Ivor Mairants
Encyclopedia
Ivor Mairants was a professional jazz and classical guitar
ist, teacher and composer.
With his wife Lily in 1958 he created Ivor Mairants Musicentre, a specialist guitar store in London that was the first of its kind in the country and is still among the foremost of its kind in the UK
.
, Poland
. He came with his family to the United Kingdom in 1913. He attended Raine's Foundation School
in Bethnal Green
. He took up the banjo
at the age of 15 and became a professional musician at the age of 20.
From the 1930s he was a featured banjoist and then guitarist of many of Britain's leading dance bands including those of Bert Firman
, Ambrose
, Roy Fox
, Lew Stone
, Geraldo and Ted Heath
. In the 1960s and 1970s his outstanding guitar playing was often heard on television, radio, film soundtracks, and many recordings with the popular Mantovani orchestra, and with Manuel and his Music of the Mountains. His recording of the 'Adagio' from Joaquin Rodrigo
's Concierto de Aranjuez with Manuel sold over one million copies. His guitar quintet broadcast regularly in the late 1950s on the BBC
's 'Guitar Club' series.
Of particular importance to guitarists is the fact that Ivor Mairants devoted so much of his time to writing music and instructional methods for the guitar. His flamenco
guitar method has for many years has been a bestseller all over the world. His many other solo and technique books for all styles of guitar playing, from publishers both in the UK and US, have enjoyed great success.
Mairants worked with American guitarist Josh White
to create The Josh White Guitar Method (Boosey & Hawkes
) in 1956. It was an extremely influential book for the fledgling UK blues/folk scene and was the first blues guitar instruction book ever published. UK guitarist John Renbourn
and American guitarist Stefan Grossman
(who was living in the UK at the time) have cited it as a critical influence on their playing. The success of the book The Josh White Guitar Method prompted Mairants to commission a Zenith “Josh White” signature guitar based on Josh's Martin 0021 from German guitar maker Oscar Teller. Scottish guitarist Bert Jansch
owned one of these models in his early playing years. On the last page of "Josh White Guitar Method" (printed 1956) there is a photo of this Zenith Josh White signature guitar and some text about it.
The Guild Guitar Company
in the US worked with Josh on a signature model in 1965.
This fact was confirmed in a tv-program, The History Detectives, by Mark Dronge, whose father, Al, was one of the founders of
Guild Guitars. Mark Dronge took Josh White to the Guild factory in 1965. A guitar made to Josh White's specifications was made and was meant to become a signature guitar for Josh White, but it was never mass produced. Mark Dronge explained that "The scene was starting to change. The Beatles were so influential and all these bands came out and the electric music was getting bigger and the plans for Josh White model just kind of fell by the wayside, unfortunately."
Mairants also commissioned German guitar manufacturer Framus
to make further Zenith Guitars, with Boosey & Hawkes being the sole distributor and each one personally signed by him. These included the Zenith Model 17 acoustic which became Paul McCartney
's first guitar and on which he subsequently wrote most of his early songs.
In the 1950s Ivor Mairants established his Central School of Dance Music in London. All instruments were taught at this innovative establishment, but special emphasis was given to the guitar. Several of his ex-pupils are today Britain's top guitarists.
In 1958, together with his wife Lily, he opened The Ivor Mairants Musicentre. This was Britain's first specialist guitar shop situated in the heart of London's West End. For many years some of the world's best guitars and guitar accessories were introduced into Britain by Ivor Mairants at his store.
Although the store was sold in recent times to one of the UK's major instrument distributors, it still bears his name and continues to stock one of Britain's finest ranges of guitars. Over the years he was often employed as a specialist consultant for leading instrument makers and importers.
From the 1930s Ivor Mairants was a prolific columnist in several leading music journals including Melody Maker
, BMG
and Classical Guitar. In 1980 his highly acclaimed biography 'My Fifty Fretting Years' was published by Ashley Mark Publishing in the UK, and in 1995 his marvelous opus, 'The Great Jazz Guitarists', probably the most complete collection of note-for-note transcriptions of historic jazz guitar solo
s was published by Music Maker Publications in Cambridge
, UK.
He was a member of the Worshipful Society of Musicians, a prestigious and ancient British guild, and a Freeman of the City of London
.
In 1997 the Worshipful Society of Musicians inaugurated a new annual competition; the Ivor Mairants Guitar Award, which will remain an important part of the enormous legacy this irreplaceable figure has left for future generations of guitarists.
Guitar
The guitar is a plucked string instrument, usually played with fingers or a pick. The guitar consists of a body with a rigid neck to which the strings, generally six in number, are attached. Guitars are traditionally constructed of various woods and strung with animal gut or, more recently, with...
ist, teacher and composer.
With his wife Lily in 1958 he created Ivor Mairants Musicentre, a specialist guitar store in London that was the first of its kind in the country and is still among the foremost of its kind in the UK
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
.
Biography
Ivor Mairants was born in RypinRypin
Rypin is a town in Poland, in Kuyavian-Pomeranian Voivodeship, about 50 km east of Toruń. It is the capital of Rypin County. Population is 16,558 .-External links:**...
