It was with great sadness that I learned of the death of another of the great jazz performers, George Melly.Jazz singer and author George Melly has died at his London home at the age of 80, his wife Diana has announced.
The flamboyant performer had been diagnosed with lung cancer and vascular dementia, a condition which affects the brain after small strokes.
Despite his illness, the jazz veteran was still appearing on stage in the weeks leading up to his death. BBC:
"As a surrealist, I quite enjoy having dementia," he once quipped, making light of his disabilities.
I saw George perform at the Brecon Jazz Festival in Wales about 1990, when he was still in good health and he gave an outstanding performance as usual. He also thought of others - making a public protest on stage about landlords of local pubs displaying signs stating 'No Hippies'. He said that he was so incensed by the first he saw of these that he turned round and walked out of the pub. He also pointed out that the landlords were going to lose a lot of trade because as he said at the time he liked to put away a lot of drink. I also saw him perform at The Ulster Hall in Belfast in an equally impressive performance
George, we are really going to miss your humanity, your flamboyance, your humour and your artistry. So long, George.
BBC:
With his flamboyant suits, oversize hats and Havana cigars, George Melly was a good-time Renaissance man who indulged, often over-indulged, his passions for jazz, film, art, fishing, writing, drink and sex.
He was born in Liverpool in 1926 and educated at the ultra-liberal Stowe public school in Buckinghamshire, where he pursued his interests with vigour and without inhibition.
At school, he first became interested in art, particularly Surrealism.
He served as an able-seaman in the Royal Navy towards the end of World War II, where he got into trouble for distributing anarchist literature.
He moved to London in 1948 to work in an art gallery run by Belgian artist ELT Mesens, a leading light in the International Surrealist movement.
Melly became recognised as an authority on the subject and later wrote a book, Paris and the Surrealists.
According to his memoirs, it was at this time that he augmented the promiscuous homosexuality of his schooldays, indulging in a series of menages a trois, initially with Mesens and his wife Sybil.
He had also developed a love of jazz, and started singing with Mick Mulligan's band in 1949. His voice was described by John Mortimer as possessing "the raucous charm of an old negress".
A fan of Bessie Smith and Fats Waller, he was to become famous for his routine of singing jazz numbers from the 1920s, interspersed with ribald jokes and saucy asides.
The band's drink and sex-fuelled wild adventures were recalled in Melly's first book, Owning Up.
An article by George written in April 2006) for The Guardian that seems so pertinent now. (This may have been George's last column)
Another article by George published on 1st April 2002 for The New Statesman: I am very put out by the death of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. She was an acrobatic beauty
