DID YOU EVER serve in Geraldo’s Navy? Have you even heard of Geraldo? Gerald Ford, known as ‘Geraldo’, was a British bandleader and impresario whose career spanned the 1930s, 40s and 50s. While running his own very successful orchestra, he also supplied musicians for special events. One of his contracts was to supply music for the Atlantic liners, like the Queen Mary, when they resumed sailing to and from New York after WW2. Musicians who performed on these liners became known as ‘Geraldo’s Navy’. Continue reading New York, New York . . .
Tag Archives: Bebop
That Was Jazz
Peter Batten reflects on the passing a Great Briton…
Earlier this year I wrote about the great jazz pianist Marian McPartland. Originally from the UK, she had a great career in the United States. Sadly it was announced recently that she has died, aged 96.
Marian’s career really took off in the 1950s. She led her own trio at the Hickory House, a famous jazz bar in New York, and made the first of a series of recordings which were admired all over the world.
Continue reading That Was Jazz
The Whistler 