John Robertson

[agmott]

Strangely enough, I am speaking today with the guy who wrote the book on the history of the Sydney Symphony Orchestra. I'll ask him to look it up.
Prior to JR coming to Australia (permanently) in '36, he must have been come over from NZ to Melbourne for a time as I have a piece of sheet music signed: 'John Robertson, State Theatre Orchestra, Melbourne, 1928' (now known as The Forum Theatre and still standing). The piece is H.L. Clarke's 'Stars In A Velvety Sky'.
I believe he also went to Europe during the early '30s.
Best, Andrew

[agmott]

Have just spoken with the author of the book on Sydney Symphony Orchestra. He says John retired from the orchestra in 1973 and died the following year. Had been playing for the SSO and Elizabethan Trust Orch to that point. I will check when he took up the position originally. I seem to think he was in Sydney pretty much from the forties. He was playing for the Colgate-Palmolive Show Orchestra (that's what you did then !) in about '46 - perhaps it was soon after that.
Andrew

[Derek Reaban]

Andrew,

Thanks very much for checking on this information for me. Here is the folder that I have for the Sydney Symphony Trumpet Section.

This is the list of Principal players with their dates of tenure:

Start-End________Name

1978-Current_______Daniel Mendelow
1976-1978_________John Wood (Acting Principal)
1974-1976_________Gordon Webb
1973-1974_________TBD
194?-1973_________John Robertson
1932-194?_________TBD


If you would be albl to help fill in other missing information, that would be extremely helpful.

Thanks very much!
_________________
Derek Reaban
Tempe, Arizona
Tempe Winds / Symphony of the Southwest

[Cramrock]

to Grooveduke - you state "I have acquired almost everything he recorded. 2 LPs: Concertos for Trumpet (RCA LSB 4005), Sugar 'N' Spice (RCA RPLS-3415), and 1 extended Play 45: Spanish Gypsy Dance (RCA RPX-1141)"

John Robertson was my grandmothers brother, and I can remember more recordings. We had some in the house when I was a young fella in NZ.
He did a recording that was for the Australian bi-centennial, I forget its name.
We had the 45's but there were 2 other LP's that you did not list.

[grooveduke]

It is very cool to see this topic come up again. I'm not on here very much anymore and this was a great excuse to come back.

I would love to have a complete discography of John Robertson. I have a standing request at several collectors shops for any John Robertson recordings that come in. Do you have titles or catalog numbers of the other two LPs so I can be more specific with my requests? I know there are a couple more EPs that I've seen, but was unable to buy when they came up.
_________________
Check out my loveletter to Rhythm & Blues:
Heavy Mariner

[Cramrock]

I will contact some people in NZ.
I think they have original pressings. I remember one that was warped and it was not sugar & spice.
I will see what they come up with.

Btw- I remember my grandmother telling me about John when he was young and worked in the family bakery. He use to hang his cornet by a string from the ceiling and practice blowing notes without holding the cornet!

[GrantM]

It would appear that Camrock and I are related as John Robertson was my Great Uncle :

John's sister Constance was also my grandmother and my father Jim referred to him as Uncle John & would catch up with him in Sydney when in Oz while flying on RNZAF P-3Bs

I can confirm the story of playing his cornet suspended from a beam in the bakery. Mum said Nanna Rob referred to him as a bloody pest in the bakery 'cos he was practicing rather than working

There are many more stories, including having a hip flask in his jacket pocket that had a drinking tube up his arm to his left hand so he could take nips while in the band/orchestra

I've got a number of his albums here that I had converted to CD for my parents, including two of his 45s and three of his 33 LPs, one of which has a signed message to my father on the sleeve. The reason his "Multi Trumpets" was such a big thing was that this was before multi-track recordings were available and, as per the back of the Malaguena 45: "Never before has a trumpeter been soloist and his own trumpet section at the same time!"

It was a pretty big thing back then and I recall my father saying that they could only do a few different recordings as it would make the tape less effective (they were recording over the tape to add the extra tracks, etc).

Anyhow, happy to help if people are looking for content, info, etc.