Peter Appleyard's Vibes

A Cool Swinging Machine

by Bob Byler and Linda Sord 

Peter Appleyard is now in his 52nd year as a musician.  His extensive career in the arts includes eight years with Benny Goodman, extensive studio recording, clubs, concert halls and TV performances, a highly successful, award winning television jazz series, numerous recordings with some of the greatest jazz musicians of the last half-century...

Peter is an all-star at jazz festivals, tours internationally on a regular basis in Europe, Japan and the USA. He has played behind the likes of Frank Sinatra, Ella Fitzgerald, Lionel Hampton, Mel Torme, and Oscar Peterson.  He has starred with symphonies, led bands for more than four decades and was the most-played Canadian artist on FM radio in the 70's and 80's.

The award-winning TV series, "Peter Appleyard Presents" was seen across Canada from 1978 to 1981. Those lively 30-minute shows feature a galaxy of famous jazz stars backed by Appleyard's combo in a casual night-club setting.  Lionel Hampton is of course, one of his primary inspirations, and Appleyard's though similar, remains very flexible.  Peter's quintet was termed by one reviewer as being a "cool swinging machine".   In 1992, Peter Appleyard was named to the Order of Canada, the nations highest civilian award. During the same year, a half-hour documentary was produced about him, entitled "My Music".  In 1955, he was honored musician at Sarasota Festival and the Colorado Springs Jazz Party.

Many other fine TV jazz programs in which Peter was featured have enriched Canadian fans.  One was Jazz Alive in 1983, an all-star concert that included Mel Torme, Teddy Wilson, Maynard Ferguson, Moe Koffman, Woody Herman and Appleyard.  Fans are charmed by his easy manner and big smile as well as his music.  "I like meeting people very much, even after long journeys and lugging heavy vibes.  I feel very fortunate for a wonderful career.  Everything dove-tailed, and vibes is an instrument without too much competition," he says modestly.

After a heavy Canadian studio and club schedule in the 1980's Appleyard has re-emerged on the jazz scene in the U.S.A. and abroad since 1990.  He now tours about as much as he did with Goodman in the 1970's.  When at home, he and his wife Elfriede enjoy their horsed, dogs and hobbies on a 31 acre estate near Rockwood, 50 miles west of Toronto.

YOUNG DRUMMER

Peter Appleyard was born August 26, 1928 in Cleethorpes, England near the fishing port of Grimsby 150 miles north of London.  He studied piano at age 14 and began learning drums on his own.  He listened to records and read about famous jazz players in Down Beat magazine.  "At 16, I was playing with various dance bands.  I had a bicycle with a trailer behind it and would ride 10 to 15 miles just to play a gig" he recalls.  He began his performance career with Felix Mendel son's Hawaiian Serenaders, the first band to appear on British television.  During the same period, he was conscripted into the Royal Air Force and played with its Central Band at military bases and in public concerts.  "That was very good musical training, and I got into general percussion, tympani, xylophone and all," he says.  "The RAF had very good bands, such as the Squadronaires, and some famous musicians."

After 18 months in the RAF, Appleyard was with the English dance and theatre bands of Harry Brooker and Jimmy McAffer, including six months in Scotland.  In December 1949, he accepted a 18-month contract to play in Bermuda and a stop in New York City en route created a new musical focus for him.  "I headed down Broadway and heard George Shearing and his Quintet and Lionel Hampton's big band at Bob city.  That was the thrill of a lifetime, he says, I was still a frustrated vibes player making a living as a drummer.  That night did it, and I bought a new and larger vibraphone..."

O Canada

A vacation trip to Canada led him to move into Toronto in November 1951.  Hearing Red Norvo's trio with Charles Mingus and Tal Farlow inspired him to switch to vibes and form a trio that also used bass and guitar.  It played the Colonial Tavern.  He also played with the Billy O'Connor Quartet at the Jazz Mecca and heard and met Artie Shaw, Errol Garner, Count Basie, Bob Scobey, Muggsy Spanier, Marty and Teddy Napoleon and others.

By 1956, Appleyard was heading his own quartet on tours and club dates.  He won an Arthur Godfrey Show talent contest, played the Andy Williams and Today shows and was a guest with Stan Kenton's band on TV.  His busy schedule in New York in the late 1950's included months-long engagements at the Embers and Roundtable.  The Dukes of Dixieland also played there and helped him get a contract that resulted in three Audio Fidelity albums.

