Aylesbury Music Centre Dance Band

The Aylesbury Music Centre Dance Band (also known as the AMC Dance Band) was an award-winning big band for children and young adults aged around 14 to 18 based at the Aylesbury Music Centre, an educational establishment founded in 1965 in Buckinghamshire, England.[1] Notable alumni of the band include Leo Green,[2][3] Mark Armstrong,[4][5] and Jules Buckley.[6][7][5]

The AMC Dance Band, with its director Nick Care in the foreground, as it appeared on the back cover of its 1995 album Doin' Time

History

The Aylesbury Music Centre Dance Band was founded sometime prior to 1985.[8]: 3  In that year, the direction of the band was handed to Nick Care, under whose leadership the band rose to prominence within the world of youth jazz. Members were aged around 14–18, with 30–50% leaving each year as they left school for work or higher education, necessitating continual education of new members.[8]: 5 

The band played a number of jazz festivals, including the Aberdeen Jazz Festival,[9] Birmingham International Jazz Festival,[8]: 4  Montreux Jazz Festival[5][7] (gaining an International Association for Jazz Education Outstanding Performance Award),[8]: 4  the North Sea Jazz Festival,[7][10][5][11] and Soho Jazz Festival.[12][13] Other venues played, usually in conjunction with youth music events, included Buckingham Palace,[14] the London Palladium,[12] Royal Albert Hall,[11][15][16][17] and Royal Festival Hall.[18] The band worked, and shared the stage, with many international artists.[19]

The band performed on the BBC children's programme Blue Peter seven times,[5][7][20] also appearing with Django Bates on Sky TV and on Radio France.[8]: 4  Members of the band were alongside other Aylesbury Music Centre students who performed as Hogwarts Orchestra in the 2005 film Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire.[21][22]

The band seems to have come to an end around 2014, when the Aylesbury Music Centre transitioned from being part of state education to being an independent trust, and Care took redundancy. Care continued, however, to conduct a band comprising former members of the Aylesbury Music Centre Dance Band known first as the Alumni Band and then as the Nick Care Big Band. These continued to perform annual concerts at the Court Theatre, Tring, a tradition which the AMC Dance Band had begun in 1997. The Nick Care Big Band continued to play until around 2018.[8]: 5  Around 150 alumni of the band reassembled in 2023 to play a memorial concert following Care's death.[5][23]: 11 

Nick Care

For around three decades, the Aylesbury Music Centre Dance Band was directed by Nick Care.[8] Born in 1958,[5] Care grew up in Leytonstone, working in his father's shoe shop.[8]: 2  Care attended Junior Trinity College of Music classes as an Essex Music Scholar, taking Grade 8 and a Diploma in Trumpet, and from 1970 to 1978 studied for BA Hons. Music at the Colchester Institute (then the North East Essex Technical College Music Department). From 1977, Care played with the Farnaby Brass Ensemble, sharing in its multiple wins of the Ifor James brass competition trophy.[24][25] From around 1980 he also played in Brass Tacks, alongside Kathy Gifford,[8]: 2  who became a fellow-teacher and Care's wife.[7][5] Care qualified as a teacher in the early 1980s, spent 18 months teaching in Hampshire, and then took a position at the Aylesbury Music Centre. He began conducting the Aylesbury Music Centre Dance Band in 1985.[8]: 3 

At the Aylesbury Music Centre, Care also directed the Junior Brass band, and as a peripatetic music teacher established bands at Aylesbury Grammar School, Aylesbury High School, Sir Henry Floyd Grammar School, and Turnfurlong Junior School. These groups too won a number of awards, with Turnfurlong Junior Jazz Band also appearing on CBeebies.[8]: 3  Care was noted for motivating his young musicians through a delicately poised balance of encouragement[8]: 2  and disparagement, the latter involving an idiosyncratic and elaborate vocabularly of which 'rancid' was a 'long-running favourite' term.[26] He was characterised by the former Dance Band trumpeter Jules Buckley as "a true guru—a master who could unlock and present to me the secrets of the musical world, absolutely without ego, and with a selfless generosity that is beyond measure".[27]

