Stan Tracey
Stanley William Tracey CBE was a British jazz pianist and composer, whose most important influences were Duke Ellington and Thelonious Monk. Tracey's best known recording is of a suite inspired by Dylan Thomas's radio drama Under Milk Wood (1965).From March 1960 until about 1967 (some sources give 1968), Tracey was the house pianist at Ronnie Scott's Jazz Club in Soho, London, and he had the opportunity to accompany many of the leading musicians from the US who visited the club. Recordings of some of these performances appeared on LP and others have appeared in recent years on the Jazz House and Harkit labels, recorded by the journalist Les Tomkins, but with non-professional sound quality. In this context he gained some very high profile admirers; Sonny Rollins asserted at one concert: "Does anyone here know how good he is?" It is Tracey on piano that film viewers hear behind Rollins on the soundtrack of the Michael Caine version of Alfie.