Stephen Russell Race OBE (1 April 192122 June 2009) was an English

composer A composer is a person who writes music. The term is especially used to indicate composers of Western classical music, or those who are composers by occupation. Many composers are, or were, also skilled performers of music. Etymology and def ...

pianist A pianist ( , ) is a musician who plays the piano. A pianist's repertoire may include music from a diverse variety of styles, such as traditional classical music, jazz piano, jazz, blues piano, blues, and popular music, including rock music, ...

and

radio Radio is the technology of communicating using radio waves. Radio waves are electromagnetic waves of frequency between 3 hertz (Hz) and 300 gigahertz (GHz). They are generated by an electronic device called a transmitter connec ...

and television presenter.

Early life

He was born in Lincoln,

Lincolnshire Lincolnshire (), abbreviated ''Lincs'', is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in the East Midlands and Yorkshire and the Humber regions of England. It is bordered by the East Riding of Yorkshire across the Humber estuary to th ...

, the son of a lawyer, Race learned the piano from the age of five.Spencer Leig
"Steve Race: Musician and broadcaster best known for his association with the programme 'My Music'"
''The Independent'', 24 June 2009 He was educated (1932–37) at Lincoln School, where he formed his first jazz group, which included a young Neville Marriner, later a major figure in the world of classical music. At sixteen, he attended the Royal Academy of Music, studying composition under Harry Farjeon and William Alwyn. He grew up 6, St Catherine's, where his father was Russell Race, who died in 1926. His brother Philip, a solicitor, was a Methodist preacher, and worked with the British Council of Churches, from 1990 known as Churches Together in Britain and Ireland.

Career

After leaving the academy, Race (encouraged by the classical music critic of the '' News Chronicle'', Scott Goddard) wrote occasional dance band reviews for ''

Melody Maker ''Melody Maker'' was a British weekly music magazine, one of the world's earliest music weeklies; according to its publisher, IPC Media, the earliest. In January 2001, it was merged into "long-standing rival" (and IPC Media sister publicatio ...

'' and, in 1939, joined the Harry Leader dance band as pianist, succeeding Norrie Paramor. Race joined the

Royal Air Force The Royal Air Force (RAF) is the Air force, air and space force of the United Kingdom, British Overseas Territories and Crown Dependencies. It was formed towards the end of the World War I, First World War on 1 April 1918, on the merger of t ...

in 1941, and formed a jazz/dance quintet. After the

Second World War World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...

, he began a long and productive career with 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 ...

, where his ready wit, musicianship and broad musical knowledge made him much sought after as a musical accompanist for panel games and magazine shows, such as '' Whirligig'' and '' Many a Slip''. At the same time he was playing in the bands of Lew Stone and Cyril Stapleton, and arranging material for Ted Heath. In, 1949 The Steve Race Bop Group recorded some of the first British

bebop Bebop or bop is a style of jazz developed in the early to mid-1940s in the United States. The style features compositions characterized by a fast tempo (usually exceeding 200 bpm), complex chord progressions with rapid chord changes and numerou ...

records for the Paxton label. These included four sides with Leon Calvert, Johnny Dankworth, Peter Chilver, Norman Burns (drums), Jack Fulton (bass) and Race on piano, and four more (with the addition of saxophonist Freddy Gardner) as the Bosworth Modern Jazz Group on the Bosworth label. He also developed a sideline arranging player piano rolls for the Artona company. From the 1950s to the 1980s, he presented numerous music programmes on

and

television Television (TV) is a telecommunication medium for transmitting moving images and sound. Additionally, the term can refer to a physical television set rather than the medium of transmission. Television is a mass medium for advertising, ...

. Additionally, in 1955, he was appointed the first Light Music Advisor to the independent television company Associated-Rediffusion. He is probably best known as the chairman of the long-running light-hearted radio and TV panel game '' My Music'' which ran from 1967 to 1994. He presented and wrote most of the questions for all 520 episodes broadcast. He also presented ''Jazz For Moderns'' on radio and '' Jazz 625'' on television for the

in the 1960s. Away from music, for two years from 1970 Race co-presented (with William Hardcastle) the

BBC Radio 4 BBC Radio 4 is a British national radio station owned and operated by the BBC. The station replaced the BBC Home Service on 30 September 1967 and broadcasts a wide variety of spoken-word programmes from the BBC's headquarters at Broadcasti ...

"drive-time" news magazine '' PM''. On Friday 11 April 1964, he hosted the Home Service ''

Any Questions? ''Any Questions?'' is a British topical discussion programme "in which a panel of personalities from the worlds of politics, media, and elsewhere are posed questions by the audience". It is typically broadcast on BBC Radio 4 on Fridays at 20: ...