Care was diagnosed in 2016 with a rare combination of Motor Neurone Disease and Frontotemporal Dementia, working into 2018 while also contributing to research projects on his conditions.[8]: 5  He died in 2020, aged 62.[5]

Awards

In 1987, the band entered the National Festival of Music for Youth for the first time and were given 'highly commended' status;[28][8]: 3  it went on to win a total of at least nine awards at different iterations of the Festival.[29]

Among other awards, the band won the BBC National Big Band Competition (an annual competition characterised by The Guardian as "a fixture in the station's schedules" from 1975 to 2006):[30] the band won in the youth section four times,[7][5] including 1992,[31][32][33] 1995,[34] and 1998[35] (and were runners-up three times),[8]: 4  participating in at least one BBC Radio 2 Big Band Special.[29] The ensemble also became the first to win the Daily Telegraph Young Jazz Competition National Award twice,[36] in 1989[37][12][38] and 1995.[36]

Albums

The band released two albums.

Doin' Time, 1995

The band's first album, Doin' Time, was recorded in Buckingham, 19–20 April 1995.[39][40][41] Tracks were: Magic time / Marie's shuffle / Satin doll / Sad Afrika / Night's high noon / Bill Bailey / Sing, sing, sing / Feels so good / Moanin' / Party hearty / Dance for human folk / Just friends / On purple porpoise highway / Midnight oil.

Beyond the Limit, 1999

The band's second album, a collaboration with Salena Jones, was recorded at Great Linford Manor, 2–3 April 1999,[40] and received positive reviews.[42][43][44] Tracks were: Do me wrong, but do me / Carmelos' by the freeway / Life's suite: Clear blue water – Echoes runes and ciphers – Composite motion / Here's that rainy day / Misbehavin' / Beyond the limits / La muchacha de Columbia / My romance / Intensive blue / Balim / Theme from The Naked Gun / Log.

