Kenny Graham

Kenny Graham (born Kenneth Thomas Skingle; 19 July 1924 – 17 February 1997) was a British jazz saxophonist, arranger, composer and essayist, described as "one of Britain's foremost jazz composers and arrangers",

After the end of the war, he played in many of the leading British dance bands of the era, including those led by Nat Temple, Nat Gonella, Ambrose, Leslie "Jiver" Hutchinson and Eric Winstone, as well as in Victor Feldman's Sextet, before forming Kenny Graham's Afro-Cubists in April 1950. The band sought to develop "an amalgam of bebop, African and Cuban rhythms and super-modern harmonies". Although "artistically successful" Graham also played baritone sax in Jack Parnell's band, and tenor with other bands, occasionally reconvening the Afro-Cubists for recordings and performances.

From 1955, Graham became more active as a writer and arranger than as a performer. In 1956, inspired by the work of American musician Moondog, he recorded an album, Moondog And Suncat Suites, credited to Kenny Graham And His Satellites, which included treatments of some of Moondog's compositions as well as Graham's own. The following year he recorded an album, Presenting Kenny Graham, for the Pye Nixa label, featuring Seamen and pianist Stan Tracey, and engineered by Joe Meek. and worked extensively as a writer and arranger with Humphrey Lyttelton, composing the piece "One Day I Met an African" which Lyttelton recorded several times. In 1980, Graham wrote further pieces for Lyttelton's band, including "Adagio For David" and "Ladyless and Lachrymose". He also wrote for films such as The Small World of Sammy Lee (1963), Night Train to Paris (1964) and Where the Bullets Fly (1966), and an orchestral suite, "The Labours of Heracles", for BBC Radio.

He experimented with electronic keyboards, and became an expert in electronics. He worked as a London Underground ticket machine maintenance engineer, and also became a skilled maker of clocks and watches. In later life he worked as a caretaker of an apartment block in Putney, and became something of a recluse.

He died in London in 1997, aged 72.