Jill Day born 5 December 1930

Jill Day (5 December 1930- 16 November 1990, Kingston-Upon-Thames, England) was a successful pop singer and actress in Britain in the 1950s and early 60s.She was called “the Golden Girl of Song” and sometimes “the sapphire blonde with the diamond-bright personality”. 

She was born Yvonne Page in Brighton, Sussex, England, eldest of three children of a Brighton bookmaker, William Page, and his wife, Phyllis James. Her parents wanted her to go to secretarial college, but Yvonne set her heart on a singing career. In April 1945, she auditioned for Harry Roy, and toured for five months in variety as the vocalist in his band, using the name Jill Page. After understudying in two West End shows, Follow the Girls and Piccadilly Hayride, she returned to Brighton in 1948 to join the revue, Limelight, in which she was seen by bandleader Syd Dean, who was so impressed by her voice and personality that he invited her to become the vocalist with his orchestra at the Regent Ballroom, Brighton, in 1949. 

In November of that year, still as Jill Page, she made her recording debut with Dean’s band on the Columbia label with the song “Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday” She also made her mark on the radio in the series, May We Come In?. In 1950, Jill became the toast of Paris at the Club Champs Elysees, singing with Bernard Hilda’s orchestra. Back in Britain in June 1951, she returned to the stage to tour as Pansy Pinns in The Belle of New York, now using the name, Jill Day, chosen for her by the bandleader Geraldo, on whose radio series, Tip Top Tunes, she became a regular guest. In 1952, when Eve Boswell left as Geraldo’s vocalist, Jill replaced her. 

                                   

In 1953, she made her film debut in the comedy, Always A Bride, and in March 1954, she was voted into third place behind Lita Roza and Cleo Laine in the Melody Maker poll of Britain’s most popular female vocalists. Leaving Geraldo, she went solo in 1954, launching her first hit for Parlophone, “Little Johnny Rainbow”, in October of that year, which was one of ten songs she recorded in the next eight months. On television she was in constant demand, appearing in I’ll Be Seeing You, Puzzle Corner, Starlight, Off The Record, and with the legendary Jessie Matthews in Dreamer’s Highway. Jill was well known for her long slim dresses with stiff petticoat under the below-the-knee hem which she wore in numerous television appearances. 

In the boom year of 1955, Jill starred in the West End revue, The Talk of the Town, with Jimmy Edwards and Tony Hancock, looked stunning in the title-roll of the Rank Organization’s colour film, All for Mary, and expertly dubbed the singing voice of Brigitte Bardot, in another film, Doctor at Sea. She ended the year playing Prince Charming in BBC Television’s Pantomania with Eric Sykes and Sylvia Peters. 1956 brought her most popular recording “Happiness Street”, which seemed to personify her infectious charm and vitality. She appeared with Dave King in the first of three Blackpool summer seasons. The others were Rocking with Laughter, with Ken Dodd and in 1957 The Big Show of 1959 with Jimmy Jewel and Ben Warris. 

Jill reached the peak of her career in 1957 with her own BBC television series, The Jill Day Show, which she also wrote, and the lead in the West End comedy, The Lovebirds, at the Adelphi Theatre, in which her performance won critical acclaim. She competed in the heats of the contest to represent the United Kingdom in the 1957 Eurovision Song Contest, eventually losing out to Patricia Bredin. She also married the great alto-saxophonist Douglas Robinson on May 14th that year.

Five smash-hit seasons of West End cabaret followed at the Society Restaurant, top-of-the-bill stage tours, and further television triumphs, including Beat Up the Town, Hit the Headlines, Hi Summer!, the title roll in Cinderella, and Sunday Night at the London Palladium. In 1961, she joined Kenneth Horne and Kenneth Williams in the radio series, Beyond Our Ken. But Jill's singing style faded out of failure with the coming of the 1960s and she struggled to maintain her profile, although in 1965 she released one of her most popular singles, reviving two classic standards “I’ve Got My Love To Keep Me Warm” and “I’m Old Fashioned”. 

Tragedy struck in 1967 when her son Buster died from leukemia at the age of only seven. Some believed she never entirely recovered from this blow. Her last recordings were released in 1970. After that she preferred to stay at home with her family at their magnificent house in Kinston-Upon-Thames, concentrating on her business interests which included an Earl’s Court gymnasium, a theatrical agency and a child’s clothing company. In 1990, during a routine medical test, cancer was discovered, and she died suddenly on November 15 that same year at the New Victoria Hospital, Kingston, at the age of only 59.   

