As we welcome the release of Andy Summers and Robert Fripp’s new single Skyline on dgmlive, here’s a look back at the Majestic Hotel in Bournemouth where both guitarists were members of the Majestic Dance Orchestra under bandleader Cyril Stewart, Andy in 1964-65, and Robert taking over the position from 1965-67.
Aside from being a popular seaside resort and retirement community, Bournemouth was a particularly fashionable destination for the British Jewish community with the town having a number of kosher hotels, the first of their kind to be established in England. These included the East Cliff Court, the Green Park, the Normandy, the Ambassador and the Majestic, offering different levels of luxury as well as how strictly they adhered to religious customs. Needless to say there was entertainment and the in-house dance bands catered to a wide range of musical styles, with the then novelty guitarists expected to provide some of the music more popular among the teen audience.
Andy’s family had moved to Bournemouth from Lancashire in the north of England after World War 2, with his father taking up a job at the East Cliff Court. After an uncle had given him a Spanish guitar Andy, like many a teenager, became enthralled by the skiffle craze and was soon performing in local bands. The music scene was booming and it was not long before he joined like-minded friends to put together his own jazz quartet, often playing in the intervals between the sets by established dance bands at the major venues. This was an ideal environment to hone his chops and also come to the attention of some of the more experienced players, one such being organist Zoot Money. Zoot's offer of the guitar position in The Big Roll Band was Andy’s route out of the local scene and a move to London, this being the essential path for any musician looking to progress. Thus the guitar seat at the Majestic became vacant.
Robert growing up in Wimborne and receiving a guitar as a Christmas present in 1957, after some tuition at Corfe Mullen School of Music, naturally looked to Bournemouth as the place to advance his playing. Firstly taking lessons from Don Strike at his music store, and later becoming guitar instructor himself, giving lessons on Saturday afternoons for the customers at Eddie Moors Music. He also played in popular local Beat combo The League Of Gentlemen, knocking out Beatles tunes and the rock ’n’ roll hits of the day at village halls and clubs in and around Bournemouth. This band came to an end when he enrolled at Bournemouth College to study A levels in preparation for a college course in Estate Management and a future in his father’s business. And so it was to pay for his time at college he took on the job in the Majestic Dance Orchestra. By age 21 Robert had realised that his future did not lie in estate management and he too needed to move to London to become a professional musician.
Speaking to Musician magazine’s Vic Garbarini in 1984, when asked about the repertoire they played at the Majestic Andy responded: “I think we used to do Perfidea, the Jewish National Anthem, and Happy Birthday Sweet Sixteen. Those are the three I knew the chords of. The rest I had to red-face on".
Robert reported: “I used to do all the Jolsons, the fast Jolsons and the slow Jolsons. Hava Nagila. All the wedding songs. If you were doing a bar mitzvah, then obviously the music was a bit different. But I was responsible for what the band called the twists. ‘Have you got any twists, Bob?' they used to say to me. Every now and then I would go out and buy some sheet music to a new twist and write it out for them".
At the time the two players lives did not overlap, aside from Robert recalling once encountering Andy at Minns Music where the latter had a job to supplement his work as a musician.
Andy worked at Minns and Robert gave guitar lessons at Eddie Moors.
The ensuing years saw both guitarists achieve international success and it was in Robert’s post Crimson New York phase that Andy, having been impressed by the former’s playing on the Roches album and with David Bowie, felt inspired to seek out Robert to collaborate on a project he wished to begin outside of the Police.
With such similar trajectories it was only fitting that the two Bournemouth boys would decide to work together on a guitar duo album, returning to their roots and recording at Tony Arnold’s studio in the Bournemouth suburb of Parkstone.
Stay tuned for the release of Andy Summers and Robert Fripp The Complete Recordings, 1981-1984.
Photo of Andy Summers by Colin Allen.
