Keep on doing it
"Keep On Doing It" is the title of a track by saxophonist Tom Scott, which we aspiring jazz rockers used to play in the seventies. I daresay if I were to get together with some of the musicians I knew from that time, we could still play it - after a fashion. That's because musicians, like actors, do keep on doing it, long after normal folk would be tending the roses and sipping their Ovaltine.
On Sunday evening I was at the reunion of people closest to the legendary Olympic Studios, in Barnes, South West London. It was twenty years ago that Olympic was purchased by Virgin, and Bransonised into a state of the art modern studio complex, devoid of character, decent sound and fun. One day I will write about Keith Grant, the engineer who ran Olympic from the start until the takeover and who's musical brilliance was matched by his terrifying expertise at practical jokes.
But I was struck on Sunday by how the musicians attending were still fulfilled; older, generally poorer, but making music on their terms and distilling years of experience into an art which keeps them youthful. Then on Monday I was at a fiftieth birthday party for an old girlfriend, who plays the trumpet in a big band. A segment of the band was playing, and I was delighted by the storming trumpet playing of a guy named Ronnie Hughes, once a top flight pro, now, well into his eighties, playing jazz, unfettered by concerns about the next gig, his status and all those things that make professional life so difficult.
Actors are the same, they only tend to stop when they drop. I was going to comment that there must be some connection between performing and longevity, but then I remembered that politicians tend to go on for ever as well. Oh well.
On Sunday evening I was at the reunion of people closest to the legendary Olympic Studios, in Barnes, South West London. It was twenty years ago that Olympic was purchased by Virgin, and Bransonised into a state of the art modern studio complex, devoid of character, decent sound and fun. One day I will write about Keith Grant, the engineer who ran Olympic from the start until the takeover and who's musical brilliance was matched by his terrifying expertise at practical jokes.
But I was struck on Sunday by how the musicians attending were still fulfilled; older, generally poorer, but making music on their terms and distilling years of experience into an art which keeps them youthful. Then on Monday I was at a fiftieth birthday party for an old girlfriend, who plays the trumpet in a big band. A segment of the band was playing, and I was delighted by the storming trumpet playing of a guy named Ronnie Hughes, once a top flight pro, now, well into his eighties, playing jazz, unfettered by concerns about the next gig, his status and all those things that make professional life so difficult.
Actors are the same, they only tend to stop when they drop. I was going to comment that there must be some connection between performing and longevity, but then I remembered that politicians tend to go on for ever as well. Oh well.
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