Very sad news to report: the death a couple of days ago of the great drummer and bandleader Tony Kinsey at the age of 97.
John Bungey wrote a preview for UKJN of the celebratory evening which Way Out West organized for him in January 2024. The opening of the piece describes what a significant figure Tony Kinsey has been, why his “exceptional jazz longevity and compositional prowess” (Peter Vacher) were so worth celebrating last year, and why his passing this week feels like the end of an era.
“He is, surely, the last man standing from the London club scene of the 1950s, a pioneering era of modern jazz now fading into legend. It was a time when sharply suited adventurers brought the new sound of New York bebop to the smoke-wreathed basements of Soho. Post-war, pre-Beatles, a time remembered in black and white but pulsing with musical colour for the inner-city in-crowd.
Drummer Tony Kinsey led poll-topping small groups as well as sharing stages with such visiting luminaries as Billie Holiday, Sarah Vaughan and Oscar Peterson. He was resident bandleader at the fabled Flamingo Club for eight years, and with Tubby Hayes, Joe Harriott, Johnny Dankworth, he was among that elite group who could hold their own with visiting American stars. In the Sixties Kinsey branched out to write and arrange for big band and for strings, with his music appearing in film and TV.” (John Bungey)
We will have tributes, we hope there will be obituaries elsewhere which will do him justice. In Sadness.
Cyril Anthony (Tony) Kinsey. Born Sutton Coldfield, 11 October 1927. Died Sunbury-on-Thames, February 2025.
3 responses
Really the very last link with the great old days of the London jazz scene gone – he had great players in his various quartets and quintets – Joe Harriott, Ronnie Ross, Don Rendell. In the 1970s he recorded for BBC with a big band including the likes of Hank Shaw, Louis Stewart and Peter King (by then playing alto, but back in the 1960s on tenor in a quintet with Tony and Les Condon). “The Thames Suite” on the Spotlite label included two sessions from 1974 and 1976, one of them recorded at Maida Vale for the Jazz Club strand of Sounds of Jazz. Hopefully some copies are still available as I think Spotlite is now defunct.
There is also the 6 CD “Tony Kinsey Collection 1953-1961” on Acrobat (ACSCD 6001) which includes all the greats – Jimmy Deuchar, Tommy Whittle Bill LeSage and Tubby Hayes among many stars.
97 is a great age and I am glad he stayed so active for so long.
The first jazz club I ever visited was the Flamingo back in th early sixties. Tony Kinsey’s Quintet were billed but the sax player was unwell and the group reduced to a quartet. Then Dick Morrisey wandered in, still wearing his raincoat and carrying his sax case, and asked if he could sit in. He was welcomed and played with the band all evening. I still remember that great evening. Kinsey was also involved in the jazz and poetry scene, and I still have an EP of the quintet with the poet Christopher Logue. RIP Tony.
The reference to “sharp suited adventurers” rings true. I remember seeing Tony Kinsey’s group at Ronnie’s in Gerrard Street in the early 1960s. As a callow teenager I was in awe of the musicians in their Cecil Gee suits. They were, to me, the height of sophistication – and the music was pretty good too!