Daily Dose Of Jazz…

Leon Calvert was born on June 26, 1927 in Westcliffe-on-Sea, England and learned to play the trumpet in his childhood. His family moved to Manchester, England while he was very young. His first professional job was with Jack Nieman’s Band at the Plaza in Manchester and by 1945 he was on the London circuit. From late 1947 he performed on the ocean liner Mauretania with Paul Lombard.

Joining Oscar Rabin’s band in 1948, that year he was one of the ten musician co-founders of Club Eleven in Great Windmill Street, and later Carnaby Street. While at the club he played with the house band led by John Dankworth. During the late Forties and into the Fifties Calvert worked with the Ambrose band (1949), the Steve Race Bop Band (1949), Tito Burns (1950–1951) and then for four years with Carroll Gibbons. In the mid-1950s he had stints with Ken Moule, Buddy Featherstonhaugh, the London Jazz Orchestra and Denny Boyce. In the late 1950s he worked with Tony Crombie and Vic Lewis.

The 1960s saw Calvert operating a jazz label at Lansdowne Studios with drummer Barry Morgan, Monty Babson and Jerry Allen. In 1967 the group founded Morgan Sound Studio which ventured outside the jazz idiom and became the location for rock recordings by Joan Armatrading, Black Sabbath, The Cure, Donovan, Jethro Tull, The Kinks, Paul McCartney, Cat Stevens, Rod Stewart, and numerous more.

In 1961 he took over from Dick Hawdon as lead trumpeter for the John Dankworth Orchestra. He can be heard on many Ken Moule and Dankworth recordings of this period, his style influenced by the early work of Miles Davis. He was featured on Johnny Scott’s London Swings in 1966.

The 1970s saw Calvert recording with Richard Rodney Bennett on his Jazz Calendar Suite and on Tony Kinsey’s Thames Suite. He worked mostly as a freelance musician for radio, television and film. As a session trumpeter he recorded with John Baryy, and The Beatles. In the 1980s, Calvert sometimes played as a duo with pianist Jack Honeybourne, and he continued playing at small jazz venues into the 1990s, with the Sounds of Seventeen, Jazz Spell and George Thorby’s Band.

Bebop jazz trumpeter Leon Calvert, who was one of the co-founders of Club Eleven, died on May 1, 2018 in Hatfield, Hertfordshire, England at the age of 90.

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