dancer, actor, singer, film director and producer, and choreographer...
, but he was persuaded by his father and his brother to take up the drums.
He already played his first gig in public in the same week as he took his first drum lesson at the age of 14 and was soon working with pianist elder brother Bob's band, and then with the Ray Chester’s Sextet.
When he was 16, he joined the singer Lita Roza
Lita Roza
Lita Roza was a British singer. Her 1953 number one hit record " That Doggie in the Window?" afforded Roza the privilege of being the first British female singer to top the UK Singles Chart, and the first Liverpudlian to do so.-Biography:Born Lilian Patricia Lita Roza in Liverpool, Lancashire,...
, a national star who had left 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 to tour the variety theatre circuit as a soloist. The 10 months he spent with her was to be of great experience in the music business.
He was conscripted into the Army and served in The Royal Signals Band. He was demobbed in 1957.
Stephenson had a close association with 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...
and the Club, spent two years in Ronnie Scott's Quartet, and accompanied many visiting stars.
He toured Germany with Tom Jones
Tom Jones (singer)
Sir Thomas John Woodward, OBE , known by his stage name Tom Jones, is a Welsh singer.Since the mid 1960s, Jones has sung many styles of popular music – pop, rock, R&B, show tunes, country, dance, techno, soul and gospel – and sold over 100 million records...
in 1969 and then took up the resident drum chair with the Kurt Edelhagen
Kurt Edelhagen
Kurt Edelhagen, born 5 June 1920 in Herne, died 8 February 1982 in Köln, was a major European big band leader throughout the 1950s.After having studied clarinet and piano in Essen, he set up his multicultural big band, which over the years would include many big names in jazz in Europe, including...
Band after moving to Cologne with his wife Jean, daughter Kim, and son Carl. After three years with the Edelhagen band, he teamed up with pianist Paul Kuhn in Berlin and toured all over Europe with a variety of bands and artists.
He joined the Theater des Westens orchestra in Berlin in 1981, and remained there until his retirement on health grounds in 1995.
He also taught at the University of Berlin from 1990 to 1993.
He retired from music on medical advice, and settled in Scotland, where he turned to golf as a restorative, becoming a member of Strathmore Golf Club.
He performed or recorded with Sonny Rollins
Sonny Rollins
Theodore Walter "Sonny" Rollins is a Grammy-winning American jazz tenor saxophonist. Rollins is widely recognized as one of the most important and influential jazz musicians. A number of his compositions, including "St...
, Stan Getz
Stan Getz
Stanley Getz was an American jazz saxophone player. Getz was known as "The Sound" because of his warm, lyrical tone, his prime influence being the wispy, mellow timbre of his idol, Lester Young. Coming to prominence in the late 1940s with Woody Herman's big band, Getz is described by critic Scott...
, Wes Montgomery
Wes Montgomery
John Leslie "Wes" Montgomery was an American jazz guitarist. He is widely considered one of the major jazz guitarists, emerging after such seminal figures as Django Reinhardt and Charlie Christian and influencing countless others, including Pat Martino, George Benson, Russell Malone, Emily...
, Zoot Sims
Zoot Sims
John Haley "Zoot" Sims was an American jazz saxophonist, playing mainly tenor and soprano.-Biography:He was born in Inglewood, California, the son of vaudeville performers Kate Haley and John Sims. Growing up in a performing family, Sims learned to play both drums and clarinet at an early age...
, Quincy Jones
Quincy Jones
Quincy Delightt Jones, Jr. is an American record producer and musician. A conductor, musical arranger, film composer, television producer, and trumpeter. His career spans five decades in the entertainment industry and a record 79 Grammy Award nominations, 27 Grammys, including a Grammy Legend...
, Paul Gonsalves
Paul Gonsalves
Paul Gonsalves, was an American jazz tenor saxophonist best known for his association with Duke Ellington. At the 1956 Newport Jazz Festival, Gonsalves played a 27-chorus solo in the middle of Ellington's "Diminuendo and Crescendo in Blue"...
