PAUL
VERNON CHESTER
Manouche Maestro
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Manouche Maestro |
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Stanley Albert Watson - Guitarist & Composer, 1926 -1978
This eventually lead to studies with other teachers, including Andres Segovia. Along the way Stan attended master classes with cellist Pablo Casals to help develop left hand techniques. In France he followed Django Reinhardt around to learn jazz and right hand picking methods. He worked with dancers and artists in Paris and travelled to Portugal and Greece to soak up the music and culture. Stanley and his sister arrived in England with their parents in 1933 and settled in Palmers Green, North London. Both his parents were musically inclined. His dad played the banjo and his mum had a good ear for music and was a fine singer. He was always musically talented and was playing on a ukulele of his dad’s at the age of three. He soon outgrew this and progressed to his father’s banjo, eventually taking up the guitar. When he was about ten, he and his sister would go around the locality earning Christmas pocket money, usually ending up in a street called Broad Walk. This street was about a mile long and had red tiled pavements, was lined with trees and was the millionaire’s row of that part of London. They would be invited in to some of the big houses and asked to entertain, usually standing on the table in the centre of the room. They were sent on their way with gifts of food and money and did quite well when times were tough in the thirties.
When Stan was 15 he passed exams to go to Tottenham Technical
School to study building and architecture His dad was hoping to have him enter
the family business. This was not to be, however, as music got the upper hand.
Stan and Laurie along with Don Rendell, tenor sax, another
future giant of British jazz, and
Don Rendell took part in a jam session with Stephane Grapelli in 1942. Rendell was still at school and playing alto sax. He had formed a band with friends Denny Termer on piano, Stanley Watson, guitar and drummer Laurie Morgan later to take part in the formation of Club Eleven. They gigged locally until Termer's uncle took them into his show band playing variety theatres all over the country. Later they worked in night clubs and US army bases and by 1945 Don had switched to tenor sax.
The Fullado Club (Don Rendell)... At this time the nucleus of what was later to become the vanguard of British Be-bop were meeting and jamming in small clubs and sometimes each others houses, influenced by the music the American servicemen were bringing over. After the war, the clubs and cafes in Archer Street in Soho, London, were becoming the meeting places for musicians to socialise and pick up work which Stan as a typical jobbing musician did, picking up work and deputising for other musicians. The area was also the breeding ground for the burgeoning interest in Jazz with musicians jamming in the clubs after hours and honing their be-bop skills. In the mid 40’s Stan became eligible for the call up which was then compulsory. He was a conscientious objector and managed to dodge the authorities for a couple of years until they finally caught up with him and promptly incarcerated him in a military mental hospital in Banstead, Surrey for six months, as they figured that he must be mental not to want to kill people instead of playing the guitar. In the early 1950’s Stan was playing with E.N.S.A. as part of Marion McPartland’s group of musicians entertaining troops in Europe. This was what inspired Stan to expand his musical knowledge into other aspects of the guitar repertoire, as he felt restricted by the jazz format. In 1954 Stanley recorded four tracks on Esquire Records with Victor Feldman before Feldman emigrated to the US, with Stanley and Ruth going to live in Spain so he could expand his study of the guitar, feeling that jazz was not allowing him to take his playing to the levels he was striving for. Ruth returned to England after a few years as their relationship had broken down. He lived in Spain for six years studying under Segovia and other masters including Pablo Casals. He became musical director for one of the top Spanish female artistes. Before returning to England he had met Diane Haverlak who was to eventually become his third wife
My classical guitar teacher, Stanley Watson, had a guitar made out of a guitarron. You held this huge guitarron, but it had an eight-fret guitar neck with six strings. That was probably the greatest guitar I've ever played. It knocked down walls, but you could be as delicate as you wanted on it. Maybe one of your readers knows where it is. I think it belonged to one of the Buskin & Batteau duo. I don't think it had a brand name. I was just an experiment. Leo Kottke Robin Batteau - guitar, mandolin, and electric violin
Kevin Morse was the protégé
and premier exponent of a legendary guitarist named Stanley Watson (1926-1978)
who was one of history's most interesting guitarists. His teaching was focused. You had his undivided attention. His music was transporting, vivid, personal. While travelling and living in America Stanley kept a kind of musical journal of people and events that touched him or seemed important. He often said that if he hadn’t been a musician he would have been a painter. Stylistically his music was neither classical nor popular, rather a peculiar combination of both and more, uniquely his, drawing on earlier studies and experience. By 1976 Stanley had left Rochester, continuing his travels. Sadly, in 1978 he died from injuries suffered in a car crash on Rte. 95 near Portland, Maine. He is sorely missed, and is still remembered in music circles in Rochester. - with thanks to Richard Watson
Dance For Two People (Davy
Graham) - 2:13
A TRIBUTE TO STANLEY WATSON -
K. Sakari Heikkila
Stanley was my first real Classical Guitar teacher
back in the 60's but I still wonder about what exactly his influence was,
because in many ways, he was more a composer for the Guitar more than a
"Standard Repertoire" player. Maybe that's where I got my love for playing just
the pieces I want to and simply ignoring the rest. Although reputed
to have studied with Segovia, my recollection is that he in fact did take a
lesson or two but that he wasn't the right teacher for him. Stanley was
however, the perfect teacher for me, imparting a real love for the instrument
and a real support system for my potential. His wife used to sit at their
Kitchen table as I left often saying I had a look on my face, "Like I never
wanted to leave". She was right. Stanley was infectious with his enthusiasm
for the Guitar and all that life had to offer.
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At this time Stan and Gladys attended Arnos Grove
School in North London. All the time Stan was listening to the sounds
of jazz and big band music played on the radio, also buying jazz and classical
records when he could. At about age 13 he met up with a young lad around the
same age called Laurie Morgan. He heard Stan practicing behind
the cricket pavilion in Arnos Park; they became great friends,
and it was as a result of this meeting that Laurie took up drums and piano and
went on to become one of the leading figures in the development of Be Bop in
London in the 40’s and is still a respected figure to this day, playing up a
storm every weekend as of this writing (‘04) at The Kings Head
jazz club in Crouch End, London. At the age of 85, along with
an another legend, 
As the 40s
approached and WW2 was imminent, many of the children were
evacuated to less dangerous areas. Stanley Sr., being a conscientious objector,
decided that the family would stay in London and take their chances, which they
did and were bombed out twice in the course of the war. This reinforced Stan
Jr's attitude on the futility of war and eventually led to him not registering
for National Service at the age of 18, which was compulsory at the time.
By
the time he had made his way to Rochester he had married, started a family, was
deeply immersed in composing and was sporting a handmade Ramierez
guitar, “rare in them parts and them days”, and he had endless stories to tell.
He embarked on a teaching and performing career in Rochester where he came in
contact with Chuck Mangione. He can be heard on Chuck’s Mercury Records albums
