The Thomas Tycho Quartet
The Thomas Tycho Quartet Recordings
After reading my blog posted last week many of you contacted me and remarked that you wanted more of this kind of material. I will try and create one blog per week, taking excerpts from my PhD featuring different performances of Tommy’s throughout his career. Don’t forget there are lots of videos and photos at the official Tommy Tycho website and more information on my website under Tommy Tycho: A Life in Music (Click the titles in bold to go to the websites).
This week we look at the music of the Thomas Tycho Quartet. The quartet was formed to provide musical accompaniment to singers, and to feature the band, on the 2UW radio show ''Laugh Till You Cry”, which was a variety style program that featured comedy, singing, and other acts. Tommy had befriended the owners of Albert’s Publishing, who owned and operated Radio 2UW. As well as forming a quartet for the radio show Tommy was also appointed as the Shefte Melody Man. The Shefte Melody man was responsible for playing the tunes that were featured in the Shefte Piano Method (and Albert’s ran a Shefte school). The Shefte Method was a kind of ‘quick and easy’ approach to playing popular tunes of the day (which we now know as standards). The method provided instruction on what to play for the left hand, how to voice chords and play accompaniment etc. and Tommy, for a brief period taught some students through the Shefte school before he had found success as a full-time musician in Sydney.
One of the representatives of Albert’s had heard Tycho performing on the ABC radio program A Handful of Keys and asked him to come and teach at the Shefte school:
“Acclaimed musician Tommy Tycho taught at the [Shefte] college for five years, and was also the Shefte Melody Man on 2UW, playing a fifteen-minute segment that aired four times daily and promotes the college to listeners. ‘I had to play very basic tunes so people listening would think they could play it too’, says Tycho, who came to 2UW from the ABC, where he played on a program known as Handful of Keys. ‘The Shefte College had about a dozen studios, all with pianos – some grand, some upright. I was the star teacher because I was on the radio as the Shefte Melody Man. It was packed, absolutely jam-packed with pupils from first thing in the morning to eight at night. It was like a sausage factory. What is now the guitar culture was then the piano – every family had an upright. A lot of people paid their money but there was no way in the world they were going to be able to play because they had tin ears. I was put through the wringer by Miss Ramsay [Nell Ramsay, who ran the college] a couple of times because I told people they would never play, and she read me the riot act saying I shouldn’t say things like that because it would cut our income.” (Quote from Jane Albert, House of Hits, Sydney: Hardie Grant Publishing, 2010).
Jane Albert also notes that Tommy was on good terms with Albert’s family and used them for many of the latest sheet music arrangements while he was the music director for ATN7, as they had to the most up-to-date sheet music that was popular at the time. 2UW was the first radio station to broadcast 24 hours a day. In the 1950s they focused on comedy and variety shows, but by the 1960s had shifted their focus to the younger generation and market who wanted different forms of entertainment than the previous generation. Below are some images of The Theatre Beautiful.
Two recordings of the Thomas Tycho Quartet were made and released on the Fidelity (of Fidelity Radio) label. They both had the same cover sleeve and were simply labelled as “The Thomas Tycho Quartet”. The second 45’ has a sign saying “Series Two”. The quartet featured some of Sydney’s top musicians of the time including Tommy on the piano, Reg Robinson on double bass, Pat Caplice on vibraphone and drums, and Johnny Weine on guitar. Tommy would work with these musicians over an extended period of time.
The style of the quartet was modelled on that of the George Shearing Quartet of the 1940s which featured the same instrumental combination. The characteristics of the quartet include the piano playing block chords (Shearing style), with the vibraphone and the guitar doubling the melody. Below you can hear the complete recordings of the two 45’ RPM releases featuring tunes such as Tiger Rag, That Old Feeling, Honeysuckle Rose, and many more. Enjoy.
