George Chisholm OBE (29 March 1915 – 6 December 1997) was a Scottish jazz trombonist and vocalist whose career lasted more than 60 years and for most of it he was regarded as the finest jazz trombonist in Europe. As well as being the first British jazz musician to rank with the American giants, he was a spontaneous and inspired comedian. His extrovert humour and jazz playing covered a shy and extraordinarily modest personality.
George Chisholm was born into a musical family in Glasgow. His father was a drummer and his mother was a pianist. His brother Ron also became a pianist while another brother, Bert, was a trumpeter. Chisholm's first professional work was as a pianist in a Glasgow cinema and he made his first broadcast in 1932. He began working on trombone in 1934 and he doubled on both instruments for the next few years. He moved to London in 1935 to play in Teddy Joyce's band and then settled on trombone in a variety of "society" bands in the West End. He was a regular at the all-night jam sessions in clubs like the Bag o' Nails and the Nest. It was then that he first played with the American saxophone players Coleman Hawkins and Benny Carter.
Carter was impressed with Chisholm's playing when he heard him in London in 1937 and invited him to join him for a three-month stay in Holland. On his return Chisholm joined the band led by Bert Ambrose, then the top band in the country. He worked off and on for Ambrose during the next two years at the Cafe de Paris and at the Mayfair Hotel and also freelanced with the singer George Elrick and the dancer Ken "Snakehips" Johnson.
Fats Waller came to England in June 1939 and took part in the first ever television broadcast. It was decided that he should record while in London and Chisholm interrupted his honeymoon in Jersey to play at the session. That same year Leonard Feather organised a recording by George Chis-holm's Jive Five. Feather, who became the leading jazz critic in the United States, later described Chisholm as "one of the half-dozen most inventive and emotionally mature trombonists in jazz - regardless of country: a superlative musician with an ageless style."
In 1939 he was a founder member of a big band called the Heralds of Swing, but it didn't survive. At the outbreak of war Chisholm, along with other musicians from Ambrose's band, joined the RAF, where he played lead trombone and wrote arrangements for the Squadronaires. The band was so popular it survived long after the war. Chisholm stayed with it until 1950. He followed this with freelance work and a five-year stint with the BBC Showband (a forerunner of the BBC Radio Orchestra) and with the trumpeter Kenny Baker's Dozen, one of the best of all British jazz groups. Chisholm was also a core member of Wally Stott's orchestra on BBC Radio's The Goon Show, for which he made several acting appearances, joining the team of Harry Secombe, Peter Sellers, Spike Milligan and Ray Ellington.
In December 1956 he was chosen, along with Sid Phillips, Dill Jones, Jack Parnell and a symphony orchestra, to accompany Louis Armstrong at the Hungarian Relief concert at the Royal Festival Hall. Armstrong hadn't appeared here since the Thirties and such was the heady rarity of his visit that Humphrey Lyttelton held up a three-stone tape recorder to a backstage loudspeaker to capture the occasion. The tape shows Armstrong often out of sync with the symphony, but Chisholm's solos are suitably inspired and confident.
In the 1960s and George was as busy as ever, his involvement with The Black and White Minstrel Show involved not only straight playing but also a lot of comedy, George stayed with the show and then toured the country with it as it played to packed theatres, but received bad reviews from the music press especially jazz critics who saw him being involved in a show of bad taste.
Chisholm toured the country with Alex Welsh's band during the Sixties and Seventies and also formed his own band, the Gentlemen of Jazz. Lyttelton joined him with the Welsh band in "Salute to Satchmo" in 1978. Chisholm also had roles in the films The Mouse on the Moon (1963), The Knack ...and How to Get It (1965) and Superman III (1983). He was also part of the house band for the children's programmes Play School and Play Away. He also sang and was a storyteller on Playschool occasionally.
After a heart bypass operation in 1982 he continued to tour the country with the trumpeter Keith Smith's band and working with his own band the Gentlemen of Jazz. He also played live with touring artists. Chisholm's virtuosity as a brass player brought him invitations to play with leading brass bands and amongst those he played with were the Yorkshire Imperial, Grimethorpe and Royal Doulton. He was appointed an OBE in 1984.
The mid 1990s were not good for George as he started to suffer from Alzheimer’s disease. He retired from public life to Milton Keynes and unfortunately passed away on December 6th, 1997 at the age of 82.
(Edited from The Independent & Wikipedia)
Here’s the national Youth Jazz Orchestra in 1977 with NYJO's World of Music marking a return to BBC 2. Hosted by George Chisholm who you can see playing “Lift Off” between 21:25 and 27:13.