Allan Ganley

Allan Anthony Ganley ( born March 11, 1931 in Tolworth, Surrey, † March 29, 2008 in Slough, Berkshire ) was a British jazz drummer and arranger.

Allan Ganley was self-taught and began his professional career in the early 1950s in the dance band of Bert Ambrose. In 1953 he became a member of Johnny Thanks Worth band who were one of the most successful groups of modern jazz in England at that time. In the 1950s, Ganley also worked with Derek Smith, Dizzy Reece, Vic Ash, Ronnie Scott and gas- animal border in England U.S. musicians. 1956/57, he played with Jimmy Deuchar, at the end of the decade he was co-leader of a band with Ronnie Ross, The Jazz Makers.

At the beginning of the 1960s Ganley worked mostly with Tubby Hayes and later Joe Harriott, had their own formations and with an occasionally compiled Big Band. As house drummer at Ronnie Scott 's Club, he played with numerous musicians such as Dizzy Gillespie, Stan Getz, Jim Hall, Freddie Hubbard and Rahsaan Roland Kirk. In the early 1970s he studied at the Berklee College of Music in Boston, Massachusetts, and then returned back to the UK to form a big band, with which he appeared sporadically over the following ten years. In the 1970er/1980er years Ganley worked on countless radio concerts and recording sessions with, among other things, Digby Fairweather, Bud Freeman, Slim Gaillard, Brian Lemon, Dick Sudhalter and Al Haig. In 1980 he played at the Trombone Summit in the backing band with Horace Parlan and Mads Vinding with the trombonist Albert Mangelsdorff, Kai Winding, Bill Watrous, and Jiggs Whigham.

In the 1990s, he appeared as before at Club guest performances and festivals, played in the trio of pianist David Newton and was a sideman for Warren Vache, Teddy Wilson, Ruby Braff and Tony Coe, as well as singers like Carol Kidd or Blossom Dearie.

As an arranger Ganley worked, inter alia, for the BBC Radio Big Band.

Links / sources

• Obituary in The Independent
• Obituary in the Telegraph

• Jazz drummer
• Arranger
• British Musician
• Born in 1931
• Died in 2008
• Man