(Edited mainly from Michael Thornton’s liner notes)

Eddie Heywood born 4 December 1915

Edward Heywood Jr. (December 4, 1915 – January 3, 1989) was an American jazz pianist and composer particularly active in the 1940s and 1950s. Eddie is probably most remembered now for originating the much-loved song, “Canadian Sunset.” But Heywood’s story encompasses so much more, including not only his early experiences in the big band era but also having to overcome bouts of paralysis in his later years. 

Heywood was born in Atlanta, Georgia, United States. His father, Eddie Heywood Sr., was also a jazz musician from the 1920s and provided him with training from the age of 12 as an accompanist playing in the pit band in a vaudeville theater in Atlanta, occasionally accompanying singers such as Bessie Smith and Ethel Waters. Heywood moved, first to New Orleans and then to Kansas City, when vaudeville began to be replaced by sound pictures. Heywood played with jazz musicians such as Wayman Carver in 1932, Clarence Love from 1934 to 1937 and Benny Carter from 1939 to 1940. 

He became the house pianist at the Village Vanguard in Greenwich Village, where he led a trio and accompanied singers, among them the Revuers, a group that included Judy Holliday, Betty Comden and Adolph Green. After starting his band, Heywood would occasionally do back-up for Billie Holiday in 1941. In 1943, at the urging of John Hammond, the jazz authority whose interest had nurtured the careers of Count Basie, Billie Holiday and Benny Goodman, Mr. Heywood took several classic solos on a Coleman Hawkins quartet date (including "The Man I Love") and put together the first sextet, including Doc Cheatham and Vic Dickenson. Eddie and his sextet played at the Cafe Society Downtown, being billed as the "Biggest Little Band in the Land". 

                                   

The type of music they played, and their billing, placed them in direct competition with John Kirby. The group played in a crisp, stylized manner that was an adaptation of Mr. Heywood's playing as a solo pianist. He had been playing ''Begin the Beguine'' in this fashion as a piano soloist and he arranged it for his sextet in the same way. It was an immediate success and it set a pattern for the group's playing that appealed equally to jazz fans and followers of pop music. After their version of "Begin the Beguine" became a hit in 1944, the group had three successful years. "Begin the Beguine" sold over one million copies, and was awarded a gold disc by the RIAA. 

It was between 1947 to 1950, Heywood was stricken with a partial paralysis of his hands and could not play at all. However, it did not stop him when he made a comeback later in the decade. In the 1950s, Heywood composed and recorded "Land of Dreams" and "Soft Summer Breeze" (1956) (which peaked at number 11 on the Billboard chart) and is probably best known for his 1956 recording of his composition "Canadian Sunset," with Hugo Winterhalter and His Orchestra for RCA Victor, which peaked at number 2. In 1960 he was awarded  a "Star" at 1709 Vine Street on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. 

After a second partial paralysis from 1966 to 1969, Heywood made another comeback and continued his career into the 1980s. By this time he was working in the field of light music rather than jazz. In his later years Eddie suffered from Parkinson's disease, later complicated with Alzheimer's disease, and had been in frail health since the mid 80's.  He died at his home in Miami Beach, Florida, 3 January 1989, aged 73.

(Edited from Wikipedia & The New York Times) 

 

Cool John Ferguson born 3 December 1953

John W. Ferguson (December 3,* 1953 – August 12, 2025), known professionally as Cool John Ferguson, was an American blues guitarist, singer and songwriter. He released five albums under his own name and played on around 20 others. He was the Director of Creative Development for the Music Maker Relief Foundation, and played his guitar "upside down". Taj Mahal stated that Ferguson ranked "among the five greatest guitarists in the world. He is a force to be reckoned with in the music industry. He is with the ranks of Jimi Hendrix, Wes Montgomery, and Django Reinhardt." 

Ferguson was born in Beaufort, South Carolina, United States on December 3, 1953. His father, John Wesley Ferguson, was head deacon at the Beaufort New Church of Christ, whilst his mother, Martha Jenkins Ferguson, hailed from Saint Helena Island. The connection to Gullah culture remained strong in Ferguson's life. He had learned to play the guitar by the age of three, but "had to be sat in someone's lap while they sat in a chair." He was naturally left handed, and learned to play on a right handed guitar held upside down. 