'', when Freddy Grisewood was recuperating. Race coined the term ''Denham Concerto'' for short romantic film pieces inspired by the success of Richard Addinsell's ''Warsaw Concerto'', such as Hubert Bath's ''Cornish Rhapsody'', Nino Rota's ''Legend of the Glass Mountain'' and Charles Williams' ''The Dream of Olwen'', after the Denham Film Studios where many of them were made.

Composer

As a composer, he produced a number of pieces in the jazz, classical and popular idioms. The bebop jazz piece ''Blue Acara'' (named after one of the many tropical fish he and his wife collected) was arranged for jazz band or for full orchestra and recorded by Harry Parry. It is likely that the composer of light

Latin America Latin America is the cultural region of the Americas where Romance languages are predominantly spoken, primarily Spanish language, Spanish and Portuguese language, Portuguese. Latin America is defined according to cultural identity, not geogr ...

n dance tunes known as "Esteban Cera" was Race hiding behind a pseudonym. ''Faraway Music'', the theme to an ITV Play of the Week in 1961, was issued as a single by Steve Race and his Orchestra. Others followed, including one of his better-known compositions, the short instrumental piece ''Nicola'' (named after his daughter), which won an

Ivor Novello Award The Ivor Novello Awards, named after the Welsh entertainer Ivor Novello, are awards for songwriting and Musical composition, composing. They have been presented annually in London by the The Ivors Academy, Ivors Academy, formerly called the Britis ...

in 1962. The 'b' side of the 1962 single featured another instrumental, ''Ring Ding''. The follow-up single ''Pied Piper (The Beeje)'' reached No. 29 in the UK Singles Chart in March 1963. In the mid-1970s this piece was played as Queen's Park Rangers ran onto the pitch at the start of each home game at Loftus Road. Steve Race was a season ticket holder at the club. Race wrote (and with the Steve Race Orchestra performed) library music for the Chappell Recorded Music Library, an example being ''Pacemaker''. But his best-known and, according to his autobiography, his most lucrative composition is his music for the Birds Eye frozen peas

jingle A jingle is a short song or tune used in advertising and for other commercial uses. Jingles are a form of sound branding. A jingle contains one or more hooks and meanings that explicitly promote the product or service being advertised, usually ...

, "Sweet as the moment when the pod went pop". Race also wrote the acoustic guitar jingle which introduced programmes made by Southern Television in the 1970s and early 1980s. In the film '' Calling Paul Temple'' (1948) Race (with Sid Colin) wrote two of the songs performed by Celia Lipton, and appeared himself as the pianist/bandleader in the nightclub section. He also wrote the score for the 1962 British B-movie crime film '' Crosstrap'', and the scores for ''Three Roads to Rome'' (1963), ''Against the Tide'' (1965) and ''Land of Three Rivers'' (1966). ''Windsor Blues'', a duet written in 1970 for Prince Charles (cello) and the Earl of Chester (trumpet) has been recorded. (The two titles refer to the same person, and the cello part was intended to be tape recorded by Charles).

Personal life

Race's autobiography, ''Musician at Large'', was published in 1979, and in 1988 Souvenir Press Ltd published his book about his grandfather's short but interesting life, from lead miner to missionary, entitled ''The Two Worlds of Joseph Race.'' Race married Marjorie Leng in 1944 and they had a daughter, Nicola. Marjorie died from cancer in 1969. He married again in 1970, to radio producer Léonie Mather, who survived him. Race had his first heart attack in 1965. He died of the second attack at his home in Great Missenden, Buckinghamshire, in June 2009. In the 1980s he was a supporter of the Social Democratic Party.

Publications

*''Piano-Style: A Complete Guide for the Modern Dance Band Pianist'' (sheet music, 1949) * ''Musician at Large'' (autobiography, 1979), ) * ''The King's Singers: A Self Portrait'' by Race, Nigel Perrin and The King's Singers (1980, ) * ''My Music'' (1980, ) * ''Dear Music Lover'' (1981) * ''Music Quiz'' (1983, ) * ''The Two Worlds of Joseph Race'' (1988). This is a biography of Joseph Russell Race, his paternal grandfather, who was a Wesleyan Methodist missionary in China, and colleague of David Hill.

References

External links

* *
Steve Race appears on ''Desert Island Discs'', 27 November 1971
– Daily Telegraph obituary {{DEFAULTSORT:Race, Steve 1921 births 2009 deaths Military personnel from Lincoln, England Alumni of the Royal Academy of Music Classical music radio presenters English radio presenters English game show hosts English television presenters English pianists English composers Officers of the Order of the British Empire People from Lincoln, England Royal Air Force personnel of World War II 20th-century British pianists 20th-century English musicians People educated at Lincoln Grammar School BBC Radio 4 presenters BBC radio presenters BBC television presenters Royal Air Force airmen