4BR has been informed of the death of the highly respected and popular bass trombonist Alf Morten, who died on September 8th.

Success

After successful stints at CWS (Manchester), Munn & Feltons and Foden’s he was a member of the Fairey Engineering trombone section throughout the 1970’s and was part of the famous 1979 British Open winning team under the baton of Walter Hargreaves.

He was also well known as one of the last great exponents of the unwieldy G trombone and regarded as a player of rich musicality and bandsman of even richer wit and good humour.

Best in the game

Former section colleague John Maines told 4BR: "We had a great section at Fairey. There are lots of stories about what the G Trombone sounded like but Alf was the best in the game, a sound like no other and so musical.

A fact that not many will know is that Alf was a cornet player at CWS (Manchester) and a couple of weeks before the Open the G Trombone player quit and the band's resident, Alex Mortimer, told Alf he had to go on G Trombone! Alf reluctantly made the switch and Mort taught him how to play the part of ‘Scena Sinfonica’ by Henry Gheel.

It was the centenary of the British Open and CWS won conducted by Eric Ball. That was the start of Alf the legend. He later went on to play for Munn and Felton's (GUS) and Foden's winning the Open with them in 1964."

There are lots of stories about what the G Trombone sounded like but Alf was the best in the game, a sound like no other and so musicalJohn Maines

Giggler

John continued: "Alf was a 'giggler' and along with Barry Thompson and myself were reprimanded on numerous occasions by ‘the management' of Alan Lawton and Cyril Howarth for giggling uncontrollably on stage.

On one occasion Geoffrey Brand threatened to sack the whole section because we refused to play on Boosey & Hawkes trombones! Needless to say nothing came of that.

When my family and I went through a bit of a hard time financially Alf used to buy our children sweets and the odd toy. He was a real friend of the family but never made anything of it.

We later played together at Wingates under Jim Scott. He was a great pal and he will be sorely missed, not just as a great player but as a dear friend."