Douglas Frank Richford (1920-1987) was a British jazz clarinetist, and saxophonist.

Early career

Starting piano at age 7, he became a fan of Artie Shaw and Benny Goodman, taking up the clarinet at 13. A pupil of American clarinetist

Danny Polo Danny Pollo (December 22, 1901 – July 11, 1949) known professionally as Danny Polo was an American jazz clarinetist. Life Polo was born in Toluca, Illinois and moved to Clinton, Indiana as an infant, where his father worked as a coal miner. H ...

before the war, during Army Service in World War Two he played in the Lion Swing Stars. Following the war he led a 14-piece big-band, the Streamliners. After a stint with the River City Jazzmen in the early/mid 50s, Richford had his first professional job with George Chisholm and Tommy McQuator. In the later 1950s he was a member of Sonny Morris's and then

Nat Gonella Nathaniel Charles Gonella (7 March 1908 – 6 August 1998) was an English jazz trumpeter, bandleader, vocalist, and mellophonist. He founded the big band The Georgians, during the British dance band era. Early life and career Gonella was bor ...

's bands; and from 1959 to 1961

Bob Wallis Robert Wallis (3 June 1934 – 10 January 1991) was a British jazz musician, who had a handful of chart success in the early 1960s, during the UK traditional jazz boom. Biography Wallis was born in Bridlington, East Riding of Yorkshire, where h ...

's Storyville Jazzmen, with whom he recorded.

Doug Richford's London Jazzmen

Richford started his

trad jazz Trad jazz, short for "traditional jazz", is a form of jazz in the United States and Britain in the 1930s, 1940s, 1950s and 1960s, played by musicians such as Chris Barber, Acker Bilk, Kenny Ball, Ken Colyer and Monty Sunshine, based on a revival ...

band in July 1961, which debuted in Coventry. A week later, the boozy London Jazzmen played on a riverboat near Liege for Belgian TV. Trumpeter Trevor Jones, trombonist Eric Dalby, future illustrator Toni Goffe on double bass, 18-stone big Pete Deuchar on banjo, and Kenny Harrison on drums, were in the initial line-up. Clarinettist Gerry Turnham joined later that year. Represented by the Lyn Dutton Agency Ltd, and financed by publishers Chappell, the DRLJ recorded in November 1961, and released in January 1962 on

Parlophone Parlophone Records Limited (also known as Parlophone Records and Parlophone) is a German–British record label founded in Germany in 1896 by the Carl Lindström Company as Parlophon. The British branch of the label was founded on 8 August 19 ...

records, their first single Yip-I-Addy-I-Ay/On Sunday I Go Sailing. The band was by then Pete Deuchar, Toni Goffe, Kenny Harrison, the legendary

trumpet/vocals, and Bill Hales trombone. Afte
Colin Bowden
took over as drummer, it was probably their second single that was recorded at

Abbey Road ''Abbey Road'' is the eleventh studio album by the English rock band the Beatles. It is the last album the group started recording, although '' Let It Be'' was the last album completed before the band's break-up in April 1970. It was mostly ...

studios, Cascading/12 Over the 8 - both Richford originals. The band played in London, often late at night at Studio 51, known as the Ken Colyer Jazz Club off Leicester Square, and around England throughout its 1961-64 life. They appeared four times on the

BBC Light Programme The BBC Light Programme was a national radio station which broadcast chiefly mainstream light entertainment and light music from 1945 until 1967, when it was replaced by BBC Radio 2 and BBC Radio 1. It opened on 29 July 1945, taking over the ...

, alongside / introduced by

Humphrey Littleton Humphrey Littleton, or Humphrey Lyttelton, died on 7 April 1606 at Red Hill outside Worcester. A member of the Lyttelton family, he was executed for his involvement in the Gunpowder plot. Robert Wintour and Stephen Littleton who had escaped ...

, Diz Dizley and

George Melly Alan George Heywood Melly (17 August 1926 – 5 July 2007) was an English jazz and blues singer, critic, writer, and lecturer. From 1965 to 1973 he was a film and television critic for ''The Observer''; he also lectured on art history, with an ...

. Trumpeter Nat Gonella was replaced in mid-1962 by young Australian Dick Tattam in his first professional role. Guitarist Paul Sealey also played with the band; vocalist

Beryl Bryden Beryl Audley Bryden (11 May 1920 – 14 July 1998) was an English jazz singer, who played with Chris Barber and Lonnie Donegan. Ella Fitzgerald once said of Bryden that she was "Britain's queen of the blues". Life and career Bryden was bor ...

appeared with them too. As well as travelling in Britain, in 1963 the band visited Denmark, where three tracks were recorded by Copenhagen-based

Storyville Records Storyville Records is an international record company and label based in Copenhagen, Denmark, specializing in jazz and blues music. Besides its original material, Storyville Records has reissued many vintage jazz recordings that previously appe ...

, - Spooky Takes A Holiday, Running Wild and Beedle-Um-Bum.

Later career

After the Trad boom ended, as

The Beatles The Beatles were an English rock band, formed in Liverpool in 1960, that comprised John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr. They are regarded as the most influential band of all time and were integral to the developm ...

changed popular music, Richford took a trio for a summer season in Jersey in 1964. Ironically Richford had appeared repeatedly at the

Cavern Club The Cavern Club is a nightclub on Mathew Street, Liverpool, England. The Cavern Club opened in 1957 as a jazz club, later becoming a centre of the rock and roll scene in Liverpool in the late 50s and early 1960s. The club became closely asso ...

in Liverpool, whilst the Beatles were still a local Merseybeat band performing there. Richford returned to full-time music in 1978 to tour Germany with Steve Mason's Dixielanders, and then played "residences" in Zurich.

Personal life

Richford was born in 1920 in Camberwell, London, where in 1945 he married Ellen Rolf; their son Lincoln Douglas Richford, born 1946, is a land reform campaigner in Scotland. Doug Richford died in West Sussex in 1987.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Richford, Doug 1921 births 1987 deaths British jazz clarinetists 20th-century British musicians 20th-century British male musicians British male jazz musicians