14 Facts About Stan Tracey

Stanley William Tracey was a British jazz pianist and composer, whose most important influences were Duke Ellington and Thelonious Monk.

The Second World War meant that Stan Tracey had a disrupted formal education, and he became a professional musician at the age of sixteen as a member of an ENSA touring group playing the accordion, his first instrument.

Stan Tracey joined Ralph Reader's Gang Shows at the age of nineteen, while in the RAF and formed a brief acquaintance with the comedian Tony Hancock.

At Decca Records, Stan Tracey met his future wife, Jackie Buckland ; the couple had two children Clark and Sarah.

From March 1960 until about 1967, Stan Tracey was the house pianist at Ronnie Scott's Jazz Club in Soho, London, and he had the opportunity to accompany many of the leading musicians from the US who visited the club.

Stan Tracey was inspired to compose the suite by hearing the original 1953 BBC broadcast on an LP his wife Jackie had acquired.

Such is the affection with which these pieces are held that Stan Tracey has re-recorded them on several occasions, something that is unusual for British jazz musicians to do.

Later in the decade, Stan Tracey made the arrangements for an Acker Bilk record, Blue Acker, and his first album dedicated to Duke Ellington compositions, in this case to commemorate Ellington's 70th birthday the following year.

Stan Tracey began to work with musicians of a later generation, who worked in a free or avant-garde style, including Mike Osborne, Keith Tippett and John Surman.

Stan Tracey continued to work in this idiom with Evan Parker at the UK's Appleby Jazz Festival for several years, but this was always more of a sideline for Stan Tracey, who said that he "took more out of free music into the mainstream than I did from mainstream into free".

Stan Tracey was able to share the billing with arranger Gil Evans in a 1978 concert at the Royal Festival Hall, such was Tracey's pre-eminence in the UK.

Stan Tracey continued to record with American musicians on occasion as well, with dates taking place with Sal Nistico in 1985 and Monk associate, Charlie Rouse in 1987.

In 2003 Stan Tracey was the subject of a BBC Television documentary Godfather of British Jazz, a rare accolade nowadays for any jazz musician, let alone one from Britain.

Stan Tracey died of cancer on 6 December 2013; he was survived by his son, Clark Stan Tracey, who has written a biography of his father, with a complete discography.