Frank Holder (musician)

Frank Holder
Frank Holder with his Life-Time Achievement Award from The Worshipful Company of Musicians
Background information
Born	(1925-04-02) 2 April 1925 (age 92)
Origin	Georgetown, Guyana, Guyanese
Genres	Jazz / Latin
Occupation(s)	Singer, percussionist
Instruments	vocals , bongos, congas
Labels	Parlophone, Decca, Pye, London, Esquire, Metronome, Dawn, BBC discs and Mainstem.

Frank Holder (born 2 April 1925) is a Guyanese jazz singer and percussionist. He was a member of bands led by Leslie George "Jiver" Hutchinson, Johnny Dankworth and Joe Harriott.

Frank Holder was born in 1925 in Georgetown, Guyana, and served in the Royal Air Force. He sang in various forces groups at RAF Cranwell, including a band led by Geoff Head.

Holder played with bands led by among others Andre Messeder and John Carioca in the late 1940s, appearing with the latter at Churchill's Club London. Holder also appeared at the Feldman Swing Club (now known as the 100 Club) in London, owned by the Feldman brothers. Holder recalls, "At Feldman's, a black man would be accepted when you couldn't appear at clubs like the Mayfair or Embassy. Black guys like Coleridge Goode and Ray Ellington were welcome, and all that mattered to Robert and Monty Feldman was that you were a musician." Holder occasionally worked in those early days with a teenage Victor Feldman, who was already a fantastically gifted improviser on vibes and drums.

Holder recorded early in his career for the major record companies Parlophone, Decca and London Records. He is perhaps best known for his work in the early 1950s with The Dankworth Seven, led by John Dankworth, which often topped the Melody Maker Jazz Charts. However, Holder is also regarded as one of the leading black UK jazz musicians to emerge from the mid-1940s' swing dance band movement, having got his big break with a band led by Jiver Hutchinson after World War II. In the late 1940s Holder also worked with trumpeter Kenny Baker.

Highlights from Holder's Dankworth days include an appearance at the Royal Albert Hall on the same bill as Nat King Cole. Throughout the 1950s and 1960s, Holder toured, recorded and performed with musicians such as Ronnie Scott, Tubby Hayes, Joe Harriott, Don Rendell, Peter King, Dickie Hawdon, Eddie Harvey, Jack Fallon, Harry Beckett, Bill Le Sage, Shake Keane, Ronnie Ross, Coleridge Goode, Hank Shaw, Tony Kinsey as well as the UK jazz composer and songwriter Duncan Lamont. Holder was also active in the vibrant post-war Latin music scene including working with the Deniz Brothers. Holder's vocal talents were also known to Edmundo Ross, the Trinidadian- Venezuelan musician, vocalist, arranger and bandleader who made his career in Britain.