Malcolm Richard Laycock (1 November 1938 – 8 November 2009)
[Peter Vache]
Obituary
''The Guardian'', 10 November 2009 was an English radio presenter who hosted jazz, big band, and dance band programmes for
BBC Radio 2
BBC Radio 2 is a British national radio station owned and operated by the BBC. It is the List of most-listened-to radio programs, most popular station in the United Kingdom with over 14 million weekly listeners. Since launching in 1967, the sta ...
and the
BBC World Service
The BBC World Service is a British Public broadcasting, public service broadcaster owned and operated by the BBC. It is the world's largest external broadcaster in terms of reception area, language selection and audience reach. It broadcas ...
.
Early life
Malcolm Laycock was born in
Keighley
Keighley ( ) is a market town and a civil parishes in England, civil parish
in the City of Bradford Borough of West Yorkshire, England. It is the second-largest settlement in the borough, after Bradford.
Keighley is north-west of Bradford, n ...
,
West Riding of Yorkshire
The West Riding of Yorkshire was one of three historic subdivisions of Yorkshire, England. From 1889 to 1974 the riding was an administrative county named County of York, West Riding. The Lord Lieutenant of the West Riding of Yorkshire, lieu ...
, where his parents owned a grocer's shop.
[ He attended ]Bradford Grammar School
Bradford Grammar School (BGS) is a co-educational private day school located in Frizinghall, Bradford, West Yorkshire, England.
Entrance is by examination. For the sixth form admission is based on GCSE results. The school gives means-tested ...
after gaining a scholarship, and was a contemporary and friend of the artist David Hockney
David Hockney (born 9 July 1937) is an English Painting, painter, Drawing, draughtsman, Printmaking, printmaker, Scenic design, stage designer, and photographer. As an important contributor to the pop art movement of the 1960s, he is considere ...
.[ He trained as a teacher at ]Goldsmiths College
Goldsmiths, University of London, formerly Goldsmiths College, University of London, is a Member institutions of the University of London, constituent research university of the University of London. It was originally founded in 1891 as The G ...
in London,[ and in 1962 was elected President of the student union. After graduating he taught at schools in south London, including the William Penn School in ]Dulwich
Dulwich (; ) is an area in south London, England. The settlement is mostly in the London Borough of Southwark, with parts in the London Borough of Lambeth, and consists of Dulwich Village, East Dulwich, West Dulwich, and the Southwark half of H ...
, where he established a radio station for excluded pupils. He eventually rose to become deputy head of Peckham
Peckham ( ) is a district in south-east London, within the London Borough of Southwark. It is south-east of Charing Cross. At the 2001 Census the Peckham ward had a population of 14,720.
History
"Peckham" is a Saxon place name meaning the vi ...
School, but his work with radio brought him to the attention of Radio London and he joined the BBC
The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) is a British public service broadcaster headquartered at Broadcasting House in London, England. Originally established in 1922 as the British Broadcasting Company, it evolved into its current sta ...
in the late 1960s. In 1971, he was seconded to Radio London as an education producer.[
]
Broadcasting career
During a broadcasting career spanning four decades, Laycock presented jazz-related programmes for both BBC Radio London
BBC Radio London is the BBC Local Radio, BBC's local radio station serving Greater London.
It broadcasts on FM broadcasting, FM, Digital Audio Broadcasting, DAB, digital TV and via BBC Sounds from studios at Broadcasting House in Langham Plac ...
(for which he worked for 20 years) and later the BBC World Service
The BBC World Service is a British Public broadcasting, public service broadcaster owned and operated by the BBC. It is the world's largest external broadcaster in terms of reception area, language selection and audience reach. It broadcas ...
. At Radio London, he produced a nightly magazine programme for black listeners, ''Black Londoners'', and helped to improve the station's coverage of minority and community affairs. As a presenter for the World Service, he hosted a number of shows, including ''Jazz for the Asking'', several series of ''Kings of Swing'', ''The Big Band Singers'', and the documentary ''Glenn Miller – The Legacy''.[ He also helped to establish the former London-based radio station ]102.2 Jazz FM
102.2 Jazz FM (also known as London Jazz Radio and JFM) was an Independent Local Radio for London run by GMG Radio. The station was based in and broadcast from Castlereagh Street in London. The station experimented with its core playlist over i ...
