Wigan Youth Jazz Orchestra 50th Anniversary Celebration
Wigan Youth Jazz Orchestra, Disneyworld, 1988
A great message for everybody - music is absolute fun through and through Ian Darrington
On Saturday 11th July members past and present came together to celebrate 50 years of WYJO - the Wigan Youth Jazz Orchestra - at The Brick Community Stadium in Wigan.
Jazz North team member Helena Summerfield (HS) caught up with Ian Darrington (ID) before the event to learn more about his time leading the band:
HS - First of all, I'd like to say a big congratulations on reaching the 50th anniversary of WYJO. You must have some really happy memories and lots of stories to tell. Let’s go back to the beginning - how did WYJO start?
ID - It's been an incredible period of time, and we could never really have imagined it would develop into what it has. WYJO started on the 1st of March 1976, I was still at college in Yorkshire then, but six months later I was here in Wigan, working for Wigan Council's education department, and one of the members of staff, a guy called Gordon Dodd, had just started what he called a stage band, and nobody knew what a stage band was. I don't know whether you've ever seen these old American things where they say American stage band company?
HS - Ah yes, I remember being in the Nottingham youth county stage band when I was younger.
ID - It's a strange title, and hardly anybody out there in the general public knew what on earth it was, but that's what he called it, and that's what it was called for a couple of years anyway. Gordon was a great guy, he was a bit of a genius, really, but he was also a little bit of a loner, I think, and within about six months he talked about handing the band over to me, and it terrified me! I'd come from a brass band scene in Yorkshire. I'd played with a jazz band at a Saturday morning music school in Castleford, and really enjoyed the feel of it, but I really wasn't a jazz player at all. Then I heard Maynard Ferguson, and that did it - that switched me onto jazz, I thought ‘that's what I want a band to sound like’. And from then on, until I retired in 2011, it was a total obsession to get the band to be the very, very best I could make it, if possible the best in the world. And we tried like mad - we did everything, we practised and listened and toured, and we did everything we could to make it the best, and I think we succeeded in many ways. I would spend all week making tape recordings to give to the band members and say listen to this, so I'd do a tape of Buddy Rich for the drummer, and then a tape of Maynard for the trumpet players, and it worked. It turned them on to jazz, and today those players that came out of the band in the early days, the late 70s and early 80s, most of them are still playing as professional musicians.
WYJO with special guest Don Lusher Royal Albert Hall 1982
HS - That's fantastic. I was going to ask about that - how does it feel to see the former WYJO members go on to be professional musicians? I guess there must also be people who have returned to the band, maybe as tutors or as parents bringing their own kids along?
ID - Very much so, we see parents that were in the band originally as young people, and now they're bringing their children along. It's wonderful to see - we’ve become a WYJO family, probably 4 or 500 people have gone through the band over the years it's been running, and remember it with fondness. It became my family's life as well, because both daughters and our son played in the orchestra over the years. Once my son had gone through the band and left it, the question of me retiring came up. It wasn't quite as hard then, because I felt as though I'd done everything that I could possibly do, including giving our children the opportunity to play and record work with big names, and tour, and it felt complete, and so it wasn't quite as hard leaving as I thought it might be.
HS - Tell me about the recordings that you made with WYJO over the years.
ID - The favorite recording I've got, which I'm going to be playing on Saturday night, is one that we recorded with Bobby Shew. I think it was in 1987 when we recorded Evergreen, which was obviously a Barbra Streisand song, and Bobby played it so well. Anyway, we went in the studio and recorded it, and it still brings, you know, the goosebumps up. I think we recorded about 15 CDs altogether across the time I was there, it was a great time.
HS - I think it’s amazing for those young musicians to have the experience of recording and working with professional musicians like Bobby Shew.
ID - Yeah, It was staggering to see the big names walk into the room, and the jazz orchestra had no idea whatsoever about the history of these people. Bill Perkins, a saxophone player from America, was in the dressing room when we played. We were doing a concert of Stan Kenton music, and he'd recorded with San Kenton, and as we played this piece, he shouted me over towards the dressing room in the middle of the concert, and he just said “It's 50 years since I recorded this with Stan Kenton”. We had all those memories and more too. Thankfully, Wigan Council's archive department has taken quite a few things from me -photographs, paintings, recordings, a copy of my book about the days of WYJO in digital form, so they've got that, and it documents as much as I could put into a publication.