Two years later he was playing gospel music as a professional, and became a featured entertainer with his siblings billed as 'Little John and the Ferguson Sisters' on The Lowcountry Sing on Channel 5, a Charleston, South Carolina-based radio station. He expanded his musical knowledge in the early 1960s, by surreptitiously listening to WAPE, "the Big Ape", out of Jacksonville, Florida. At Beaufort High School, Ferguson played the trumpet in a marching band and learned to read music. By 1972, he had joined the Earl Davis Trio. This jazz based beginning led to a five-year stint with Stephen Best and the Soul Crusaders who played across South Carolina. He also played on the tent revival circuit, and recorded with LaFace Records. 

                  Here’s “Black Mud Boogie” from above album.

                                   

To supplement his income from music, Ferguson worked in landscaping and construction as a young man. He relocated to near Durham, North Carolina for a spell, and Ferguson noted that "the local people were, you know, checking me out and saying 'you've got a cool walk,' 'you've got a cool talk.' So they summarized it to Cool John." In addition to supplying studio backing work for various musicians, including Little Pink Anderson and Frank Edwards, Ferguson started to appear under his own name. At various times, Ferguson played the guitar backing for Taj Mahal, B. B. King, Kenny "Blues Boss" Wayne, Beverly Watkins and the Stylistics. 

He toured widely, performing at the Byron Bay Bluesfest, Lincoln Center Out-Of-Doors, Lucerne Blues Festival, Switzerland's Blues to Bop Festival, the Savannah Music Festival, Columbia Blues Festival, and at the Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts. He kept a connection to his roots by having a regular Saturday night engagement at the All People's Grill, a roadhouse situated north of Durham, North Carolina. 

At the Penn Center on Saint Helena Island, Ferguson was recruited to join a fledgling Music Maker Relief Foundation. Ferguson worked as Music Maker's Director of Creative Development from the 1990s. In 2003, Ferguson performed at the AmeriServ Johnstown Folkfest. In the early 2000s, he released his albums Guitar Heaven; the seasonal effort, Cool Yule; plus Cool John Ferguson; all issued by Music Maker. In 2007, Ferguson relocated to Atlanta with his wife, where he started his own record label, Cool John Recordings. Ferguson's own With These Hands was the first release for the new label. The album contained 15 original tracks, ten of them incorporating vocals, encompassing blues, R&B, funk, rock and occasional Latin rhythms. 

Ferguson was noted by Living Blues magazine for two years running as 'Most Outstanding Guitarist.' His work with Music Maker saw him responsible for scores of albums being recorded by lesser known blues, folk and country artists, many of them at the veteran stage of their careers. He played in a fundraiser for the Foundation in Washington, D.C., with Ironing Board Sam, and was featured in a photographic essay called "Music Makers", which was picked up by Garden & Gun magazine. Ferguson appeared in the documentary film, Toot Blues (2008), about the formation and early days of the Music Maker Relief Foundation. 

To mark the occasion of fellow Beaufort native, Joe Frazier's death in 2011, Ferguson played an electric version of "The Star-Spangled Banner" at the Henry C. Chambers Waterfront Park. In addition, Ferguson regularly played in two churches in Atlanta each Sunday. Later years brought a return to music ministry and a step back from touring. His life’s work, bridging church and juke joint, tradition, and improvisation, endures in the recordings he made and the artists he lifted. Often dressed in his trademark flat-brimmed stetson hat, Ferguson continued to play his Fender Stratocaster upside down until his death in Beaufort, South Carolina, on August 12, 2025, at the age of 71. 

(Edited from Wikipedia & World Music Central) (* some sources give December 2^nd as birthdate) 

Wynton Kelly born 2 December 1931

 

Wynton Charles Kelly (December 2, 1931 – April 12, 1971) was a Jamaican American jazz pianist and composer. He is known for his lively, blues-based playing and as one of the finest accompanists in jazz. 

Wynton Kelly was  a greatly underrated talent, who was both an elegant piano soloist with a rhythmically infectious solo style in which he combined boppish lines with a great feeling for the blues as well as a particularly accomplished accompanist, gifted with perfect pitch and a highly individual block chording style. Kelly’s work was always highly melodic, especially in his ballad performances, while an irresistible sense of swing informed his mid and up-tempo performances. 