References
  1. "Music Centres". Buckinghamshire Music Trust. 2019-04-22. Retrieved 2023-03-13..
  2. "Past Members".
  3. https://issuu.com/musicforyouth/docs/programme-1991
  4. John Chilton, 'ARMSTRONG, Mark', in Who's Who of British Jazz, 2nd edn (London: Continuum, 2004), p. 9 ISBN 0-8264-7234-6.
  5. "Charity concert for local bandleader". Bucks Radio. 23 January 2023. Retrieved 2023-03-13.
  6. Michael Beek, "Who is Jules Buckley?", Classical Music (29 June 2021).
  7. James Lowson, "Grammy winner announces homecoming event in Aylesbury commemorating inspirational local musician", Bucks Herald (26 January 2023).
  8. Kathy Gifford, "Here in Spirit, the Star of the Show: Life & Times Snapshots of Nick Care", in Souvenir Programme: Nick care's BIG Band Paean, Led by Grammy Award-Winner Jules Buckley. Aylesbury Waterside Theatre 6pm Sunday 5th March 2023, in Aid of Motor Neurone Disease Association ([Milton Keynes]: Priest, 2023), pp. 2–6.
  9. Tim Pauling, "Review", Aberdeen Press and Journal (2 August 1997).
  10. "| NN North Sea Jazz Festival". www.northseajazz.com. Retrieved 2023-03-13.
  11. Margaret Smith, 'Crowds wowed by kids', Bucks Free Press (23rd March 2005).
  12. 'Soho Festival Launches National Youth Jazz Competition', Financial Times (18 August 1989), p. 13.
  13. Antony Field, 'Paladium: Soho Jazz Festival', The Stage (2 November 1989), 6.
  14. 'Court Circular', The Times (30 July 1997).
  15. Tom Deveson, 'Blur Of Passion And Colour', The Times Educational Supplement (15 November 2002), p. 27.
  16. 'Music For Youth', The Guardian (2 November 2002).
  17. Anne Lunn, 'Show was superb', Bucks Free Press (12 April 2007).
  18. 'Aylesbury Music Centre Dance Band', The Independent (10 February 2004), p. 2.
  19. "Hall of Fame!". www.big-band.co.uk. Archived from the original on 21 October 2015. Retrieved 2009-11-15.
  20. 'The Bombshells are Back... Better than Ever', Daily Post, North Wales edition (9 March 2007)
  21. Harry Potter: Film Vault: Volume 12. Celebrations, Food, and Publications of the Wizarding World (Insight Editions, 2020), p. 22, ISBN 9781683838364, ISBN 168383836X.
  22. "AHS Girls in the Next Harry Potter Film!", Highlights, 10.1 (February 2005), 1.
  23. "The Musicians", in Souvenir Programme: Nick care's BIG Band Paean, Led by Grammy Award-Winner Jules Buckley. Aylesbury Waterside Theatre 6pm Sunday 5th March 2023, in Aid of Motor Neurone Disease Association ([Milton Keynes]: Priest, 2023), pp. 10–11.
  24. Geoff Harniess, 'Farnaby Brass Ensemble', in Souvenir Programme: Nick care's BIG Band Paean, Led by Grammy Award-Winner Jules Buckley. Aylesbury Waterside Theatre 6pm Sunday 5th March 2023, in Aid of Motor Neurone Disease Association ([Milton Keynes]: Priest, 2023), p. 8.
  25. British Music Yearbook 1984, ed. by Marianne Barton (Schirmer Books, 1983), p. 301.
  26. Kathy Gifford, "Welcome!", in Souvenir Programme: Nick care's BIG Band Paean, Led by Grammy Award-Winner Jules Buckley. Aylesbury Waterside Theatre 6pm Sunday 5th March 2023, in Aid of Motor Neurone Disease Association ([Milton Keynes]: Priest, 2023), p. 1.
  27. Indy Vidyalankara, "Jules Buckley", in Souvenir Programme: Nick care's BIG Band Paean, Led by Grammy Award-Winner Jules Buckley. Aylesbury Waterside Theatre 6pm Sunday 5th March 2023, in Aid of Motor Neurone Disease Association ([Milton Keynes]: Priest, 2023), p. 9.
  28. Philippa Davidson, Gerald Haigh, and Michael Burnett, "South Bank Showcase", Times Educational Supplement (24 July 1987), 24.
  29. "Band Biog". big-band.co.uk/. Archived from the original on 31 March 2016. Retrieved 2009-11-15.
  30. Plunkett, John (2006-03-29). "Big bands given marching orders by Radio 2". The Guardian. ISSN 0261-3077. Retrieved 2023-03-12.
  31. 'Snaps', The Stage (6 February 1992), 18.
  32. "Theatre News: Snaps", The Stage (14 May 1992), 2.
  33. https://issuu.com/musicforyouth/docs/programme-1992, p. 11.
  34. "Schedule - BBC Programme Index". genome.ch.bbc.co.uk. Retrieved 2023-03-12.
  35. "LIGHT ENTERTAINMENT REVIEW: Radio 2 National Big Band Competition All-Winners' Concert", The Stage (26 March 1998), 16.
  36. "Youngsters prove the best - again", Buckinghamshire Examiner (14 July 1995), 19.
  37. 'News', The Daily Telegraph (21 June 1989), 4.
  38. Amersham Advertiser (18 April 1990), 20.
  39. Tom Lord, The Jazz Discography: Volume 32 (Lord Music Reference, 2003), p. A-503.
  40. Riccardo Di Filippo, Enciclopedia del jazz, s.v. Aylesbury Music Centre Dance Band.
  41. "Doin' Time", IAJRC Journal, 29 (1996), 93.
  42. Jack Bowers, "The Aylesbury Music Centre Dance Band: Beyond the Limit", allaboutjazz (1 February 2000).
  43. Andy Simons, "Beyond the Limit", IAJRC Journal, 41.4 (Dec 2008), 93.
  44. "Reviews", Jazz Journal International, 53 (2000), 20.
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