PHOTO^ BY^ VALERIE^ MACON/GETT
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PHOTO^ BY^ G
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YTHE BOND BOMBSHELL
HOW BARRY TRANSFORMED MONTY NORMAN’S THEMEtrumpet by his teens. John’s
brother, Pat, was into jazz
and he followed suit. As their
father got into promoting, his York cinema,
the Rialto, became a showcase for visiting
Americans including The Nat King Cole
Trio, Louis Armstrong, Count Basie, Lionel
Hampton and Duke Ellington.
At 15, Barry was already arranging music
and was publicly championed by another
of his visiting jazz heroes, Stan Kenton.
Initiated by his father, Barry began to
study intensively with Master of Music
at York Minster, Francis Jackson, before
getting expert tuition with trumpeter
George Swift. He moved on to play trumpet
semi-professionally in local jazz band The
Modernaires. Taking a correspondence
course in music theory also enabled Barry
to further write and test out early material
on his bandmates.
National Service soon beckoned, and
Barry found a prime posting as a musician
with the British Army in Cyprus. He
enjoyed this time, he said, as it gave him the
chance to experiment musically, and learn
how to lead a band with the “freedom to
make mistakes”.
After a fruitful conscription, Barry was
back in Blighty three years later, so he
picked up arranging for the Jack Parnell
and Ted Heath orchestras. By now, major
change was in the air. The end of austerity
was met head-on with the exuberant
youthquake of American rock’n’roll. That
new mood chimed with Barry. He set about
acting on advice given to him by bandleader
Parnell: “never be afraid to take the popular
route”, resolving to form his own band.
Shrewdly, Barry noticed that the new
style of playing was more streamlined and
therefore less costly to run than big bands.
Momentous new music was a medium
he could experiment with. Gathering
together a mix of local musicians and
ex-army colleagues, in 1957 he formed John
Barry And The Seven. Originally, the band
comprised Barry on vocals and trumpet,
drummer Ken Golder, lead guitarist Ken
Richards, bassist Fred Kirk, and Keith Kelly
on rhythm guitar, with Derek Myers on alto
sax and Mike Cox on tenor sax.
Crucially, Barry’s father was able to off er
the band their fi rst professional gig, at theYork Rialto. Meanwhile, they cut demos in
London to send to TV’s exciting new ‘youth’
show Six-Five Special. Producer Jack Good,
however, initially dismissed them as too
similar to the regular show band, Don Lang
& His Frantic Five. As the Barry biography
The Man With The Midas Touch explains, at
least initially, “There were few role models
available to aspiring rock’n’roll acts in the
UK at the time. Every band invariably used
Bill Haley’s sound as its blueprint.”
Undeterred, the group debuted on
17 March 1957. Things then moved fast:AT 15, BARRY WAS ALREADY
ARRANGING MUSIC AND WASCHAMPIONED BY STAN KENTON
Barry leads the sharp-suited
Seven prior to handing over
bandleader duties to Vic FlickOne of the most exciting instrumentals
ever recorded, the James Bond Theme
by the John Barry Seven plus orchestra
peaked in the UK charts at No.11 in
December 1962. Featuring guitarist Vic
Flick (left), Barry’s contribution to its
creation was controversial. Producer
Cubby Broccoli did not entirely appreciate
Monty Norman’s original composition. He
reportedly liked the fi rst few bars but not
its progression, and started the urgent
handover to Barry to rearrange it. In 2001,Norman sued The Sunday Times for libel
for its article in 1997 stating that Barry was
the composer. In court, Barry testifi ed that
he had been given a musical manuscript of
Norman’s work intended as the theme for
him to arrange. In addition, he had
composed extra music and arranged the
James Bond Theme. Barry stated he had
agreed to a fl at fee fee of £250 with United
Artists Head of Music Noel Rogers, in which
Norman would retain the sole songwriting
credit. Despite his testimony, the jury ruledin favour of Norman: now legally
acknowledged as the writer of the James
Bond Theme. Yet perhaps his victory was
somewhat pyrrhic. Norman was never
off ered another 007 fi lm, whereas Barry
went on to score 10 more.
As Barry biographers Geoff Leonard,
Pete Walker and Gareth Bramley agree:
“Barry’s extraordinary ‘makeover’
encapsulated, in music form, Bond’s screen
persona, thereby creating the musical DNA
for the entire Bond series.”