Steve Race: jazz pianist, broadcaster, composer and author dies at 88

June 22, 2009

By The Times

Having made his reputation as a jazz pianist, Steve Race was always convinced that this was how he would be remembered, despite his subsequent success as a broadcaster, author and composer. “Being a pianist and involved in jazz is something you never shake off,” he wrote, “but I always regarded playing the piano more as a means to an end.”

In this he was extremely successful and he never looked back after his musical skills landed him his first broadcasts as presenter and pianist on the children’s series Whirligig. The numerous television and radio quiz programmes which he later introduced, notably the long-running My Music, created a new public for him, who were less aware than he imagined of his background in jazz. The same goes for the many readers of his books and articles, ranging from his autobiography, Musician at Large (1979), to his biography of his Methodist missionary grandfather, The Two Worlds of Joseph Race (1988). Nevertheless, his jazz interests lingered, as was revealed in his correspondence with Philip Larkin, (published in 1990, five years after the poet’s death), which was more concerned with Bix Beiderbecke and a mutual dislike of double bass solos than with passing references to the Metaphysical poets.

Steven Russell Race was educated at Lincoln School after the premature death of his father. He showed musical ability at an early age and in due course attended the Royal Academy of Music. He became highly significant as a pianist in British jazz after the Second World War, during which he had served in the RAF, leading its Swing Stars and writing for the Bomber Command dance orchestra. As well as going on to lead his own dance band, he played with many of the big London bandleaders of the time, including Lew Stone, George Elrick and Jack Jackson. He was also a deft arranger, writing music for Ted Heath, Eric Winstone and the Skyrockets among others. Along with his near-contemporary and close friend George Shearing, he was one of the first European instrumentalists successfully to embrace the bebop modern jazz revolution. He made records in the late 1940s in the new style and also wrote a suite for the recently formed Johnny Dankworth Seven, which demonstrated how confidently he had assimilated the harmonic and melodic innovations of Charlie Parker and Dizzy Gillespie.

Race continued to be involved in jazz as a radio and television presenter well after his playing days were over. Among the programmes he fronted were Jazz 625 on BBC2 and Jazz Record Requests on the Third Programme.

His musical experience led him to work as an audition pianist for BBC Television, before becoming light music adviser to Rediffusion Television from 1955-60. This role was not merely advisory, and as well as supplying music for Opportunity Knocks he conducted the resident studio band for shows featuring Peter Sellers and Tony Hancock, as well as composing numerous themes and jingles. His song Nicola won him an Ivor Novello Award, and his advertisement soundtracks — notably one for Birds’ Eye frozen peas — won him prizes at both the Venice and Cannes film festivals. He also composed cantatas, film scores and incidental music for the stage. His television composing credits included incidental music for Twelfth Night and Richard III.

After leaving Rediffusion, his freelance broadcasting career developed rapidly. He was a regular on Any Questions and made guest appearances on numerous programmes including the soap opera Compact until he suffered a heart attack during a recording of The Jazz Scene in April 1965. After his recovery, he became a fervent anti-smoking campaigner, forsaking his 30-a-day habit to the point where his Who’s Who entry noted “avoiding smokers” as a recreation.

In the late 1960s and early 1970s Race became busier than ever as a broadcaster, with such television series as There Goes that Song Again and, starting in 1966, his long-running radio programme My Music with Frank Muir and Denis Norden, of which there were more than 500 episodes. For this musical panel game, Race compiled the questions, many of which involved him playing excerpts at the keyboard, and chaired the panel of Muir, Norden, John Amis and Ian Wallace. Race (along with Wallace) held the record for never missing an episode. His urbane chairmanship was the ideal foil for the increasingly outrageous puns that Muir and Norden built into the show’s final segment, usually inspired by the titles of operas or other well-known compositions. The show made a successful transition to television.

Race combined his career as a broadcaster with work for the Performing Rights Society, of which he was deputy chairman, and the Musicians’ Benevolent Fund, on whose council he served for more than ten years. He was appointed OBE in 1992.

In the 1990s Race’s workload was no less prolific, but increasing deafness meant that as the decade progressed he concentrated on writing. He had been a radio reviewer for The Listener from 1975 until its demise and he went on to write for numerous newspapers and magazines as well as finding an output for his intellectual energies as a crossword compiler for The Daily Telegraph. He set the paper’s Monday Quick Crossword for 11 years, stepping down only in March this year. Regular solvers observed that if one joined the answers to his first few Across solutions together, they formed a punning sentence, although Race’s love of homophones meant that this sometimes had to be read aloud to be understood.

His first wife, Marjorie, died in 1969, and he is survived by his second wife, Leonie, and his daughter from his first marriage.

Steve Race, OBE, jazz pianist, broadcaster, composer and author, was born on April 1, 1921. He died on June 22, 2009, aged 88