His first symphony performance was in 1954 with Cal Jackson's quartet and the Toronto Symphony Orchestra.  He has played, and continues to play with symphonies and his groups in major concert halls in Washington, Boston, Berlin, Frankfurt, Vienna, London, Sydney, New York, Toronto, Helsinki, Amsterdam, Stockholm, Zurich, Warsaw, Budapest, Prague, Dublin, Belfast, Tokyo, and elsewhere all over the world.

Appleyard was in Europe from 1986 to 1989 with Buddy DeFranco.  Sacha Distal. Barney Kessel, Herbie Mann, and Peanuts Hock, a great favorite and friend.  He toured with Hucko's Pied Pipers and played at his club, often together at Dick Gibson's jazz parties in Colorado.

The Swinging 90's

Appleyard was named Most Popular Musician at his first Sarasota engagement in 1990 and plays there annually.  He headlined in 1995 with tenor-man Flip Phillips, Frank Wess and Scott Hamilton, guitarist Howard Alden, bassist Milt Hinton, drummer Joe Ascione, and pianist Dick Hyman's sextet on a new CD, Spring is Here.  The two honor Hampton in "fine and Dandy," where Appleyard uses forefingers like vibes mallets on high notes.  Appleyard was recently featured, along with his longtime musical companion, Bucky Pizzarelli, in "Swing Into Spring" concert at Carnegie Hall.

Appleyard began playing with Mel Torme in 1991, and toured Japan with him in 1993, which included recordings, broadcasts as well as concerts.  He also played in Carnegie Hall with Torme in 1995.  Torme refers to Appleyard as being "a world-class artist."

He often played in Europe with all-start groups European bands or as a single.  A flyer for a 1994 Peter Appleyard and Friends date in Germany proclaimed: Ein Meisterliches Quartette, das viel Swing und Atmosphere verspricht!"

A stack of programs and clips from Appleyard's "packrat" file show recent activities in Canada.  He was termed "a legend" in 1993 Peterborough Concert Association program, where his sextet included Abe Most, "Great Vibes, Power, Passion, and Appleyard" was the headline for a 1994 program where his quintet and the Brantford Ontario Symphony Orchestra.  He was praised for a sterling performance" at the 1995 Dumaurier Promenade Cabaret Concert in Windsor for a sellout crowd.  At a Welland-Port Colburne concert, sold out in advance, his 18-piece orchestra was heralded for "capturing the spirit of the big band era."

Appleyard has had the singular distinction of being invited to play in two celebrations of the music of Lionel Hampton, his inspiration and good friend.  At the Kennedy Center in Washington in September 1995, and again in March 1996, with a galaxy of jazz starts at the Apollo Theatre in Harlem.  The Hennessey Jazz Report praised "an explosive "Airmail Special" with Appleyard's on vibes, and Wynton Marsalis on trumpet.

Peter donates his talent generously at fundraising events for hospitals, medical foundations, theatre youth organizations, disaster relief and other causes and charities.  He has performed and lectured for students at universities from Colorado to New York and has taught at the Manitoba Jazz Camp.  Peter continues to assist and encourage young jazz performers wherever he plays.

In 1996, Appleyard celebrated 51 years in music with a concert by his big band in the ruin of a 150-year-old mill near Rockwood.  A story he told a reporter then was that the man who sold him the little vibraphone in the mid-40's was a British spy who used music as a cover during the war.

In 2002, Peter Appleyard continued to maintain a daunting schedule of performances on international stages and in Canada.  Guest artist with the New York Pops Orchestra at Carnegie Hall, at the Montreal Bistro in Toronto with Dick Hyman, in Chicago with Skitch Henderson, or in New York City recording studio with Bucky Pizzarelli and the All-Stars.  He performed in Festivals including the Colorado Springs Jazz Festival (his 15th year there), the Port Elgin Jazz Festival, the Topeka Kansas Jazz Festival and the Cork Jazz Festival in Ireland.  He was heard from Vienna to New York City, participated in tributes to Robert Farnon and Moe Koffman, and performed with Skitch Henderson, Dick Hyman, and the Tommy Dorsey Band - These are just a few examples.  Over the same time period, he donated his services in benefit performances - at Carnegie Hall for the Lauri Strauss Leukemia Foundation, for the Eden Mills Community Center ( two miles from his home), for the Moe Koffman Fund for Young Jazz Players during Toronto's Jazz Festival, for a Listowel fund-raiser for Toronto's Sick children's Hospital.  He was a recipient of the 50th Anniversary Queen's Jubilee Medal.

In 2003, Peter Appleyard celebrated his 75th Birthday, or more than 57 years of performing, there are no signs that he is slowing down