Reginald Foresythe: The Swingin’ Shooting Star

A shooting star is a bright light that flashes across the night sky before vapourising in the earth’s atmosphere. It is a display that is as spectacular as it is brief, which is the only way to describe the career of pianist, arranger and composer Reginald Foresythe. Born in London in 1907, the son of a West African barrister, he grew up in privileged circumstances in Mayfair, was public school-educated and was extremely talented, displaying a gift for both music and linguistics. Work in professional dance bands led to accompanying the blues singer Zaidee Jackson in 1929, followed by singer Walter Richardson; the latter saw him touring Australia. From there he visited Hawaii, ending up in California where, awash with self-confidence, his cultured demeanour; good looks; plus his obvious musical ability, saw him enter privileged musical circles, recording with Paul Howard’s Quality Serenaders, meeting Duke Ellington and arranging for his band, and landing a job in Hollywood composing soundtrack music for pioneering director DW Griffith’s 1930 movie Abraham Lincoln.

Moving on to Chicago, he was introduced to Earl Hines: “He stayed with us several months,” recalled Hines. “He and I wrote the band’s theme song together – ‘Deep Forest’… I introduced Reginald to Paul Whiteman and Paul took to him straight away because he was a very good, well-trained musician.”

Hines recorded and popularised ‘Deep Forest’, an exotic fantasia based on ‘St. James Infirmary,’ in 1932, as did Whiteman in 1934. Foresythe was in New York in 1933, where he met Louis Armstrong and Adrian Rollini, both of whom recorded his ‘Mississippi Basin.’ Back in London later in the year, he secured a residency at the Cafè de la Paix in Swallow Street; “The orchestra was formed,” he said in a rare 1933 interview, “after a careful study of the acoustical properties of the restaurant itself… my aim is the suppression of the obvious, the suppression of the superfluous and the most expression with the economy of means.”

Being an intimate space, he wrote a series of original compositions doing away with brass instruments (trumpets and trombones) and created an ensemble – of two clarinets, three saxes, a bassoon plus himself on piano, with bass and drums – he called The New Music of Reginald Foresythe. Opening on 17 October 1933, the following day he was in the studio for the UK Columbia label recording two originals he had written for the engagement. In February and September the following year he recorded a further four titles at each session.

The music magazine Tune Times was deeply impressed: “The music of Reginald Foresythe is the ne plus ultra of jazz.”

He may have pleased critics, but the society set of the Café were less impressed, more familiar as they were with typical Palais bands. In February 1934, Tune Times reported he had taken a vacation in the Mediterranean before commencing a series of broadcasting dates with his band and recordings in duet with pianist Arthur Young.

At the end of 1934 he was invited back to the States by Paul Whiteman, arriving in New York on 20 December 1934, in time to be a featured guest on Whiteman’s nationally broadcast radio show, The Kraft Music Hall on 27 December. In the pre-war racial climate of the United this was a big deal for a black person. Ellington, similarly impressed, allowed him use of his own exclusive apartment. However, Foresythe was a bon viveur who had allowed himself to slip into alcoholism. He was also gay, and was involved in an altercation in a gay bar (fights were to become a feature of his life).

But Foresythe also had great talent, and it was beginning to be noticed. He recorded four titles with an American version of his New Music ensemble on 23 January 1935. His 'sidemen' included Benny Goodman, Gene Krupa and the other BG musicians all keen to record some of his compositions. To place this in context, Goodman was leading the most popular big band in the States at the time, but turned up as a sideman for a flat session fee just to play Foresythe’s music. One number, ‘Dodging a Divorcee,’ included a fugue interlude that Goodman liked, later having a hit with ‘Bach Goes To Town’ by the Welsh composer Alec Templeton.

Other bands began recording Forsythe’s compositions – Lew Stone in the UK, Django Reinhardt in France and in the States Fats Waller, Hal Kemp and his Orchestra, the Casa Loma Orchestra, Wild Bill Davidson, and Stuff Smith; while Whiteman continued playing a variety of Forsythe’s compositions, including at Carnegie Hall. But Foresythe’s influence did not stop there. His love of Delius was passed onto Ellington while his love of quirky song titles was picked up by Raymond Scott.

But with war clouds gathering at home, he volunteered for the RAF and although over age, he earned a commission. On demob his love of the high life continued, but he led a band for several seasons in Torquay until he gradually slid from view, ending up playing solo piano in London pubs.

This prophet unheard in his own land died in 1959, when Melody Maker noted, ”Foresythe was ahead of his time. He caused a sensation with his new sounds in the 1930s.” As if to belatedly prove the point, in 1999, the avant garde Dutch saxophonist Willem Breuker and his Kollektief recorded Foresythe’s compositions on the albums Bob’s Gallery and Overtime.