Fred Elizalde

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Frederick "Fred" Elizalde (born December 12, 1907 in Manila as Federico Elizalde ; † January 16, 1979 ibid) was a Filipino jazz pianist , arranger , composer , orchestra conductor and radio manager. He is considered one of the pioneers of British jazz in the 1920s and worked with Adrian Rollini .

Live and act

Elizalde was born in the Philippines as a child of wealthy plantation owners of Spanish origin and composed his first minuet at the age of four . He studied music at the Madrid Conservatory with Bartolomé Pérez Casas before continuing his studies at St. Joseph's College in London. In 1925 he moved to Stanford University , where he actually law should study, but in the summer of 1926, Stanford University Band directed and taught by Ernest Bloch took. In the same year he moved to Cambridge , where he and his brother Manuel founded their first band in 1927, which consisted of Cambridge students, the Quinquaginta Ramblers . In the same year, Elizalde was invited to put together an orchestra to play in the ballroom of the Savoy Hotel . He telegraphed to New York and hired Adrian Rollini and other American musicians, such as the alto saxophonist Bobby Davis and the trumpeter Chelsea Quealey . The performances of the Savoy Orpheans , later Fred Elizalde and his Anglo-American Band were also broadcast on the BBC radio station ; their "hot music" aroused the displeasure of many listeners. Among the young musicians in the English jazz scene, however, the band with Rollini, which existed from 1928 to 1929, attracted attention; Elizalde's musical views on jazz also influenced Edgar Jackson , the initiator of the music magazine Melody Maker . The New York Style of the American-British band around Rollini and Elizalde shaped the further development of jazz in England for years until the 1940s; the New Orleans Jazz and Chicago Style had until 1940 little or no influence on the British jazz scene.

After leaving the Savoy Orpheans around 1930, Elizalde stayed in England for a while and recorded some records. In the mid-1930s he studied with Manuel de Falla in Spain and then worked as a composer and orchestra director in the field of classical music. During this time he again took his maiden name Federico Elizalde . He stayed in Spain from 1935 to 1937, where he wrote the opera Le Pajara Pinta and then fought on Franco's side in the Spanish Civil War in 1936 until he was wounded in 1937. Elizalde left Spain and lived in the Philippines until the late 1930s. During the Second World War he lived in Paris and composed a violin concerto there, among other things. In 1946 he moved to Santa Monica , California for a while . In the same year he performed his piano concerto in London; In 1950 the London Symphony Orchestra took up his violin concerto. During the 1950s he conducted the Manila Symphony Orchestra to briefly direct the orchestra of the Japanese radio company NHK in the early 1960s . As a marksman he was part of the Philippine team at the Asiade in 1954 , which won several gold medals. During this time, Elizalde also ran the national radio station Manila Broadcasting Corporation , which he owned with his brothers; he conducted his last concert in 1974.

literature

  • Carlo Bohländer ao: Reclams Jazzführer , Stuttgart, Reclam, 1991
  • John Chilton : Who's Who of British Jazz , Continuum International Publishing Group 2004, ISBN 0826472346
  • Charles Fox: Jazz in England. From: That's Jazz . Exhibition catalog, Darmstadt, 1988
  • Mark White: The Observers ’s Book of Jazz . London, Warner, 1978

Web links

Remarks

  1. ↑ Manuel "Liz" Elizalde, tenor saxophone; see. White, p. 105; another brother was the politician Joaquín Miguel Elizalde
  2. ↑ The members of the Ramblers were amateurs and are unknown today; Only the tenor saxophonist Marice Allom , who would later become a well-known cricket player, and the guitarist and banjo player George Monkhouse , later a well-known industrialist in England, are mentioned; see. White, p. 107
  3. ↑ There were also the rather young British musicians, the trumpeter Norman Payne , the alto saxophonist Harry Hayes and the tenor saxophonist Rex Owen ; see. Mark White; P. 45 f.
  4. ↑ She was fired in July 1929 because of the dispute over the band's music style ("too much jazz") with the hotel management and the BBC. This was followed by a three-week engagement in the London Palladium , which was not very successful, and in June 1929 a concert in the Shepherd's Bush Pavilion . In 1930 Elizalde left the group; see. White, p. 107
  5. ↑ Jackson's musical views (in particular his preference for “white” jazz over uncouth, “black” jazz) were decisive for the taste of many British jazz musicians and the reception of US jazz for decades; see. Ch. Fox, Jazz in England
  6. ↑ This changed first with the jazz revival of traditionalists like Spike Hughes , who got his musical ideas from Red Nichols and the original Memphis Five , cf. White, p. 46
  7. ↑ The information about his academic years is contradictory; After Carlo Bohländer's Reclams Jazzführer he studied composition with Maurice Ravel in Paris during this time ; see. Bohländer, p. 108
  8. ^ Fred Elizalde, influential musician and band leader
personal data
SURNAME Elizalde, Fred
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Elizalde, Frederick; Elizalde, Federico (maiden name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Filipino jazz pianist, composer, orchestra leader and broadcast manager
DATE OF BIRTH December 12, 1907
PLACE OF BIRTH Manila
DATE OF DEATH January 16, 1979
Place of death Manila