, Johnny Griffin
Johnny Griffin
John Arnold Griffin III was an American bop and hard bop tenor saxophonist.- Early life and career :Griffin studied music at DuSable High School in Chicago under Walter Dyett, starting out on clarinet before moving on to oboe and then alto sax...
, Roland Kirk, Gerry Mulligan
Gerry Mulligan
Gerald Joseph "Gerry" Mulligan was an American jazz saxophonist, clarinetist, composer and arranger. Though Mulligan is primarily known as one of the leading baritone saxophonists in jazz history – playing the instrument with a light and airy tone in the era of cool jazz – he was also...
, Sonny Stitt
Sonny Stitt
Edward "Sonny" Stitt was an American jazz saxophonist of the bebop/hard bop idiom. He was also one of the best-documented saxophonists of his generation, recording over 100 albums in his lifetime...
, Barney Kessel
Barney Kessel
Barney Kessel was an American jazz guitarist born in Muskogee, Oklahoma, USA. Generally considered to be one of the greatest jazz guitarists of the 20th century, he was noted in particular for his vast knowledge of chords and inversions and chord-based melodies...
, Benny Golson
Benny Golson
Benny Golson is an American bebop/hard bop jazz tenor saxophonist, composer, and arranger.-Biography:While in high school in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania Golson played with several other promising young musicians, including John Coltrane, Red Garland, Jimmy Heath, Percy Heath, Philly Joe Jones, and...
, Benny Goodman
Benny Goodman
Benjamin David “Benny” Goodman was an American jazz and swing musician, clarinetist and bandleader; widely known as the "King of Swing".In the mid-1930s, Benny Goodman led one of the most popular musical groups in America...
, Nelson Riddle
Nelson Riddle
Nelson Smock Riddle, Jr. was an American arranger, composer, bandleader and orchestrator whose career stretched from the late 1940s to the mid 1980s...
, Ella Fitzgerald
Ella Fitzgerald
Ella Jane Fitzgerald , also known as the "First Lady of Song" and "Lady Ella," was an American jazz and song vocalist...
, 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...
, Ronnie Ross
Ronnie Ross
Albert Ronald "Ronnie" Ross was a jazz baritone saxophonist.Ross moved to England in 1946 and began playing tenor saxophone in the 1950s with Tony Kinsey, Ted Heath, and Don Rendell. During his tenure with Rendell he switched to baritone saxophone...
, Stan Tracey
Stan Tracey
Stanley William Tracey CBE is a British jazz pianist and composer, most influenced by Duke Ellington and Thelonious Monk.-Early career:...
, 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...
, 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 :...
, Terry Smith
Terry Smith (British jazz guitarist)
Terence 'Terry' Smith is a British Jazz guitarist.-Biography:Twice winner of the Melody Maker Music Polls, Smith spent the early 1960s playing with the Tony Lee Trio, before becoming Scott Walker's musical director and accompanying The Walker Brothers on their Japan tour in 1968...
, Jack Parnell
Jack Parnell
John Russell Parnell was an English bandleader and musician.-Biography:Parnell was born into a theatrical family in London....
, John Dankworth
John Dankworth
Sir John Phillip William Dankworth, CBE , known in his early career as Johnny Dankworth, was an English jazz composer, saxophonist and clarinetist...
, Tubby Hayes
Tubby Hayes
Edward Brian "Tubby" Hayes was an English jazz multi-instrumentalist, best known for his tenor saxophone playing in groups with fellow sax player Ronnie Scott and with trumpeter Jimmy Deuchar. He is widely regarded as one of the greatest British jazz instrumentalists.- Early life :Hayes was born...
, Cleo Laine
Cleo Laine
Dame Cleo Laine, Lady Dankworth, DBE is a jazz singer and an actress, noted for her scat singing and vocal range...
, Kurt Edelhagen, Peter Herbolzheimer
Peter Herbolzheimer
Peter Herbolzheimer was a German jazz trombonist and bandleader.- Biography :Herbolzheimer was born in Bucharest and migrated from communist Romania to West Germany in 1951. In 1953 he moved to the United States of America, where he worked as a guitarist...
