The Tubby Hayes Blue Plaque
- TJCUK Team
- 4 days ago
- 2 min read
Updated: 1 day ago
August 2016, Tubby Hayes, London’s own jazz legend was commemorated with a blue plaque. It was unveiled in 2016 at Tubby Hayes’ childhood l home on Kenwyn Road, London SW20.
Tenor-saxophonist (and Hayes’ tireless champion) Simon Spillett, celebrated filmmaker Lee Cogswell, Mark Baxter (mastermind behind the recent documentary ‘Tubby Hayes: A Man in a Hurry’ all gathered to witness Richard Hayes (Tubby’s son) unveil a Heritage Plaque in honour of his father who lived in the house from l936-51. The ceremony is illustrated below (L/ R:Spillett, Cogswell, Baxter, Hayes).
Simon Spillett (the author of Hayes’ definitive biography ‘The Long Shadow of the Little Giant’ (Equinox, 2015) says: "this is a long overdue acknowledgment of his cultural importance."
His story and music are well-known but this award celebrates him as a key figure in what was (and remains) a truly special era for the arts and entertainment in the UK. In fact there’s a slightly surreal feeling in realising that Tubby’s world class talent was incubated not in New York or Los Angeles but in post-war London! You can just imagine him as a teenage lad, saxophone case in hand, walking down Kenwyn Road to catch a train into the West End. His career may have been on an international level but the Plaque plants him firmly on the map as a London icon; a distinctly British jazz legend.
Hayes frequently returned to the family home during his career of twenty-three years, living there briefly during the early 1970s while recuperating from open-heart surgery. His mother Dorothy Kenyon lived in the house until the 1980s.
For more of the story of a British jazz giant please visit these sites:
This article was from our very first newsletter, now as a free magazine known as 'Centrepiece', which has a beautiful contemporary design created by Azzurro Marketing Agency. We have come a very long way since 2016.
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