Though he was born on the island of Jamaica, Wynton grew up in Brooklyn. His academic training appears to have been brief, but he was a fast musical developer who made his professional debut in 1943, at the age of eleven or twelve. His initial musical environment was the burgeoning Rhythm and Blues scene of the mid to late 1940s. Wynton played his first important gig with the R&B combo of tenor saxophonist Ray Abrams in 1947. He spent time in hard hitting R&B combos led by Hot Lips Page, Eddie “Cleanhead” Vinson and Eddie “Lockjaw” Davis, in addition to the gentler environment of Johnny Moore’s Three Blazers. In April 1949, Wynton played piano backing vocalist Babs Gonzales in a band that also included J.J. Johnson, Roy Haynes and a young Sonny Rollins. 

                                   

Kelly’s first big break in the jazz world came in 1951, when he became Dinah Washington’s accompanist. In July 1951 Kelly also made his recording debut as a leader on the Blue Note label at the age of 19. After his initial stint with Dinah Washington Kelly gigged with the combos of Lester Young and Dizzy Gillespie and recorded with Gillespie’s quintet in 1952. Wynton fulfilled his army service between 1952 and the summer or 1954 and then rejoined Washington and the Dizzy Gillespie Big Band (1957). By this time Kelly had become one of the most in demand pianists on record. He distinguished himself on record with such talent as J.J. Johnson, Sonny Rollins, Johnny Griffin and especially Hank Mobley whom Kelly inspired to some of his best work on classic Blue Note albums like Soul Station, Work Out, and Roll Call. 

Wynton proved himself as a superb accompanist on the Billie Holiday Clef sessions of June 1956 and showed his mettle both as an accompanist and soloist on the star-studded Norman Granz session with Coleman Hawkins, Paul Gonsalves, Dizzy Gillespie and Stan Getz in 1957 that produced the fine Sittin’ In album on the Verve label. In 1957 Kelly left Gillespie and formed his own trio. He finally recorded his second album as a leader for the Riverside label in January 1958, six years after his Blue Note debut. 

In early 1959 Miles Davis invited Wynton to joint his sextet as a replacement for Bill Evans. Kind of Blue, recorded in March 1959, on which he shares the piano stool with Evans, Kelly excels on the track “Freddie Freeloader” a medium temp side that is closest to the more theory-free jazz of the mid-fifties. Wynton proved a worthy successor to Red Garland and Bill Evans in the Miles Davis combo, together with bassist Paul Chambers and drummer Jimmy Cobb, an old colleague from Dinah Washington’s rhythm section, he established a formidable rapport. Kelly likewise appears on a single track from John Coltrane’s Giant Steps, replacing Tommy Flanagan on “Naima”. 

l-r: Kelly, Jimmy Cobb, Paul Chambers

During his stay with Davis, Kelly recorded his fine Kelly Blue for Riverside and three albums for Vee Jay. By the end of 1962 Kelly, Chambers and Cobb formed the Wynton Kelly Trio, which soon made its mark. The Kelly Trio remained a regular unit for a number of years and reached the height of their popularity after they joined up with guitarist Wes Montgomery, resulting in three albums, a live set in New York’s Half Note, a September 1965 studio album for Verve, and a live set at the Half Note for the Xanadu Label. Kelly’s trio, now with Cecil McBee and Ron McClure kept working during until 1969. 

Kelly was a heavy drinker; saxophonist Jimmy Heath described him as "an alcoholic" who "could control his drinking and not let his playing be affected by it”. Towards the end of his career, Kelly had problems finding work, but played with Ray Nance, and as a soloist in New York. Kelly's final recording session appears to have been in the autumn of 1970, accompanying saxophonist Dexter Gordon. 

Kelly died in Toronto, Canada, following an epileptic seizure, on April 12, 1971. He had traveled there from New York to play in a club with drummer George Reed and vocalist Herb Marshall. Kelly suffered from epilepsy most of his life and had to monitor his condition carefully. He was reported to have had almost no money at the time of his death. A memorial concert was held on June 28 in New York and featured numerous well-known musicians of the period. 

(Edited from jazzgiants.net & Wikipedia)

Matt Monro born 1 December 1930

Matt Monro (1 December 1930 – 7 February 1985) was an English singer. Known as "The Man with the Golden Voice" and the "British Sinatra," he performed internationally during his 30-year career and sold a reported 23 million records. 

