GEORGE MELLY

Candid Recording(s):

The Ultimate Melly (CCD 79843)

Biography:

British jazz’s renaissance man, George Melly, is a noted raconteur, art critic, autobiographer and keen fisherman as well as being a living legend as a jazz singer. He was born in Liverpool in 1926 and rose to fame with Mick Mulligan’s Magnolia Jazz Band (Owning Up) before branching out into journalism, film scriptwriting and providing the captions for Wally Fawkes’s ‘Flook’ cartoon strip in the Daily Mail.

During the 1960s and 1970s, Melly guested with a variety of bands, including those led by Alex Welsh, Brian White and Chris Watford, but it was his partnership with John Chilton’s Feetwarmers that cemented his popularity at the Club; this will be his 33rd year entertaining patrons here for the festive season.

Warner Jazz have recently released two of Melly’s most celebrated recordings, Nuts and Son of Nuts, recorded live at the Club (1972) and Merlin’s Cave (1974) respectively, in a two-CD set, complete with original liner-notes and some new annotations by the man himself.

Following the parting of the ways with Chilton’s band in 2002, Melly joined forces with another renowned UK trumpeter, Digby Fairweather, leading a lively, multi-faceted band touring widely throughout the UK.