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Vale and thankyou Graeme Bell. You certainly played a role in getting me interested in jazz when I was still a spotty-faced, duffle-coated teen back in the early 60s!

A beautiful person and what an incredible legacy... NB: John McBeath has done an obit in The Australian today...

Vale Graeme Bell. Thanks for the memories of your gigs in Darwin with the All Stars A mentor to my son when he was starting out in what is now a fulltime career

A great loss to Australia, the music industry and the Australian Jazz Movement in particular. Every Australian performing artist owes his or her livelihood to Graeme Bell and his ilk who traced out the hard road from nothing, making possible and easier to achieve the careers they now enjoy and which many take for granted, not just in jazz in the full spectrum but from rock to high classical music.
Good music and great performance were his passions and he fought hard and often to his detrimrnt, for the rights of Australian performers to be recorded and then when only overseas mediocrity was good enough for (particularly commercial) radio stations; to have local recordings aired and acknowledged. He was as at home on Bandstand as he was on his own television and radio programs.

He was also an outstanding Trdade Unionist.

We shall never see him or his like again but we must never forget him. Death alone will see him silenced but his noisy legacy will surviv him. Great work and well done by a great Australain in a beautiful musical life, well-lived.

I go back to the 1950s when Graham was a constant visitor to us in The Sydney Jazz Club.... who remembers"The Dungeon" at the basement in Martin Place on Saturday Nights, I was a banjo player and have played sit-ins many times with his bands ....Vale mate...last time I spoke to you it was at the Jazz Fest in Adelaide we said it would be a race to see who plays in the "Heavenly Jazz Band" first....you win again!!!! I'll miss you pal.
You will be on my radio program this week

John the Jazzman

I've listened to Graeme's music for over 50 years. Favourite memory was when he came to Ravensthorpe WA in 1980 and I had dinner with him prior to the concert. I asked Graeme if he would play Black & White Rag and sent a bottle of whisky backstage. The trumpeter got stuck into the whisky during interval and really hammered it in the second half. Graeme play B&W Rag for me - it was a great night.

Really quality information, thank you so much.

It was Graeme's band that introduced me to jazz back in 1950. I'll never forget Smokey Mokes and Maple Leaf Rag and of course, South. My first jazz concert was the Bell band at Sydney Town Hall where a young John Sangster on drums drove Roger and Lou and the other wonderful Bell boys. I still treasure my shellac 78 recording. So sad that Graeme has left us.

I had never heard of Graeme Bell until I bought a recording of his Duesseldorf (Germany) concert which took place in the Robert Schumann Saal on September 15th 1951. This purchase would have been at least thirty five years ago and the LP encouraged me to find out more about Graeme and his Dixieland/Trad jazz band of that era. In fact, I wrote to him in 1986 asking about his recordings and received a personal reply dated 17th June 1986, a letter I still treasure. He sent me a brief biography and later, on 3rd March 1988, a Mr Nevill Sherburn of Swaggie Records (I understand Graeme was involved in the Company) sent me a full list of recordings, many of which I subsequently bought. I had hoped to send Graeme a 100th birthday card but sadly that was not to be although I did manage to obtain a copy of his autobiography about a year ago. It seems that when Graeme brought his bands to Europe and particularly to this Country, the unreserved and enthusiastic playing rather startled the somewhat staid jazz scene of the time and thank goodness it did. I was too young then to know anything about jazz; my interest developed many years later and now the Graeme Bell Jazzmen are firmly entrenched among my favourites. I never saw them of course but am trying to find out more about the Duesseldorf concert as I am often in that City. If there is anyone still alive who attended it I'd love to meet him or her but old father time has probably taken his toll. I know that most of the original bands are no longer with us but I'd be interested to know if any still survive, notably Derick 'Kanga' Bentley (tb), Don 'Pixie' Roberts (cl) and Louis 'Baron' Silbereisen (b & tu)If anyone can provide me with details please do so via padston@ntlworld.com
I'd be pleased to hear from you.

Hi Padston,
Great to hear your connection with Graeme Bell... We hope some others jump in with info on the Duesseldorf concert. Here's a link with some information:
http://www.allmusic.com/album/in-concert-mw0001888688

Thanks for listening and keep in touch,
ABC Jazz.