John R. T. Davies

John Ross Twiston " R. T. " Davies ( born March 20, 1927 in Wivelsfield, Sussex, † 24 May 2004) was a British jazz musician (alto saxophone, trumpet, trombone, organ, banjo, guitar ), sound engineer and music producer.

Life and work

John RT Davies played during his military service in the Royal Signals in Austria, first as a guitarist. After his return to England he played in the Mick Mulligan band banjo. He switched to trombone when he was with his brother Julian, later the tuba player and bassist, founding member of the Crane River Jazz Band was played in the tradition of Bunk Johnson and George Lewis.

He is best known as a member of the formation had Temperance Seven, You're Driving Me Crazy with the (1961 ), Pasadena and Hard - Hearted Hannah chart hits. He worked in the traditional jazz scene, inter alia, with Cy Laurie, Acker Bilk, Sandy Brown, Ken Colyer, Bob Wallis and Henrik Johansen. With Dick Sudhalter, he founded the Anglo - American Alliance, which occurred among other things with Bobby Hackett. With Sudhalter he participated in a concert in memory of Bix Beiderbecke in the Royal Festival Hall, in which he played the part of saxophonist Frankie Trumbauer.

In the late 1940s Davies founded the record label Ristick, appeared on the largely unknown musicians of early jazz, but also previously unreleased or test - shots of musicians such as Jelly Roll Morton, Sidney Bechet, Joe Venuti and Wingy Manone. The label existed from 1949 to 1972 .. Davies thereby became a specialist of the remastering of shellac records and sound restoration of historic recordings from the period 1917-1940; among other things, he is responsible for the sound of the Hot Five Hot Fives & Sevens Collection .. His record collection is located in the Borthwick archives at York University.