Ian Bell (jazz drummer)

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Ian Bell was born in Fife, Scotland on 7 May 1931. When he was aged about 8, his family moved to the South London area, where Ian lived for most of the rest of his life.

While Ian was still schoolboy, he joined a Boys Brigade band in which he played bugle, and, sometimes, side drum.

Ian served his National Service in the Army, where he was a member of the Intelligence Corps. During this time he became interested in jazz music and purchased a second-hand set of drums, and also a trumpet. These insruments he taught himself to play, but while he soon became proficient on the drums, he did not play the trumpet foe very long.

After Ian's discharge from the Army, he joined the Civil Service, which provided him with a steady income and enabled him to pursue his very keen interest in jazz. He visited many jazz clubs in the London area, before forming his own jazz band in 1952, the Ian Bell Jazzmen. This band appeared regularly at various jazz venues, notably the Fishmonger's Arms, Wood Green, and the Cooks Ferry Inn, Edmonton. The band included many fine players, such as Ben Cohen (trumpet), Goff Dubber (clarinet), Sid Bennett (guitar and banjo), and Neil Clifton (bass). This was a period of great popularity for Dixieland and New Orleans jazz, and the band was very successful. However, public musical tastes are very fickle, and by 1962 the bottom had fallen out of the jazz market, and Ian was forced to disband. After some years, the band was reformed in 1969, and began to play at the Grey Horse, Kingston, with many of the previous musicians recalled and augmented by other promising players such as Terry Thomson (tenor sax), and Mike Jefferson (piano). From then onwards, Ian's band continued to play regularly until ill health caused his retirement in 2000. Ian died in July 2004 at Bognor Regis in Sussex.

The only known recorded examples of Ian's work appear on a CD, Sounds Good 002, British Jazz Compilation No 1.

There are very few or no other articles that link to this one.
Please help introduce links in articles on related topics. After links have been created, remove this message.
This article has been tagged since October 2006.

This article or section does not adequately cite its references or sources.
Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. (help, get involved!)
Any material not supported by sources may be challenged and removed at any time. This article has been tagged since October 2006.

An editor has expressed a concern that the subject of the article does not satisfy the notability guideline for Biographies.

If you are familiar with the subject matter, please expand the article to establish its notability. The best way to address this concern is to reference published, third-party sources about the subject. If notability cannot be established, the article is more likely to be considered for deletion, per Wikipedia:Guide to deletion. (See also Wikipedia:Notability)
This article has been tagged since October 2006.