RIP Len Phillips
It is with great sadness that I announce the passing of Len Phillips. After a year-long struggle with dementia, Len passed away on 10th January. It has been a truly awful time for his wife Ann and their family. Taken into a nursing home at the start of the pandemic, the restrictions have meant almost no contact throughout the last eight months of his life.
Len Phillips 1932-2021
Born in 1932, Len took up playing sax at age 16 (by coincidence, sharing the same teacher as the late Roy Willox). National Service would see him in the band of the 17th/21st Lancers, joining aged 21. This full-time job as a musician cemented his love of music, a love affair which had its foundations at the Ilford Palais, where the young Phillips frequently watched and danced to the great bands of the time. Alongside his admiration for the great Ted Heath And His Music, Len was a huge fan of Stan Kenton. These sounds would shape his future music career.
After a spell of not playing at all, in 1970 Len picked up the sax again and joined the Goldsmiths College Big Band under the leadership of Don Rendell. Here he began forging relationships with musicians with whom he would go on working until his retirement. Len became a regular in several rehearsal bands around South-East London including a stint jointly running a band with Mick Collins. It was through these bands that he became friends with trombonist Stu Parker. During a chance meeting with Stu in Marks and Spencer, Len was persuaded to start his own band. Stu and mutual friend Pete Cocker took care of booking most of the musicians and in 1985, the Len Phillips Big Band was formed. Len was a natural frontman and his genuine love of the music won him and the band an increasingly larger following.
Len’s big talent aside from music was in sales. Through two years of persistence, eventually he managed to convince the management at Warner’s that Big Band weekends were what they needed. With two coach-loads of fans from Sidcup, the band played its first date for Warner’s and the rest is history. With more work for musicians, Len improved the quality of playing and began bringing in guest stars. Lita Rosa, Pete King, Kenny Baker and Dennis Lotis all featured on the bill. Ann Phillips credits their friendship with Lotis as the real catalyst to the band’s success. Len and Ann became close personal friends with the Lotises and over the years, Dennis would champion the band.
Len playing lead alto with the band in the early days.
Alongside the big band, Len also started the annual jazz course at Higham Hall in Cumbria. Regular adult student attendees played alongside members of the big band as well as visiting professors. The course is now well established and continues under the direction of David Black.
In 2009, following heart problems, Len took the decision to retire from running the big band and handed the reins to me. A constant source of support and guidance, he taught me an awful lot. We became good friends, bouncing ideas off of one another and enjoying stories about past gigs and more recent events.
Hanging up his big band boots didn’t mean retirement for Len though. From 2010 Len began putting together smaller groups. The Len Phillips Seven saw Len making his debut at Ronnie Scott’s Jazz Club. Theatre and club dates came in thick and fast, with guests including Paul Wood, Alan Barnes, Anton Browne, Emer McParland and again Dennis Lotis. In the last few years he did scale back his activities but still promoted and managed a show for Jeff Hooper at the Bob Hope Theatre as recently as October 2019.
Len’s legacy will live on through the jazz evenings in Sidcup (now with the David Black Quartet), the jazz course in Cumbria and the big band that bears his name. He has created an enormous amount of work for musicians and has been one of the country’s most prolific providers of big band entertainment through the last thirty years. He is survived by his wife Ann, children Kevin, Karen and Julie, ten grandchildren and two great-grandchildren.
RIP Len