Born Terrence Edward Parsons in London, Monro encountered difficulties from a young age. His father died when he was three, and after his mother became ill, he spent several years in foster care. In 1948, while still a teenager, he joined the British armed forces, serving as a tank-driving instructor in Hong Kong. It was during this period that he began entering talent contests and even performed on the radio. Following his discharge, he returned to London where he pursued a singing career while working odd jobs, including a stint as a bus driver. 

He caught the attention of Trinidadian-born pianist Winfred Atwell who took the singer under her wing, even purportedly helping to come up with his stage name. With Atwell's help, Monro picked up work, singing for television commercials and performed with a few British bands (including Cyril Stapleton's Orchestra) during the early '50s. After a few sides recorded for various labels, he signed to Decca for an album of standards, 1957's Blue and Sentimental. His career really took off one year later when producer George Martin asked him to lend his deep voice to actor Peter Sellers' album of Frank Sinatra satires, Songs for Swingin' Sellers. Monro's straight-faced contribution, "You Keep Me Swingin'," earned him a contract with Parlophone, and he hit number three in the British charts with 1960's "Portrait of My Love." 

Monro continued working closely with producer Martin, a fruitful partnership that resulted in an extended period of chart success. Both 1961's "My Kind of Girl" and 1962's "Softly, As I Leave You" hit the Top Ten; the former became his first transatlantic hit, reaching number 18 in America. The singer also proved quite proficient in the growing realm of the full-length: his 1962 LP for Parlophone, Matt Monro Sings Hoagy Carmichael, was a very accomplished songbook collection for a pop singer. 

                                    

Though his theme to the second James Bond vehicle, 1963's From Russia with Love, only hit the Top 20 in Britain, it increased his exposure around the world. At the 1964 Eurovision Song Contest, singing "I Love the Little Things", Monro finished second behind Italy's 16-year-old Gigliola Cinquetti, his rendition being described an "excellent performance of the only English language song of the night". The Austrian entry "Warum nur warum?", performed by songwriter Udo Jürgens, caught Monro's ear, despite its sixth-place finish, and he recorded an English version titled "Walk Away", earning him another hit single in late 1964. The song had lyrics by Monro's manager and friend, Don Black, whom he had met during his Denmark Street days when Black was working for Toff Music. 

Monro had his last British Top Ten in 1965, after his association with George Martin and Parlophone gave him the distinction of being the first artist of thousands to cover the Beatles' "Yesterday." That year, he was voted top singer in England in a poll. After moving to America, Monro gained yet more recognition singing the Oscar-winning title song for the film Born Free. His second collaboration with "From Russia with Love" composer John Barry, it quickly became his signature tune. He and Barry would record several more film themes, including "Wednesday's Child" from 1966's The Quiller Memorandum and "This Way Mary" from 1971's Mary, Queen of Scots. 

Following several years living in California, Monro returned to England where he again hit the Top 30 with 1973's "And You Smiled." He continued performing his nightclub routine, and recorded sparingly during the '70s. The 1980 hits compilation Heartbreakers rejuvenated his career somewhat, reaching number five on the U.K. Albums Chart. He also enjoyed success in Latin America with one of his final studio albums, 1982's Spanish-language release Un Toque De Distinción. 

Monro continued touring and recording until just before his death, releasing a single and promoting it throughout the UK and Australia in 1984. Monro was a heavy smoker and battled alcoholism from the 1960s until 1980. He was diagnosed with liver cancer and was due to have a liver transplant around Christmas 1984 but it was deemed that the cancer had spread too far. He died on 7 February 1985 at Cromwell Hospital, Kensington, London, aged 54, leaving a widow, Mickie, and three children. 

AllMusic has described Monro as "one of the most underrated pop vocalists of the '60s", who "possessed the easiest, most perfect baritone in the business". Frank Sinatra said of Monro after his death: "If I had to choose three of the finest male vocalists in the singing business, Matt would be one of them. His pitch was right on the nose; his word enunciations letter perfect; his understanding of a song thorough." In the decades since his passing, the Monro estate has kept his legacy alive, issuing numerous archival collections.  (Edited from Wikipedia & AllMusic) 

Frank Ifield born 30 November 1937

Francis Edward Ifield OAM (30 November 1937 – 18 May 2024) was an Australian country music singer and guitarist who often incorporated yodelling into his music. 

