Harry Gold (musician)

Harry Gold (26 February 1907 – 13 November 2005) was a British dixieland jazz saxophonist and bandleader.

Gold's career spanned almost the whole history of British jazz in the twentieth century. Born and raised in the East End of London, he decided on a career in music after his father took him to see the Original Dixieland Jazz Band playing at the Hammersmith Palais during their famous visit to Britain in 1919-1920. He studied saxophone, clarinet, oboe and music theory under Louis Kimmel, a professor at the London College of Music, and began working professionally as a musician in the early 1920s. He played with the Metronomes, Vic Filmer, Geraldo, Ambrose and many other bands, but it was his tenure as a star tenor saxophonist with the nationally popular dance band of Roy Fox from 1932 to 1937 that brought him to wide public attention.

Playing plush London venues such as the Cafe Anglais and the Cafe de Paris, he watched, from the bandstand, the London nobility of the inter-war years - including the Prince of Wales - enjoying the high life. But the contrasts in wealth and poverty that he saw reinforced his socialist convictions. From that time and through most of the rest of his career he was active in union activities and in efforts to promote the welfare of other musicians.

During World War II, Gold worked in Oscar Rabin's orchestra, dodging bombs during the London Blitz and, while with Rabin, he formed a popular band within the band. After the war that experience of leading a small group led to the formation of his own 'Pieces of Eight' Dixieland band. Thanks to radio broadcasts, records and incessant touring, Harry Gold and his Pieces of Eight became household names in Britain through the late 1940s and 1950s.

Eventually, however, tired of touring, Gold handed over the band to his brother Laurie on New Year's Eve 1955 and opted for a quieter life as a composer-arranger, working for music publishers and later for the EMI organisation. But he continued to play, joining Dick Sudhalter's New Paul Whiteman Orchestra in London in the 1970s and eventually reforming his Pieces of Eight.

In the 1980s the band toured the German Democratic Republic (East Germany) three times and recorded a live album in Leipzig (now reissued on CD). After his much loved wife Peggy died in 1995, Gold carried on working and, in his late 80s and early 90s he still played occasionally, especially at the annual Clerkenwell festivals in London. By then he had long given up the tenor saxophone but continued to feature the bass saxophone, on which, over the years (and influenced by the style of Adrian Rollini) he had become one of the most graceful and melodic exponents. In 2000, he published his autobiography, recalling eight decades as a working musician.

Further reading

*cite book | author=Gold, Harry | title=Gold, Doubloons and Pieces of Eight: The Autobiography of Harry Gold, edited by Roger Cotterrell | publisher=London: Northway Books | year=2000 | id=ISBN 978-09537040-0-2