Jack Sharpe was an English jazz

Jazz

Jazz is a musical style that originated at the beginning of the 20th century in African American communities in the Southern United States. It was born out of a mix of African and European music traditions. From its early development until the present, jazz has incorporated music from 19th and 20th...

 saxophonist and bandleader

Bandleader

A bandleader is the leader of a band of musicians. The term is most commonly, though not exclusively, used with a group that plays popular music as a small combo or a big band, such as one which plays jazz, blues, rhythm and blues or rock and roll music....

, chiefly active on the London jazz scene.

Sharpe began playing tenor sax at age eighteen. He played with Vic Lewis

Vic Lewis

Vic Lewis was a British jazz guitarist and bandleader.Lewis began playing the guitar at the age of three, and dabbled with cornet and trombone. One of his early bands included George Shearing, then a teenager, among its members...

 and Teddy Foster in the early 1950s and freelanced in the London area, but left music around 1953 to become a taxi

Taxicab

A taxicab, also taxi or cab, is a type of vehicle for hire with a driver, used by a single passenger or small group of passengers, often for a non-shared ride. A taxicab conveys passengers between locations of their choice...

 driver. He returned in 1954 to play with Dizzy Reece

Dizzy Reece

Alphonso Son "Dizzy" Reece is a hard bop jazz trumpeter with a distinctive sound and compositional style.Reece was born 5 January 1931 in Kingston, Jamaica, the son of a silent film pianist. He attended the Alpha Boys School , switching from baritone to trumpet at 14...

, then played in Tubby Hayes

Tubby Hayes

Edward Brian "Tubby" Hayes was an English jazz multi-instrumentalist, best known for his tenor saxophone playing in groups with fellow sax player Ronnie Scott and with trumpeter Jimmy Deuchar. He is widely regarded as one of the greatest British jazz instrumentalists.- Early life :Hayes was born...

's band in 1955-56. He played with Mike Senn in The Downbeaters after 1957, worked further with Hayes, and led his own sextet in 1958. Additionally, he found work in promotion and booking for other musicians.

Sharpe made a return to the jazz scene in 1985, playing with Alan Branscombe

Alan Branscombe

Alan Branscombe was an English jazz pianist, vibraphonist, and alto saxophonist.Branscombe's father and grandfather were also professional musicians. He played drums with Victor Feldman in a talent show as a child. He began on alto sax at age six, and played in the army with Jeff Clyne in 1954-56...

 and leading a big band

Big band

A big band is a type of musical ensemble associated with jazz and the Swing Era typically consisting of rhythm, brass, and woodwind instruments totaling approximately twelve to twenty-five musicians...

 tribute to Tubby Hayes. This ensemble recorded three times; Al Cohn

Al Cohn

Al Cohn was an American jazz saxophonist and arranger and composer.-Biography:Alvin Gilbert Cohn was born in Brooklyn, New York. He was initially known in the 1940s for playing in Woody Herman's Second Herd as one of the Four Brothers, along with Zoot Sims, Stan Getz, and Serge Chaloff...

 played on their 1987 release Catalyst.

Discography

• Catalyst:A Tribute to Tubby Hayes (1987)
• Roarin' (1989)
• Sharpe as a Knife

Further reading

• John Chilton
  John Chilton
  John James Chilton is a British jazz trumpeter and writer. During the 1960s he also worked with pop bands, including The Swinging Blue Jeans and The Escorts....
  
  , Who's Who of British Jazz.
• Jack Sharpe biography and discography at David Taylor's British Modern Jazz website