HS - I hear that you have made a presentation for the 50th anniversary event. Do you have a funniest or a favorite memory of WYJO?
ID - I've included around 90 photographs and a narration starting from when the band first started in 1976 until I left in 2011. I've only got a maximum of 20 minutes, so you can't cram 40 years into 20 minutes, but the headline events that we did are in there - the people who influenced it, who made it all possible.
I’ve got silly stories like meeting a man on a train coming from London, never met him before, and before we got to Crew station, he'd give me £10,000 to bring Maynard Ferguson over from America to play - and that's just me being in the right place at the right time. We just got chatting, asked me what I did, I told him, and it turned out he was a wealthy man, obviously a very wealthy man. And he said, you know, if I give you some money, can you bring me a big name? It turned out he wanted to promote his football club, which was Wigan Athletic, and he thought that might be a good way of doing it. So he gave me 10 grand, and then the rest is history, so to speak. That really is what set the ball rolling for the big names to then come to Wigan. By then we'd already started the Wigan Jazz festival, we'd already started the jazz club, but suddenly a big name like Maynard arriving on the scene changed everything in terms of our outlook, and yeah, from that point there was no looking back.
I've got 1,000 funny stories, I mean, just ridiculous ones, like when the Queen and Prince Philip came to Wigan, and I told the band that they mustn't talk, they must stand to attention and play the piece they had to play, and then let the Queen and Prince Philip go on their way. I could see these two trumpet players talking and laughing and afterwards I said, “What on earth did I tell you? The television cameras were on you, and you two are talking and laughing” and apparently the younger one of the two had said to the other player "Who's that old geezer talking to Ian?” And of course, the old geezer was Prince Philip, and that's the naivety of all of it, you know, they just had fun, and I think it's a great message for everybody, that music is absolute fun through and through.
HS - What an amazing legacy Ian, thank you so much for taking the time to talk to me today.
About WYJO
Formed in 1976 by Wigan Metropolitan Borough Council, the Wigan Youth Jazz Orchestra (WYJO) aims to train and develop the musical skills of its members through the performance of big band music from 1930’s to the present day.
Over the years, WYJO has received many national and international honours, most notably from the BBC Radio Big Band Competition, the Daily Telegraph Young Jazz Competition and the National Festival of Music for Youth. The band is three times winner of the Great North Big Band Festival winning the top prize in 2014, 2015 and 2019 and they have been invited to perform at the prestigious National Festival of Music for Youth on many occasions.
Since 1985 the Orchestra has released eleven albums. These albums have sold to over twenty-five countries and are broadcast regularly on radio stations throughout the world. The most recent recordings feature guest soloists Eric Marienthal (2016) and James Morrison (2018) and were recorded live at Wigan International Jazz Festival.
WYJO has clocked up an impressive list of touring destinations including the USA, Russia, Israel, Kuala Lumpur, Australia and South Africa as well as throughout Europe. The most recent venture abroad was in summer 2018 when WYJO joined with Wigan Youth Symphony Orchestra to tour Poland.
How to join WYJO
Wigan Youth Training Jazz Orchestra
Who is it for? Young musicians grade 4+ standard. Brass, Woodwind / Rhythm Section
Where is it happening? Mondays during term time at Worsley Mesnes CP, Clifton Street, Wigan, WN3 5HN
What time does it start / finish? 5:15pm to 6:45pm
Who is the lead teacher? Sharon Darby-Purcell
Do I need to book? Yes. Please contact Sharon Darby-Purcell – Assistant Head of Music Service to discuss membership and vacancies
Who do I contact? Wigan Music Service or 01942 776169.
Wigan Youth Jazz Orchestra
Who is it for? Advanced students. Gd 6+ Trumpet, Trombone, Saxophone, Rhythm Section
Where is it happening? Mondays during term time at Worsley Mesnes CP, Clifton Street, Wigan, WN3 5HN
What time does it start / finish? 7pm to 8:45pm
Who is the lead teacher? Dave Little
Do I need to book? Yes. Please contact Dave Little - Head of Music Service to discuss membership and vacancies
Who do I contact? Wigan Music Service or 01942 776169.