Django Reinhardt
In Ken's eyes, Django was the musical equivalent of the Mona Lisa.
He was captivated by him his entire life: from listening to him as a boy on his cat’s whisker radio, to Ken's passing, aged 83, just as the final notes of Django's Nuages faded. Beyond his phenomenal talent as a guitarist, there was something about the free spirited life of Django that inspired Ken: to be himself, to live life fully and to enjoy every moment of it.
He started to collect Django records as a teenager and taught himself guitar to play his music. He followed his life and career, writing articles on him for newspapers, magazines, the sleeve notes of Django UK record releases and transcribing his music. Ken became known as the leading authority on Reinhardt, and his first break as a radio broadcaster at the BBC was thanks to a profile he was invited to write and present on him in 1956. He continued to play and promote the music of Django his entire radio career.
Ken left a precious file in his archive, packed full of personal memorabilia related to Django - including a set of guitar strings, rumoured to have belonged to the maestro himself!
He was captivated by him his entire life: from listening to him as a boy on his cat’s whisker radio, to Ken's passing, aged 83, just as the final notes of Django's Nuages faded. Beyond his phenomenal talent as a guitarist, there was something about the free spirited life of Django that inspired Ken: to be himself, to live life fully and to enjoy every moment of it.
He started to collect Django records as a teenager and taught himself guitar to play his music. He followed his life and career, writing articles on him for newspapers, magazines, the sleeve notes of Django UK record releases and transcribing his music. Ken became known as the leading authority on Reinhardt, and his first break as a radio broadcaster at the BBC was thanks to a profile he was invited to write and present on him in 1956. He continued to play and promote the music of Django his entire radio career.
Ken left a precious file in his archive, packed full of personal memorabilia related to Django - including a set of guitar strings, rumoured to have belonged to the maestro himself!
1st International Festival Django Reinhardt
In 1963 Ken was invited to perform at the 1st International Django Reinhardt Festival in Liberchies, Belgium, along with Stéphane Grapelli, Joseph Reinhardt and Diz Disley. Notes in his archive suggest he had recorded the festival and that this was broadcast on the BBC in October 1963. The festival was also filmed by Belgian television. However, no recording was found in his archive, nor copy of the BBC broadcast, or details of the Belgian broadcast.
Since 2012, we had a message on the website asking if anybody had any information to please contact us. Amazingly, in February 2017 we were contacted by Trevor Davies, who told us he had recorded the broadcast Ken had made on the BBC in 63. He had kept the recording for all these years in the certainty that one day he would find other people for whom it would mean as much to as it did to him.
Since 2012, we had a message on the website asking if anybody had any information to please contact us. Amazingly, in February 2017 we were contacted by Trevor Davies, who told us he had recorded the broadcast Ken had made on the BBC in 63. He had kept the recording for all these years in the certainty that one day he would find other people for whom it would mean as much to as it did to him.
Produced by
