http://www.nsnews.com/living/seniors...ging-1.1130181
North Van musician keeps on swinging
Laura Anderson / North Shore News
June 15, 2014 12:00 AM
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June is an eventful month for Allan Rose and his family.
Married June 30, 1966, Allan and Zealand Morgan raised their four children in North Vancouver. "Our daughter was almost four and her sister was two when our twin boys were born, at the same time Allan was establishing his dental practice," says Zealand. The Rose children produced eight grandchildren, including another set of twins - a fine group of offspring to celebrate Father's Day, June 15 and Allan's birthday on June 18.
Creativity runs in the family. Allan's sister is an artist and their uncle played drums into his 90s. Allan has been playing the clarinet since he was 10 years old. That was in 1945 when the swing tunes perfected by the big bands were the background music of the times, even, thanks to radio and records, as far north as Edmonton, Allan's hometown. He was a diligent student of the instrument. Every day after school, he'd set the 78s spinning on the record player and play along with Benny Goodman and Harry James.
By 1951, when Allan was 16, he faced a musical dilemma. Should he play clarinet like Goodman or switch to the trumpet and play like James? A record brought home by his sisters solved the problem. "It was Four Star Favorites by Artie Shaw," says Allan, "with all the good songs, 'Begin the Beguine,' 'Stardust.' And that was it. I was going to play clarinet like Artie Shaw," he laughs.
Allan was a student at the University of Alberta when an advertisement for the Westlake School of the Performing Arts in Los Angeles caught his eye. He traded one school for another, finding when he arrived that he wasn't the only Canadian enrolled at Westlake. Gordon Lightfoot was a student there, playing piano and singing in the style of Jack Jones, the smoothvoiced singer who put some swing into pop tunes of the day.
Allan's ambition was to join a movie studio band. That's where the best musicians were to be found, those who could sight-read and play anything. He had a future in the music business, thanks to "a tremendous teacher of the grand old age of 35 named Art Smith who was also a studio musician. He said my playing was at the level of the studio musicians but the Hollywood life was not for me. Plus, I was homesick."
Back home in Edmonton in 1958, an introduction led to a place in one of Canada's most popular bands, Mart Kenney and his Western Gentlemen. "We toured B.C. from north to south, 59 one-night stands," Allan remembers. "Phil Gaglardi hadn't quite finished building the highways so it was pretty hairy. You'd hear radio reports about cars falling into the Fraser Canyon, seemed like one every day.
"When the tour was over that winter, I drove Mart's car back to Toronto. We were playing at the Royal York hotel and there was Gordon Lightfoot, playing guitar and singing. He'd gone folkie by then."
Unimpressed with Toronto's weather, Allan was about to head home when adventure beckoned. Off he went to Australia, the first leg of a trip around the world. He was on the Mekong River in Vietnam in 1961, travelled deck class from Singapore to Ceylon ("It means you sleep on the deck"), and lived on a houseboat in Kashmir. Allan hitchhiked through Persia to Turkey and flew home to Canada when he received word of his father's sudden death.
He returned to school, first UBC where in 1966 he met and married Zealand, his lab partner, then back to the University of Alberta. Summer jobs in bands at Chateau Lake Louise and Jasper Park Lodge financed Allan's education as a dentist and helped support his family. Allan's dentistry practice supported his family and his musical vocation.
Now retired, Allan has again exchanged one practice for another. On the eve of his 79th birthday, he has still got that swing. He plays at the Cottage Bistro jazz club and at John Braithwaite Community Centre and is looking into the jam sessions at the centre and at Mollie Nye house.
Play on, Allan Rose, the world can always use more music.
Laura Anderson works with and for seniors on the North Shore. 778-279-2275
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Westlake Music school-another Canuck was therew with Gord