Ifield was the third of seven sons born to Richard Ifield, an engineer, and his wife, Muriel. In 1935 the couple had moved from Australia to Britain in search of work. Richard went into the motor industry in Coventry, where Frank was born two years later. During the second world war, Richard was seconded by Lucas Laboratories to Frank Whittle’s jet engine project and the family moved to London. In 1946, the Ifields relocated to Australia, where Richard continued to work for Lucas while running a family farm in Dural, New South Wales. 

At junior school, Frank led the singing, and his interest in music and showbusiness was increased by country and western singers heard on the radio and by his grandfather, a former performer with touring minstrel shows. He taught himself to play the ukulele before his grandmother bought him his first guitar as a birthday present in 1949. One of Frank’s jobs around the farm was to milk a bad-tempered cow named Betsy, which inspired his adoption of yodelling: “She would kick the milk bucket and everything until I started yodelling to her and she’d stop. After that she gave us the best milk we ever had.” 

After coming second in a talent competition held by a local radio station, Frank made his first broadcasts at the age of 13. Two years later he was hired to dress as a cowboy and entertain audiences for Big Chief Little Wolf, a wrestling booth showman in a touring fair. At 16 he made his first record, There’s a Love Knot in My Lariat, for the Australian branch of EMI. His career was interrupted by national service but by the age of 21 Ifield was one of Australia’s leading country and pop singers, with his own television show, Campfire Favourites. 

                                     

Encouraged by his manager, Peter Gormley, he set his sights on foreign markets, notably North America and Britain. In his memoir, I Remember Me (2005), Ifield explained that he prayed for guidance and “a still small voice” told him to move to London. Accordingly, he flew into Heathrow in November 1959 where Gormley had arranged a welcoming party including the popstar Tommy Steele and a clutch of photographers and reporters. 

Almost immediately, Gormley negotiated a recording deal with Norrie Paramor of EMI’s Columbia label, but Frank’s first record, Lucky Devil, a version of Carl Dobkins Jr’s American hit, flopped. Although the next single, Happy Go Lucky Me, lost out to a rival version by George Formby, Ifield’s career as a live performer began to take off. He was booked on a tour headed by Emile Ford and appeared as Dick Whittington in pantomime in Stockton with the Shadows, now also managed by Gormley, who would soon add Cliff Richard to his roster of artists. 

Several more records were unsuccessful, until Ifield came across I Remember You, a song written for the 1942 film The Fleet’s In, by Johnny Mercer and Victor Schertzinger. Gormley had persuaded him to drop the yodel from his stage act in order to avoid being typecast, but Ifield was convinced that a falsetto phrase was a vital feature of his version of I Remember You. Together with the opening harmonica riff, played on the record by Harry Pitch, it ensured that I Remember You was voted a unanimous hit on BBC television’s Juke Box Jury. This launched I Remember You on its journey to a million sales in Britain alone. In the US, it was Ifield’s only hit. 

Frank , Vera Lynn, Tommy Bruce

In the year that followed, there were four more hits. The first of these, Lovesick Blues (originally made famous in Hank Williams’s version) topped the charts and its B-side, Elton Britt’s She Taught Me to Yodel was performed when Ifield appeared at the 1962 Royal Variety Performance, reportedly because Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother had requested a yodelling number. Next, another old country song, The Wayward Wind, became his third successive No 1. This record had been chased to No 1 by Please Please Me, the first big hit for the Beatles. After the groups rise to fame, Ifield’s singles were selling fewer and fewer copies. Nevertheless, he remained a popular figure with older audiences in Britain and elsewhere, with numerous summer show, television and pantomime appearances. 

In the early 1980s Ifield returned to settle in Australia. A lung operation in 1986 damaged his vocal cords. This caused him to give up live performances, and he turned to hosting radio shows and promoted country music festivals. However, in 2016 his singing voice had recovered enough for him to return to the stage with a show that revisited his career and included renditions of several hits. In 2009, he was made a member of the Order of Australia for services to the arts as an entertainer. Ifield died in Hornsby Hospital in Hornsby, New South Wales (NSW) of pneumonia on 18 May 2024, at the age of 86. 

(Edited Dave Lang obit @ The Guardian)

Ed Bickert born 29 November 1932

Edward Isaac Bickert, CM (November 29, 1932 – February 28, 2019) was Canada’s best-known jazz guitarist. He developed a unique, understated style of considerable harmonic sophistication. 

