Volume 21 Issue 1 - September 2015

The biggest thing is to watch. It’s like when you go out to do street
photography. You don’t just get off the streetcar and start shooting.
You always take the time to look around. It’s the same with jazz musicians.
Certain bass players will play the bass a certain way, same with
horn players and so on. So you’re always kind of waiting for them to
do that thing that they do. You want to get that picture that captures
their energy.”
Red Hot Ramble was the first band that inspired Beard, so they hold
a special place in his heart – and a lot of space on his hard drive.
“They’re the most fun band I have ever photographed. They’re
always having fun on stage. And they’re great people. I know them all
now. They’re joking around when they play, and the music is so high
energy, it’s contagious fun.”
The band’s drummer and one of its founding members, Glenn
Anderson, sings Beard’s praises:
“Upon retiring, Bill took every opportunity he could, in every venue
possible, to photograph Red Hot Ramble. We are a five-piece band,
and Bill soon became our unofficial “sixth Rambler,” even travelling
with the band to hone his photography skills. Over the past four
years, it has been interesting and exciting to compare the parallels in
the evolution and growth of both Red Hot Ramble as a band and our
friend Bill Beard as a photographer.”
Check out Red Hot Ramble’s monthly gig at The Rex Hotel on a
Sunday afternoon from 3:30 to 6:30 and it will be difficult for you not
to smile all the way home. Oozing charm with every note, Roberta
Hunt plays double duty on piano and vocals, while swingin’ firecracker
Alison Young on saxophones is an active volcano of fiery soul.
Along with the solid-as-a-rock Anderson on drums, the band is made
all the more red hot by trombonist Jamie Stager and co-founding
bassist Jack Zorawski. I asked leading lady Hunt how the band
got started:
“Red Hot Ramble was conceived by Jack Zorawski and Glenn
Anderson. They imagined the sound of Alison Young and me joining
forces long before Alison and I had even met! They wanted to build
on their love of traditional New Orleans jazz and blues by adding a
saucier, bolder and funkier angle. Turns out their idea was a keeper!
New Orleans music is about groove and ensemble playing while
leaving room for individuals to share the spotlight. RHR truly is the
sum of all parts, kinda like a spicy gumbo of music!”
Pangman: Another artist that Beard loves to photograph is vocalist
Alex Pangman, who, fresh off a national tour, plays a few groovy gigs
this month, from Rimouski to Gravenhurst, and a few Toronto stops
too, including the Reservoir on September 10.
“I started photographing Alex with JAZZ.FM and later branched out
to also photograph her when she sings with her husband Colonel Tom.
She’s such a nice lady and so photogenic on stage. Always wears great
outfits. And I love her music.”
Pangman is a great admirer of Beard as well: “It has been really
interesting to watch Bill’s photographic style develop around his
ardent appreciation of jazz music, musicians and imagery. More than
that, he understands that live music is best. I fully believe he’s in the
audience as much to enjoy the music as for the images. He’s there to
make a visual record of live shows. We could send his images out in a
spacecraft or time capsule so they could see what jazz looked like in
Toronto in 2015.”
Indeed, you’ll always find Beard taking a moment to contribute to
the tip jar in between framing his shots.
“The nice thing about it is that I don’t usually work for money…I
just find that I come in – I cruise in – I’m one with the artist and I
just shoot what I feel in the moment. There’s no preconceived idea
about what I’m going to get, because then there’s a pressure that
comes along with that. I like it to happen naturally. I’ve had years of
corporate pressure. Now that I’m retired it’s nice to go in, watch them,
shoot, and give the photos away to them. It’s my way of giving back.
They’re giving me so much entertainment.”
Ori Dagan is a Toronto-based jazz musician, writer and
educator who can be reached at oridagan.com.
REMEMBERING Archie Alleyne
SO LONG,
ARCHIE, AND
THANK YOU
STEVE WALLACE
June of this year brought a rash of deaths which rocked the jazz
community – locally, bassist Lenny Boyd and drummer Archie
Alleyne – and internationally, jazz pioneer Ornette Coleman and
third-stream-composer Gunther Schuller. I wrote memorial blogs
about Coleman, Schuller and Boyd, who was my bass teacher. These
can be read by accessing my site at wallacebass.com. I wasn’t going
to write about Archie Alleyne’s yet: I just didn’t have another obituary
piece about such a good friend in me. And then David Perlman – the
editor of this publication – asked me to write about Archie in this
issue of The WholeNote.
Oddly, it was while attending the early spring memorial celebration
of Jim Galloway – who used to write in these very pages – that I
first learned that Archie was seriously ill. I hadn’t seen Archie in some
time and while looking about for him at Jim’s event I was told that he
wasn’t expected to live through the summer, a body blow. He didn’t
even make it that far, dying on June 8 of prostate cancer. Perhaps it’s
just as well he went this quickly, as he was suffering, but the speed
of it was still shocking. Archie was such a zestful man, so integral a
part of Toronto’s musical scene in so many ways and for so long that
it’s hard to believe he’s gone. The palpable gap of his absence from
Galloway’s event was a strange kind of rehearsal for missing him,
something we’ll all have to get used to.
Many readers will already know of Archie’s accomplishments both
as a musician and a social activist promoting greater awareness of jazz,
black culture and racial issues around these parts; he had tremendous
energy and got a lot done. This is more of a personal look: Archie as I
knew him and as I’d like to remember him.
I first came to know Archie around 1979, when he hadn’t yet begun
his comeback as a drummer. He’d left music in 1967 after a nearfatal
car accident left him in hospital for almost a year and slightly
realigned his handsome face (though he was still a ladykiller). After
recovering he went into business as a partner in The Underground
Railroad, a soul food restaurant I enjoyed eating in and occasionally
playing at. Even though he wasn’t playing in those days, I saw a lot
of him at the various Toronto clubs I’d begun working at – George’s
Spaghetti House, Bourbon St. and so on. He loved to go out to hear
live music and hang out; he was a very gregarious, social guy. Always
dressed sharply, laughing, telling stories in that rich Billy Eckstine
voice, musicians generally gathered around; he was hard to miss.
Being green and new to the scene, I wondered who this hip, dapper
character with an elder’s presence might be. Eventually I was introduced
to Archie, little knowing that this would be the beginning of a
long and eventful friendship.
Not long after, he eased back into playing the drums, partly because
the restaurant business was starting to flounder, but I suspect also
because he missed music and had been itching to return. Either way,
the restaurant world’s loss was the local jazz scene’s gain. It took him
a short while to get back into playing shape, but if he’d lost anything
during his long layoff, it didn’t show much. And besides, Archie was
never a flashy technical player; he was mostly self-taught, a “feel”
player, a swinger. All that he’d learned as the virtual house drummer
at the Town Tavern from 1955 to 1966 came back to him pretty naturally.
He and I started to play together here and there with some
frequency. We formed a natural musical and rhythmic chemistry,
mainly because he was easy to play with. He had a nice, relaxed ridecymbal
stroke and played good brushes. His playing could be summed
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