,[ where he became the programme controller.
His other credits included documentaries on performers such as ]Nat King Cole
Nathaniel Adams Coles (March 17, 1919 – February 15, 1965), known professionally as Nat King Cole, alternatively billed as Nat "King" Cole, was an American singer, jazz pianist, and actor. Cole's career as a jazz and Traditional pop, pop ...
, Ted Heath
Sir Edward Richard George Heath (9 July 1916 – 17 July 2005) was a British politician who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1970 to 1974 and Leader of the Conservative Party from 1965 to 1975. Heath also served for 51 year ...
, Joe Loss
Joshua Alexander "Joe" Loss (22 June 1909 – 6 June 1990) was a British dance band leader and musician who founded his own eponymous orchestra.
Life
Loss was born in Spitalfields, London, the youngest of four children. His parents, Israel an ...
and Gilbert Becaud Gilbert may refer to:
People and fictional characters
*Gilbert (given name), including a list of people and fictional characters
*Gilbert (surname), including a list of people
Places Australia
* Gilbert River (Queensland)
* Gilbert River (South A ...
(whom Laycock interviewed on the singer's yacht in the south of France).[ He also presented a documentary about ]Billie Holiday
Billie Holiday (born Eleanora Fagan; April 7, 1915 – July 17, 1959) was an American jazz and swing music singer. Nicknamed "Lady Day" by her friend and music partner, Lester Young, Holiday made significant contributions to jazz music and pop ...
, ''Billie Holiday in Her Own Words'' (for which he won a Sony Award
The Radio Academy Awards, started in 1983, were the most prestigious awards in the British radio industry. For most of their existence, they were run by ZAFER Associates, but in latter years were brought under the control of The Radio Academy ...
).
In 1992, along with fellow broadcaster Dave Gelly
Dave Gelly MBE (born 28 January 1938) is a British jazz critic. A long-standing contributor to ''The Observer'', he was named Jazz Writer of the Year in the 1999 British Jazz Awards. Gelly is also a jazz saxophonist and broadcaster, presenting a ...
, Laycock established a production company devoted to making programmes about vintage jazz and popular music
Popular music is music with wide appeal that is typically distributed to large audiences through the music industry. These forms and styles can be enjoyed and performed by people with little or no musical training.Popular Music. (2015). ''Fun ...
. Encore Radio was one of the first companies to take advantage of restructuring at the BBC which opened its radio networks to independent producers, and it operated for six years.[
He began presenting on Radio 2 in 1994, when he started filling in for the ill ]Alan Dell
Alan Dell, born Alan Creighton Mandell (20 March 1924 – 18 August 1995), was a BBC radio broadcaster, associated in particular with dance band music of the 1920s, 1930s and early 1940s.
Formative years
Dell was born in Cape Town, South Afri ...
on his '' Dance Band Days'' show, and following Dell's death in 1995, he took over the Sunday afternoon slot on the network. In 1998, ''Dance Band Days'' was subsumed into a Sunday evening programme and became '' Sunday Night at 10''. Laycock's presenting style and vast musical knowledge quickly made him popular with listeners, and the programme would regularly draw a weekly listening audience of 360,000. For many years, the show featured a mixture of music from British dance band
British dance band is a genre of popular jazz and dance music that developed in British dance halls and hotel ballrooms during the 1920s and 1930s, often called a Golden Age of British music, prior to the Second World War.
Thousands of miles awa ...
s of the 1920s and '30s and from the big band
A big band or jazz orchestra is a type of musical ensemble of jazz music that usually consists of ten or more musicians with four sections: saxophones, trumpets, trombones, and a rhythm section. Big bands originated during the early 1910s and ...
era. However, in November 2008 its format was altered to focus mainly on swing bands from the late 1930s and early 1940s to the present day. The decision led to complaints from the programme's listeners, who believed that Radio 2 was no longer catering for its older listeners. Laycock himself later said that he had been ordered to drop the British dance bands part of his show.