, Poland
Poland
Poland , officially the Republic of Poland , is a country in Central Europe bordered by Germany to the west; the Czech Republic and Slovakia to the south; Ukraine, Belarus and Lithuania to the east; and the Baltic Sea and Kaliningrad Oblast, a Russian exclave, to the north...
. He came with his family to the United Kingdom in 1913. He attended Raine's Foundation School
Raine's Foundation School
Raine's Foundation School is a Church of England Voluntary Aided school in the London Borough of Tower Hamlets.Henry Raine, a very rich man who lived in Wapping, decided to create a school where poor children could get an education for free, so that they could go into skilled labour when they left....
in Bethnal Green
Bethnal Green
Bethnal Green is a district of the East End of London, England and part of the London Borough of Tower Hamlets, with the far northern parts falling within the London Borough of Hackney. Located northeast of Charing Cross, it was historically an agrarian hamlet in the ancient parish of Stepney,...
. He took up the banjo
Banjo
In the 1830s Sweeney became the first white man to play the banjo on stage. His version of the instrument replaced the gourd with a drum-like sound box and included four full-length strings alongside a short fifth-string. There is no proof, however, that Sweeney invented either innovation. This new...
at the age of 15 and became a professional musician at the age of 20.
From the 1930s he was a featured banjoist and then guitarist of many of Britain's leading dance bands including those of Bert Firman
Bert Firman
Bert Firman was an English bandleader of the 1920s, 30s and 40s.He was born as Herbert Feuerman in London. His mother was of Polish stock and his father was a professional musician who had settled in Britain from Austria-Hungary in the late l880's. His three elder brothers were also musicians...
, Ambrose
Ambrose
Aurelius Ambrosius, better known in English as Saint Ambrose , was a bishop of Milan who became one of the most influential ecclesiastical figures of the 4th century. He was one of the four original doctors of the Church.-Political career:Ambrose was born into a Roman Christian family between about...
, Roy Fox
Roy Fox
Roy Fox was an American dance bandleader whose period of greatest popularity came during his years performing in England.Roy Fox was raised in Hollywood, California...
, Lew Stone
Lew Stone
Lew Stone was a British dance band leader and arranger. He was well known in Britain during the 1930s.Stone learned music at an early age and became an accomplished pianist. In the 1920s, he worked with many important dance bands...
, Geraldo and Ted Heath
Ted Heath (bandleader)
Ted Heath, musician and big band leader, led Britain's greatest post-war big band recording more than 100 albums and selling over 20 million records...
. In the 1960s and 1970s his outstanding guitar playing was often heard on television, radio, film soundtracks, and many recordings with the popular Mantovani orchestra, and with Manuel and his Music of the Mountains. His recording of the 'Adagio' from Joaquin Rodrigo
Joaquín Rodrigo
Joaquín Rodrigo Vidre, 1st Marquis of the Gardens of Aranjuez , commonly known as Joaquín Rodrigo, was a composer of classical music and a virtuoso pianist. Despite being nearly blind from an early age, he achieved great success...
's Concierto de Aranjuez with Manuel sold over one million copies. His guitar quintet broadcast regularly in the late 1950s on the BBC
BBC
The British Broadcasting Corporation is a British public service broadcaster. Its headquarters is at Broadcasting House in the City of Westminster, London. It is the largest broadcaster in the world, with about 23,000 staff...
's 'Guitar Club' series.
Of particular importance to guitarists is the fact that Ivor Mairants devoted so much of his time to writing music and instructional methods for the guitar. His flamenco
Flamenco
Flamenco is a genre of music and dance which has its foundation in Andalusian music and dance and in whose evolution Andalusian Gypsies played an important part....
guitar method has for many years has been a bestseller all over the world. His many other solo and technique books for all styles of guitar playing, from publishers both in the UK and US, have enjoyed great success.
Mairants worked with American guitarist Josh White
Josh White
Joshua Daniel White , better known as Josh White, was an American singer, guitarist, songwriter, actor, and civil rights activist. He also recorded under the names "Pinewood Tom" and "Tippy Barton" in the 1930s....
to create The Josh White Guitar Method (Boosey & Hawkes
Boosey & Hawkes
Boosey & Hawkes is a British music publisher purported to be the largest specialist classical music publisher in the world. Until 2003, it was also a major manufacturer of brass, string and wind musical instruments....
) in 1956. It was an extremely influential book for the fledgling UK blues/folk scene and was the first blues guitar instruction book ever published. UK guitarist John Renbourn
John Renbourn
John Renbourn is an English guitarist and songwriter. He is possibly best known for his collaboration with guitarist Bert Jansch as well as his work with the folk group Pentangle, although he maintained a solo career before, during and after that band's existence .While most commonly labelled a...
and American guitarist Stefan Grossman
Stefan Grossman
Stefan Grossman is an American acoustic fingerstyle guitarist and singer, music producer and educator, and co-founder of Kicking Mule records.-Early life and influences:Born in Brooklyn, New York, to Herbert and Ruth Grossman...
