Jazz - Stanley Woods

Trumpeter and pianist Stanley Wood has, he tells me, lost count of the number of famous musicians and composers that he has worked with in a career that has spanned almost fifty years. “Malcolm Arnold, Leopold Stokowski. I don’t want to boast but it would be easier to say who I haven’t work with”, he says. He gets quite strict though when I admit that most of these names are lost on me. “Stokowski - haven’t you seen Fantasia?” he says incredulously. No. “Oh.” So we move on. He tells me how he performed at the Festival Hall in the year that it opened when he was just 17, that he was principal trumpet player for the National Youth Orchestra at 16, and the youngest member of the London Philharmonic Orchestra at 23. But then he drops a bombshell. “You know that Beatles song, All You Need is Love?” Of course. “Well that’s me on the trumpet at the beginning”. What? “Yes. People are always impressed by that”, he adds nonchalantly. “It was recorded for a live broadcast”, he continues. “And there was a huge party going on in the studio. Mick Jagger and everybody were there. You can see me on the TV recording - except I’m four stone lighter and have black hair”, he laughs. Did you hang out with them, I ask. “Not really - I wanted to get back to my wife and kids.” “I’ve played with The Who and Frank Zappa as well”, he adds as if this weren’t enough. Tonight he brings the fruits of an extraordinary career to a mixed jazz night at the All Saints. All proceeds go to the National Society for Epilepsy. ER