Ralph Laing

Interest in jazz began very early as he remembers listening to Duke Ellington recordings when he was only just able to walk. Piano lessons while at Kilmarnock Academy and brass lessons when involved with local burgh band. Involved with RHS Gangster George Hewitt (tbn), by then living in Irvine in Ayrshire and, with him heard Glasgow band the ‘St Mungo’s Disciples’ featuring George Ogilvie (tpt) and Bob Nummey (tbn) and asked for a sit in. With Hewitt formed the ‘Ayrshire JB’ and the ‘Eagle Jazzmen’. Ralph Laing moved south and became a well-known jazz critic and writer of articles on jazz and sleeve notes as well as publishing, with Chris Sheridan, the 2 volume ‘Jazz Records – the Specialist Labels’. Retired to Edinburgh in 1991 and, until 1993, continued to lead his band ‘Groove Juice Special’, which he had formed in the south and which toured on the Continent and frequently had Al Fairweather (tpt) amongst its members. With Fairweather, wrote a musical version of Kingsley Amis’ ‘Lucky Jim’. Was left Al Fairweather’s collection of his original compositions and arrangements which were later handed over to the Scottsh Jazz Archive.