Ray Foxley

Ray "Professor" Foxley (* 28 December 1928 in Birmingham as Raymond Geoffrey Foxley ; † 7. July 2002 in London ) was a British jazz pianist and arranger , who through his work with British protagonists of the Traditional Jazz as Ken Colyer and Chris Barber known has been.

Foxley began to be interested in early jazz at the age of 14 under the influence of the music of Fats Waller and Jelly Roll Morton's " King Porter Stomp " , played in various smaller ensembles in his hometown until he became a member of the Gutbucket Six , which in 1947 at the festival "Jazz at the Birmingham Town Hall" performed. Then he founded the Levee Ramblers , with whom he also had radio appearances and appeared in Paris in 1952. In the mid-1950s he moved to London and became a member of Ken Colyer's Crane River Jazz Band , then played with Mick Mulligan , Chris Barber and Mike Daniels before joining Colyer's jazzmen and his skiffle band . In 1960 he returned to the Midlands and was stylistically open, as he also performed in the context of modern jazz . In the 1980s he played with Henry Gardiner and his Southsiders , Rod Mason (for whom he also wrote arrangements), Ken Ingram and The Paragon Jazz Band . After Colyer's death, he was a member of the Ken Colyer Trust Band . He has also worked with The Jubilee Jazzmen and Eddie Matthews's Jump Band . In the last years of his life he appeared mainly as a solo pianist. He was also appreciated by avant-garde artists such as Lol Coxhill and Roger Turner .

Discographic notes

• Six for Two (Jeton, 1979)
• Professor Foxley's Sporting House Music (Jeton, 1978)

Web links

• Obituary , The Guardian , Aug. 14, 2002
• Memory of Ray Foxley Jim Denham in Jazz House (English)

Individual evidence

1. ↑ In addition to Jelly Roll Morton, he counted Charles Mingus , Gerry Mulligan and Thelonious Monk to the most influential musicians on him. See Guardian obituary