Piano player for the Varsity Five 1960 - 1963.
The Varsity Five grew out of private sessions involving Peter Magee (piano), Lachie Thompson (reeds), Ian Oliver (trumpet), Mileham Hayes (clarinet & banjo), Ian Bloxham (drums) from late 1957 through 1958. In 1959 they began playing at parties among the undergraduate set and, with Sid Bromley's encouragement, sitting in as a group at his medical school gigs. The personnel included a solid core of dedicated students of the classic jazz of the 1920's. They assumed the name Varsity Five played their first gig at a rugby club on 6 April 1960. Thompson, who had left Bromley to join the Varsity Five, was posted to Siam in 1960 and was replaced by Len Little. Robin McCulloch joined primarily as a bass player and for a few months Allen Duff was on trombone. The band based itself at the Pelican Tavern where it remained throughout its lifetime except for a period at a Waterside Worker's Hall from September 1960 to February 1961.
The band's activities coincided with the boom of the early sixties, and it achieved a degree of success that aroused some resentment among some who had been zealous jazz proselytizers for many lean years. In addition to its regular functions at the Pelican, it became something of a 'society band', playing for exclusive private functions including one at Government House when the King of Siam sat in on a long session. Ian Oliver left for Melbourne in 1961, replaced by Les Crosby, and in 1962 Doc Willis joined the band, assuming leadership shortly after. The band broadcast frequently and had its own TV programme in 1962. In 1963 some of its members were approaching graduation and beginning new careers, and they formally disbanded on 5 November 1963, though bands using the name continued for a while to take occasional gigs.
The Varsity Five was the flagship of Brisbane's trad boom, and as well as stimulating a general interest in the music, enjoyed the contributions of a number of the city's most important jazz musicians including (in addition to those already mentioned) Stan Walker, Bruce Dodgshun (trumpet), Jack Thompson and Tich Bray.
from Bruce Johnson, Oxford Companion to Australian Jazz (Melbourne: Oxford University Press, 1987) 285.