Rooted in bebop, his intuitive, pianistic approach was characterized by lyrical and rhythmic ease, a deceptively complex simplicity and a generally muted tone. He played mainstream jazz and swing music and  worked professionally from the mid-1950s to 2000, mainly in the Toronto area. A Member of the Order of Canada, Bickert won a Juno Award and multiple National Jazz Awards. He also played on dozens of Juno- and Grammy-nominated and award-winning recordings. 

Raised in farming and ranching family in Vernon, BC, Bickert began teaching himself the guitar at age eight. He first played with his father, an old-time fiddler, and his mother, a pianist, in a country dance band. In 1952, he moved to Toronto and worked until 1955 as a radio engineer on CFRB radio. At nights, he played at such after-hours jazz clubs as the House of Hambourg. His few lessons with renowned guitar teacher Tony Bradan were his only formal training. 

In the 1950s, Bickert was a member of Norman Symonds’s jazz octet. He also played with Ron Collier (1954–66) and with Phil Nimmons (1957–70). He played in most of Moe Koffman’s successive jazz groups beginning in 1956, and in the Boss Brass beginning in 1968. He also did a great deal of studio work in Toronto until the early 1970s, and performed intermittently with the groups of Peter Appleyard and Hagood Hardy, among others. He also appeared in duos with Don Thompson and Boss Brass bandleader Rob McConnell. 

Ed Bickert Trio

Bickert taught briefly at the Advanced School of Contemporary Music in Toronto during the early 1960s, at the Banff Centre for the Arts in 1978–80, and at the University of New Brunswick Chamber Music and Jazz Festival in 1978 and 1982. He was a formative influence on a generation of Toronto jazz guitarists that includes Lorne Lofsky, Roy Patterson, Rob Piltch, Reg Schwager and Geoff Young.  Formed in 1974, Bickert’s own trio comprising of Don Thompson (bass) and Terry Clarke (drums) played widely throughout Canada in clubs, at festivals and on CBC Radio. In 1979, the trio played the Bracknell, Northsea and Montreux jazz festivals during a European tour sponsored by Radio Canada International. (See also Music at the CBC.) During the 1970s and early 1980s, Bickert (with Thompson, Clarke and others) accompanied many American jazz stars at the Toronto club Bourbon Street, including Paul Desmond, Chet Baker, Red Norvo, Milt Jackson and Frank Rosolino. 

                      Here’s “Bye Bye Baby” from above album

                                   

Bickert’s work with Desmond from 1974 to 1976 first brought him international attention. In 1979, he toured with Jackson in Japan. During the 1980s, Bickert appeared on international stages with Koffman, Appleyard and the Boss Brass, and at several festivals in Concord, California. By 1982, Bickert had secured a recording contract with Concord Jazz, for which he recorded nine albums as a leader or co-leader between 1983 and 1997. In Toronto during the 1980s, Bickert also performed and recorded in a quartet with tenor saxophonist Rick Wilkins or guitarist Lorne Lofsky and various bassists and drummers. 

Bickert also appeared as a backing musician for artists including Benny Carter, Ken Peplowski, Rob McConnell, Fraser MacPherson, and Rosemary Clooney. Bickert played on five Clooney albums between 1983 and 1987, and the two recorded nine songs during these years as guitar/vocal duets. In 1987, he returned to Japan with the Concord All Stars. 

In the winter of 1995, Bickert slipped on some ice and broke bones in both of his arms, which halted his musical activity for a period of months before returning to playing and touring. He contributed to Mike Murley’s Juno Award-winning albums Murley, Bickert & Wallace: Live at the Senator (2000) and Test of Time (recorded in 1999). Bickert recorded almost exclusively using the Telecaster during the final three decades of his career, including on all of the albums for which he was leader or co-leader Bickert and his Fender Telecaster retired in 2000. 

Bickert himself explained his retirement to the Toronto Globe & Mail in 2012: "I haven't played for 12 years, and I don't know if I could even remember how to hold the instrument right now. No, I just packed it up completely. Maybe I'd had enough… My wife passed away, and at the time, I was having some problems with arthritis, and I was starting to drink quite heavily, and those things combined sort of finished me off. I just never tried to get back to it. I envy or admire people who keep going until they drop. But it just wasn't for me." 

Bickert died of cancer in Toronto, Ontario, Canada on February 28, 2019, aged 86. In 2022 the Bickert estate sold his Fender Telecaster for $32,500. (Edited from The Canadian Encyclopedia, Wikipedia & The Globe & Mail)