James Braidie Galloway (28 July 1936 – 30 December 2014) was a jazz clarinet and saxophone player. He based his career in Canada after emigrating from Scotland in the mid-1960s.
Fifty years in Canada did nothing to blunt Jim Galloway’s Ayrshire accent, but having a West of Scotland accent in no way blunted his ability to play saxophone as if he had been born in New Orleans, like his idol Sidney Bechet. His preferred territory lay somewhere between Dixieland and swing, though he was somewhat impatient with category and managed to strike up a long-standing relationship with the Oklahoman pianist and singer Jay “Hooty” McShann, who became a stalwart of Kansas City jazz and is often seen as a precursor of bebop. Galloway’s place in Canadian jazz, and his access to changing styles in the music, came through the Toronto Jazz Festival, which he helped to found and of which he was artistic director for more than two decades.
James Braidie Galloway was born in Kilwinning, Ayrshire and grew up in Dalry, Scotland. He attended Dalry High School from 1948 to 1954 before moving to Glasgow to study Commercial and Graphic Art at the Glasgow School of Art. He graduated in 1958 and subsequently attended the Glasgow Provincial Teacher Training College, before accepting a teaching position at the Strathbungo Senior Secondary School from 1959 to 1964. While in Glasgow, Galloway began playing Jazz - first clarinet and then saxophone - with Alex Dagleish’s Scottish All Stars and then with his own Jazzmakers.
In 1964, Galloway emigrated to Canada, where he quickly became an active member of the local Toronto Jazz scene. He served as a booking agent for a number of prominent Toronto Jazz clubs - including the Cafe des Copains (later the Montreal Bistro) and the Bourbon St. Room. He also established himself as an accomplished performing saxophonist. In addition to playing with well-known members of the international Jazz scene - including Jay McShann and Wild Bill Davison - Galloway played in and then led The Metro Stompers Jazz band. Though he continued for a time to play other horns, he began to focus on the soprano, often favouring a curved rather than the more usual straight model. “A sax shouldn’t be longer than your necktie, in my opinion”, he once said.
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| Jim with Kenny Stewart Trio |
In the early 1970s Galloway was recording for the Canadian-based Sackville label, an imprint that combined an interest in roots jazz and blues with a strong reputation for avant-garde releases. In 1973 he made Three’s Company with pianist Dick Wellstood and worked again with the pianist (who doubled on an electric instrument) on the fine Walking On Air. He went on tour in Europe and the United States with Buddy Tate in the mid-1970s, and soon after formed the Wee Big Band in 1978.
A compilation of Sackville material from the 1970s was called Music Is My Life; it featured performances with Wellstood, McShann, a visiting Humphrey Lyttelton and local stalwarts guitarist Ed Bickert and bassist Don Thompson, the latter one of the few to keep pace with Galloway’s rapid-fire Scottish patter. Other eminent collaborators included the cornetist Wild Bill Davison and the Russian-born Chicago pianist Art Hodes. Galloway recorded many jazz albums, both with his own band and in collaboration with other well-known jazz musicians. His album Walking on Air was nominated for Best Jazz Album at the Juno Awards of 1980.
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| Jim with Oscar Peterson |
His own Wee Big Band and Jazz Canada were occasional groupings that should have been encouraged to record more but they were regular features of jazz in Toronto and across the country. It was a perfect compromise for Galloway, a personnel small enough to tour or to fit into a club like the Café des Copains but large enough to deliver what Galloway liked to describe, with an enthusiastic grimace, as “oomph”. Partly through the group, partly through his role with the Toronto Jazz Festival, he built strong relationships with a widening pool of like-minded players, including fellow saxophonist Fraser McPherson, bassist Neil Swainson and drummer Don Vickery.
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| Jim and his wife Anne |
In 1993 Galloway was profiled on CBC. In 2002, he was made Chevalier of the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres. Seven years later, he stood down as artistic director of the Toronto Jazz Festival. His last really distinctive recording was Echoes of Swing in 2003, on which he played a baritone saxophone that was considerably larger than a necktie. His health failed subsequently and he died on 30 December 2014 while receiving palliative care, following months of illness at the home in Toronto he shared with his second wife, Anne Page, just before what he never stopped referring to as Hogmanay.
(Edited from Brian Morton article @ The Independent & York University)