, Horst Jankowski, Paul Kuhn, Rolf Kuhn, Kenny Clarke
Kenny Clarke
Kenny Clarke , born Kenneth Spearman Clarke, nicknamed "Klook" and later known as Liaqat Ali Salaam, was a jazz drummer and an early innovator of the bebop style of drumming...
, Victor Feldman
Victor Feldman
Victor Stanley Feldman was a British jazz musician, best known as a pianist.-Early history:...
, Heinz von Hermann and Hans Rettenbacher, among many others.
In addition to his many jazz connections, he also played with pop stars such as Tom Jones
Tom Jones (singer)
Sir Thomas John Woodward, OBE , known by his stage name Tom Jones, is a Welsh singer.Since the mid 1960s, Jones has sung many styles of popular music – pop, rock, R&B, show tunes, country, dance, techno, soul and gospel – and sold over 100 million records...
, Matt Monro
Matt Monro
Matt Monro was an English singer who became one of the most popular entertainers on the international music scene during the 1960s...
, Tony Bennett
Tony Bennett
Tony Bennett is an American singer of popular music, standards, show tunes, and jazz....
, Engelbert Humperdinck
Engelbert Humperdinck (singer)
Engelbert Humperdinck is a British pop singer, best known for his hits including "Release Me " and "After the Lovin'" as well as "The Last Waltz" .-Early life:...
, Cilla Black
Cilla Black
Cilla Black OBE is an English singer, actress, entertainer and media personality, who has been consistently popular as a light entertainment figure since 1963. She is most famous for her singles Anyone Who Had A Heart, You're My World, and Alfie...
and Shirley Bassey
Shirley Bassey
Dame Shirley Bassey, DBE , is a Welsh singer. She found fame in the late 1950s and was "one of the most popular female vocalists in Britain during the last half of the 20th century"...
.
He also played on the Bond
James Bond
James Bond, code name 007, is a fictional character created in 1953 by writer Ian Fleming, who featured him in twelve novels and two short story collections. There have been a six other authors who wrote authorised Bond novels or novelizations after Fleming's death in 1964: Kingsley Amis,...
themes Diamonds Are Forever
Diamonds Are Forever (film)
Diamonds Are Forever is the seventh spy film in the Eon Productions James Bond series, and the sixth and final Eon Productions film to star Sean Connery as the fictional MI6 agent James Bond. The film is based on Ian Fleming's 1956 novel of the same name, and is the second of four James Bond films...
and You Only Live Twice
You Only Live Twice (film)
You Only Live Twice is the fifth spy film in the James Bond series, and the fifth to star Sean Connery as the fictional MI6 agent James Bond. The film's screenplay was written by Roald Dahl, and loosely based on Ian Fleming's 1964 novel of the same name...
and on other film scores including Chitty Chitty Bang Bang
Chitty Chitty Bang Bang (film)
Chitty Chitty Bang Bang is a 1968 musical film with a script by Roald Dahl and Ken Hughes, and songs by the Sherman Brothers, loosely based on Ian Fleming's novel Chitty Chitty Bang Bang: The Magical Car. It starred Dick Van Dyke as Caractacus Potts and Sally Ann Howes as Truly Scrumptious. The...
.
His grandaughter Lucille, born in 2001, now lives in East Sussex.
Selected discography
- 1958: Stan GetzStan GetzStanley Getz was an American jazz saxophone player. Getz was known as "The Sound" because of his warm, lyrical tone, his prime influence being the wispy, mellow timbre of his idol, Lester Young. Coming to prominence in the late 1940s with Woody Herman's big band, Getz is described by critic Scott...
and the Big Band of Europe - 1960: Stan Getz with Kurt Edelhagen Orchestra
- 1962: Bebop from the East Coast - Mike Carr's EmCee Five
- 1964: Boom-Jackie-Boom-Chick - Paul GonsalvesPaul GonsalvesPaul Gonsalves, was an American jazz tenor saxophonist best known for his association with Duke Ellington. At the 1956 Newport Jazz Festival, Gonsalves played a 27-chorus solo in the middle of Ellington's "Diminuendo and Crescendo in Blue"...