(who was living in the UK at the time) have cited it as a critical influence on their playing. The success of the book The Josh White Guitar Method prompted Mairants to commission a Zenith “Josh White” signature guitar based on Josh's Martin 0021 from German guitar maker Oscar Teller. Scottish guitarist Bert Jansch
Bert Jansch
Herbert "Bert" Jansch was a Scottish folk musician and founding member of the band Pentangle. He was born in Glasgow and came to prominence in London in the 1960s, as an acoustic guitarist, as well as a singer-songwriter...
owned one of these models in his early playing years. On the last page of "Josh White Guitar Method" (printed 1956) there is a photo of this Zenith Josh White signature guitar and some text about it.
The Guild Guitar Company
Guild Guitar Company
The Guild Guitar Company is a USA-based guitar manufacturer founded in 1952 by Alfred Dronge, a guitarist and music-store owner, and George Mann, a former executive with the Epiphone Guitar Company...
in the US worked with Josh on a signature model in 1965.
This fact was confirmed in a tv-program, The History Detectives, by Mark Dronge, whose father, Al, was one of the founders of
Guild Guitars. Mark Dronge took Josh White to the Guild factory in 1965. A guitar made to Josh White's specifications was made and was meant to become a signature guitar for Josh White, but it was never mass produced. Mark Dronge explained that "The scene was starting to change. The Beatles were so influential and all these bands came out and the electric music was getting bigger and the plans for Josh White model just kind of fell by the wayside, unfortunately."
Mairants also commissioned German guitar manufacturer Framus
Framus
Framus is a German guitar, bass, lap steel guitars and banjo manufacturing company, that existed from 1946 until going bankrupt in 1975. The Framus brand was revived in 1995 as part of Warwick GmbH & Co Music Equipment KG in Markneukirchen ....
to make further Zenith Guitars, with Boosey & Hawkes being the sole distributor and each one personally signed by him. These included the Zenith Model 17 acoustic which became Paul McCartney
Paul McCartney
Sir James Paul McCartney, MBE, Hon RAM, FRCM is an English musician, singer-songwriter and composer. Formerly of The Beatles and Wings , McCartney is listed in Guinness World Records as the "most successful musician and composer in popular music history", with 60 gold discs and sales of 100...
's first guitar and on which he subsequently wrote most of his early songs.
In the 1950s Ivor Mairants established his Central School of Dance Music in London. All instruments were taught at this innovative establishment, but special emphasis was given to the guitar. Several of his ex-pupils are today Britain's top guitarists.
In 1958, together with his wife Lily, he opened The Ivor Mairants Musicentre. This was Britain's first specialist guitar shop situated in the heart of London's West End. For many years some of the world's best guitars and guitar accessories were introduced into Britain by Ivor Mairants at his store.
Although the store was sold in recent times to one of the UK's major instrument distributors, it still bears his name and continues to stock one of Britain's finest ranges of guitars. Over the years he was often employed as a specialist consultant for leading instrument makers and importers.
From the 1930s Ivor Mairants was a prolific columnist in several leading music journals including Melody Maker
Melody Maker
Melody Maker, published in the United Kingdom, was, according to its publisher IPC Media, the world's oldest weekly music newspaper. It was founded in 1926 as a magazine targeted at musicians; in 2000 it was merged into "long-standing rival" New Musical Express.-1950s–1960s:Originally the Melody...
, BMG
BMG
Bertelsmann Music Group, , was a division of Bertelsmann before its completion of sale of the majority of its assets to Japan's Sony Corporation of America on October 1, 2008. It was established in 1987 to combine the music label activities of Bertelsmann...
and Classical Guitar. In 1980 his highly acclaimed biography 'My Fifty Fretting Years' was published by Ashley Mark Publishing in the UK, and in 1995 his marvelous opus, 'The Great Jazz Guitarists', probably the most complete collection of note-for-note transcriptions of historic jazz guitar solo
Guitar solo
In popular music, a guitar solo is a melodic passage, section, or entire piece of music written for an electric guitar or an acoustic guitar. Guitar solos, which often contain varying degrees of improvisation, are used in many styles of popular music such as blues, jazz, rock and metal styles such...
s was published by Music Maker Publications in Cambridge
Cambridge
The city of Cambridge is a university town and the administrative centre of the county of Cambridgeshire, England. It lies in East Anglia about north of London. Cambridge is at the heart of the high-technology centre known as Silicon Fen – a play on Silicon Valley and the fens surrounding the...
, UK.
He was a member of the Worshipful Society of Musicians, a prestigious and ancient British guild, and a Freeman of the City of London
City of London
The City of London is a small area within Greater London, England. It is the historic core of London around which the modern conurbation grew and has held city status since time immemorial. The City’s boundaries have remained almost unchanged since the Middle Ages, and it is now only a tiny part of...
.
In 1997 the Worshipful Society of Musicians inaugurated a new annual competition; the Ivor Mairants Guitar Award, which will remain an important part of the enormous legacy this irreplaceable figure has left for future generations of guitarists.