Following a dispute with BBC management over his salary, Laycock announced his departure from the station at the end of July 2009. He had been due to take a four-week holiday, but instead decided to leave after failing to negotiate a new contract. He later claimed in a newspaper interview to have been constructively dismissed
In employment law, constructive dismissal occurs when an employee resigns due to the employer creating a hostile work environment. This often serves as a tactic for employers to avoid payment of statutory severance pay and benefits. In essence, al ...
by Radio 2. The BBC denied this was the case, and said his departure had occurred because they were unable to meet his demand for a pay rise (from a salary of £24,000) of 60%.
He presented his final edition of ''Sunday Night at 10'' on 26 July 2009, announcing his departure on air, a move that took his bosses by surprise. Clare Teal
Clare Teal (born 14 May 1973) is an English singer and broadcaster who has become famous not only for her singing, but also for having signed the biggest recording contract by a British jazz singer.
Biography
Teal was brought up in the Kildwic ...
took over the show from the following Sunday, 2 August.
Laycock's departure prompted outraged listeners to write to Radio 2 controller Bob Shennan, and even their local MPs, in an attempt to bring him back. It was also lamented by the magazine ''The Oldie
''The Oldie'' is a British monthly magazine written for older people "as a light-hearted alternative to a press obsessed with youth and celebrity", according to its website. The magazine was launched in 1992 by Richard Ingrams, who was its edit ...
''. Shennan later said that he had tried to persuade Laycock not to resign, but without success.
Other work
Away from broadcasting, Laycock was President of the Frank Sinatra Society,[ and the Big Bands Windsor Appreciation Society.][ He was also vice-president of the Syd Lawrence Society and regularly travelled with the ]Syd Lawrence Orchestra
Syd Lawrence (26 June 1923 – 5 May 1998) was a British bandleader, who became famous in the UK for his orchestra's Big Band sound, which drew on the 1940s style of music of Glenn Miller and Count Basie amongst others.
Career
Born in Wilmsl ...
to compère their concerts.[ He compiled many CD reissues and wrote essays for the sleeve notes. In addition he wrote a column for the magazine ''Big Bands International'',][ and was briefly editor of the short-lived 1990s publication ''Jazz Magazine International''.][
]
Personal life and death
Laycock's wife Liz died of cancer in July 2009. They had two sons, Dominic and Andrew.[ Andrew is a member of the ]a cappella
Music performed a cappella ( , , ; ), less commonly spelled acapella in English, is music performed by a singer or a singing group without instrumental accompaniment. The term ''a cappella'' was originally intended to differentiate between Rena ...
vocal group The Flying Pickets
The Flying Pickets are a British ''a cappella'' vocal group which had a List of Christmas number one singles (UK), Christmas number one hit record, hit in 1983 on the UK Singles Chart with their cover version of Yazoo (band), Yazoo's track "Onl ...
.[
Malcolm Laycock died on 8 November 2009, aged 71,][ after having been ill with ]emphysema
Emphysema is any air-filled enlargement in the body's tissues. Most commonly emphysema refers to the permanent enlargement of air spaces (alveoli) in the lungs, and is also known as pulmonary emphysema.
Emphysema is a lower respiratory tract di ...
and pneumonia
Pneumonia is an Inflammation, inflammatory condition of the lung primarily affecting the small air sacs known as Pulmonary alveolus, alveoli. Symptoms typically include some combination of Cough#Classification, productive or dry cough, ches ...
. Radio 2 controller Bob Shennan said that former colleagues were "shocked and saddened" to hear the news of his death, and paying tribute to him, Shennan said, "Malcolm was a much-loved and highly respected broadcaster, renowned for his skill as a presenter and producer, and his passion for music and radio."[
As part of a tribute programme to him, on Sunday 15 November BBC Radio 2 repeated an edition of ''Sunday Night at 10'' from April 2009, in which Laycock had celebrated his 700th programme in the series by playing some of his favourite tracks from the big band era.]
References
External links
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Laycock, Malcolm
1938 births
2009 deaths
Alumni of Goldsmiths, University of London
BBC Radio 2 presenters
English radio DJs
English radio personalities
Deaths from emphysema
Deaths from pneumonia in England
English radio producers
People educated at Bradford Grammar School
People from Keighley