Blanche Coleman (28 February 1910 – 22 April 2008) was a British musician, the bandleader of the renowned Blanche Coleman And Her All Girls Band, one of the first women's bands of the 1940s.
Biography
Coleman was born Blanche Schwartz in London. Her family owned a fish and chips shop in
Westbourne Park. After showing an early talent for violin, she won a scholarship for the
Royal Academy of Music
The Royal Academy of Music (RAM) in London, England, is the oldest conservatoire in the UK, founded in 1822 by John Fane and Nicolas-Charles Bochsa. It received its royal charter in 1830 from King George IV with the support of the first Duke ...
. While the violin was her first love, she also played the clarinet and saxophone.
After playing in the orchestra of The Grange Cinema, Kilburn, she played in
Harold Ramsey's Girl Friends, and
Teddy Foster's Band.
Band leader
She formed her own band in 1938 and won a contract, against great competition, in 1942, to provide a 12-piece girls' band at
The Royal Opera House
The Royal Opera House (ROH) is an opera house and major performing arts venue in Covent Garden, central London. The large building is often referred to as simply Covent Garden, after a previous use of the site. It is the home of The Royal Op ...
,
Covent Garden
Covent Garden is a district in London, on the eastern fringes of the West End, between St Martin's Lane and Drury Lane. It is associated with the former fruit-and-vegetable market in the central square, now a popular shopping and tourist sit ...
, which was converted into dance-hall for British and American service personnel during
World War II
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the World War II by country, vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great power ...
.
She was also featured in regular
radio
Radio is the technology of signaling and communicating using radio waves. Radio waves are electromagnetic waves of frequency between 30 hertz (Hz) and 300 gigahertz (GHz). They are generated by an electronic device called a transm ...
broadcasts, including ''
Saturday night at the Palais'', ''
Ocean Revue of 1946'' and the ''
Sandown Summer Show'' (1947).
In 1947, her band was the resident band at '
Radio-Olympia' designed to stimulate interest in the newly revived
BBC #REDIRECT BBC
Here i going to introduce about the best teacher of my life b BALAJI sir. He is the precious gift that I got befor 2yrs . How has helped and thought all the concept and made my success in the 10th board exam. ...
TV service. After this she led the resident band in Beach Ballroom
Aberdeen
Aberdeen (; sco, Aiberdeen ; gd, Obar Dheathain ; la, Aberdonia) is a city in North East Scotland, and is the third most populous city in the country. Aberdeen is one of Scotland's 32 local government council areas (as Aberdeen City), ...
, between 1948 and 1950 with John Hanson, a popular guest singer.
In the early 1950s, after much seaside work, she and her band were invited to entertain
US Army
The United States Army (USA) is the land service branch of the United States Armed Forces. It is one of the eight U.S. uniformed services, and is designated as the Army of the United States in the U.S. Constitution.Article II, section 2, c ...
troops in
Germany
Germany, officially the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG),, is a country in Central Europe. It is the most populous member state of the European Union. Germany lies between the Baltic and North Sea to the north and the Alps to the sou ...
. Given the honorary rank of
major in the US Army,
she and the band were housed in the infamous "
Wannsee
Wannsee () is a locality in the southwestern Berlin borough of Steglitz-Zehlendorf, Germany. It is the westernmost locality of Berlin. In the quarter there are two lakes, the larger '' Großer Wannsee'' (Greater Wannsee, "See" means lake) and the ...
Villa" for a time. She wanted to take
Cleo Laine with the band as vocalist, but the US Army said the race issue was too sensitive.
In later life, she appeared in several films, including ''
The World of Barry McKenzie'', and she was frequently recognised as the "old lady at a bus stop" in ''
Four Weddings & A Funeral''.
She is mentioned
Gym slips and hockey sticks: Jenny Diski on Philip Larkin's schoolgirl stories , LRB essay , guardian.co.uk Books
/ref> in Andrew Motion
Sir Andrew Motion (born 26 October 1952) is an English poet, novelist, and biographer, who was Poet Laureate from 1999 to 2009. During the period of his laureateship, Motion founded the Poetry Archive, an online resource of poems and audio re ...
's biography of Philip Larkin
Philip Arthur Larkin (9 August 1922 – 2 December 1985) was an English poet, novelist, and librarian. His first book of poetry, ''The North Ship'', was published in 1945, followed by two novels, ''Jill'' (1946) and ''A Girl in Winter'' (1947 ...
as being the inspiration for the pseudonym Brunette Coleman
Brunette Coleman was a pseudonym used by the poet and writer Philip Larkin. In 1943, towards the end of his time as an undergraduate at St John's College, Oxford, he wrote several works of fiction, verse and critical commentary under that name, ...
, under which Larkin wrote risqué girls' school stories, mainly to entertain his friend Kingsley Amis
Sir Kingsley William Amis (16 April 1922 – 22 October 1995) was an English novelist, poet, critic, and teacher. He wrote more than 20 novels, six volumes of poetry, a memoir, short stories, radio and television scripts, and works of social and ...
.
Personal life
She married Henry Soester
See also
* June Smith (jazz singer), Singer and trumpeter with Coleman's band in 1946.
References
External sources
* Kun, Josh, et al. Big Ears: Listening for Gender in Jazz Studies. United Kingdom, Duke University Press, 2008.
* Dahl, Linda. Stormy Weather: The Music and Lives of a Century of Jazzwomen. United States, Limelight Editions, 1989.
{{DEFAULTSORT:Coleman, Blanche
1910 births
2008 deaths
British bandleaders
Musicians from London