- 1964: The Night Has A Thousand Eyes - Ronnie Scott and Sonny StittSonny StittEdward "Sonny" Stitt was an American jazz saxophonist of the bebop/hard bop idiom. He was also one of the best-documented saxophonists of his generation, recording over 100 albums in his lifetime...
- Live At Ronnie Scott's - 1965: Just Friends - Paul GonsalvesPaul GonsalvesPaul Gonsalves, was an American jazz tenor saxophonist best known for his association with Duke Ellington. At the 1956 Newport Jazz Festival, Gonsalves played a 27-chorus solo in the middle of Ellington's "Diminuendo and Crescendo in Blue"...
- 1965: Double Event - Ronnie Scott Trio
- 1965: Wes MontgomeryWes MontgomeryJohn Leslie "Wes" Montgomery was an American jazz guitarist. He is widely considered one of the major jazz guitarists, emerging after such seminal figures as Django Reinhardt and Charlie Christian and influencing countless others, including Pat Martino, George Benson, Russell Malone, Emily...
- Live In Europe - 1965: Wes Montgomery - Live at Ronnie Scott's
- 1965: Three Little Words - The Stan Tracey Quartet with Benny GolsonBenny GolsonBenny Golson is an American bebop/hard bop jazz tenor saxophonist, composer, and arranger.-Biography:While in high school in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania Golson played with several other promising young musicians, including John Coltrane, Red Garland, Jimmy Heath, Percy Heath, Philly Joe Jones, and...
- 1965: Laughin' And Scratchin' - Stan TraceyStan TraceyStanley William Tracey CBE is a British jazz pianist and composer, most influenced by Duke Ellington and Thelonious Monk.-Early career:...
- 1966: Alice in Jazz Land - The Stan Tracey Big Band
- 1966: Drum Spectacular - Kenny Clare & Ronnie Stephenson
- 1966: The Stan Tracey Big Band
- 1967: With Love from Jazz - The Stan Tracey Quartet
- 1968: Cleopatra's Needle - Ronnie RossRonnie RossAlbert Ronald "Ronnie" Ross was a jazz baritone saxophonist.Ross moved to England in 1946 and began playing tenor saxophone in the 1950s with Tony Kinsey, Ted Heath, and Don Rendell. During his tenure with Rendell he switched to baritone saxophone...
- 1969: The Greatest Little Soul Band in the LandThe Greatest Little Soul Band in the LandThe Greatest Little Soul Band in the Land was J.J. Jackson's first UK-recorded album following his hit single "But It's Alright", also recorded in the UK.- Track listing :#"Tobacco Road" The Greatest Little Soul Band in the Land was J.J. Jackson's first UK-recorded album following his hit single...
- J.J. Jackson - 1969: Fall Out - Terry SmithTerry Smith (British jazz guitarist)Terence 'Terry' Smith is a British Jazz guitarist.-Biography:Twice winner of the Melody Maker Music Polls, Smith spent the early 1960s playing with the Tony Lee Trio, before becoming Scott Walker's musical director and accompanying The Walker Brothers on their Japan tour in 1968...
- - 1978: Sincerely Ours - Rolf EricsonRolf EricsonRolf Ericson was a Swedish jazz trumpeter. He also played the flugelhorn.- Early career :He moved to New York City in 1947 and in 1949 joined Charlie Barnet's big band and with Woody Herman in 1950...
/Johnny GriffinJohnny GriffinJohn Arnold Griffin III was an American bop and hard bop tenor saxophonist.- Early life and career :Griffin studied music at DuSable High School in Chicago under Walter Dyett, starting out on clarinet before moving on to oboe and then alto sax...
External links
- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LLwvdv5oWVw
- http://www.jazzprofessional.com/memorial/Ronnie%20Stephenson.htm