A Liverpool Exemplar - William Gordon Masters

William Gordon Masters, the son of a slave, left Jamaica to become a seaman and in the 1880s and met Ann Jane Williams, an Irish girl, who had settled in Liverpool's Vauxhall neighbourhood. They married and had three sons. One was also William Gordon Masters, born on June the 7th, 1887, who became a music-hall star, composer, poet and jazz musician. Adopting the stage name Gordon Stretton from an Edwardian music hall performer, he became one of the first Liverpool-based musicians to gain international acclaim as he played an important role in the internationalization of jazz music.

 William was a child dancer and singer who was drafted into an act called the Five Boys, who toured the local theatres and halls. Impressario William Jackson got to hear of him and William joined his "Lancashire Lads Dancing Troupe", which was part of Charlie Chaplin's development, he being two years younger than William. He had mastered a variety of instruments by this time and toured Britain with 'the Lads' before in 1908, touring Britain as a member of a Jamaican choir, and became a chorister and musical director with the Jamaican Choral Union. He then began appearing in music-halls and jazz clubs, such as the Rectors of London and Paris, and the Grafton Galleries, London and was successful enough to have his own company of dancers who all starred in a production of the West End hit 'Chu Chin Chow'. Playing in several jazz bands as a drummer, he played with William "Billy" Dorsey's band when they came to Britain from the USA.

Developing his musical craft from playing in the big cities of the USA, being included on bills with Bing Crosby, Al Jolson and Eddie Cantor, to performing in the capitals of Europe, including London and Paris, where he was a successful jazz percussionist in the 1910s and early 1920s, he travelled to Rio in 1922 with the French theatrical company, the Ba-ta-clan.

In 1923 during the Jazz age in Paris, Gordon Stretton and his band the Syncopated Six were contacted by the French Pathe recording company to make a series of Jazz recordings. Crossing the Atlantic to the USA from time to time, in 1921, his Syncopated Jazz Band were recorded in New York on the Actuelle label playing the 'Satanic Blues' and 'Lucky Dog Blues'. Two years later, another of his bands, the Syncopated Six, released a record of his songs. These recordings are now credited by scholars of early Jazz music as being among the first Jazz recordings to be made in Europe.

He finally settled in Buenos Aires where he lived from the late 1920s. Unbelievably this young boy from such a poor background had learned to play numerous musical instruments and to speak French and Spanish as well as English. He had also developed a friendship over time with Prince Edward, later Duke of Windsor, who he would call 'David', his first name, with Edward calling him 'Bill'.

Hired by businessman Augusto Alvarez to act in one of the local entertainment companies, at the cinema theatre "Select Lavalle", by 1929 he had founded Gordon Stretton's Symphonic Jazz Bandas and gained almost legendary status playing with the greatest tango artists in Argentina. Gordon Stretton's band contained talented musicians among them former members of W.C Handy's Memphis Blues band. In 1914 Handy had published his composition the St Louis Blues which The Beatles recorded at the 'White Album' recording sessions in 1968.

When he was photographed by Charles Frederick Inston at the Steble Fountain on William Brown Street, Liverpool, in 1890, William was the only black boy in a gang of bare-footed ragamuffins. They would come here regularly from their 'slum existence' to wash their hands and feet.
The photograph was blown up to 8ft by 6ft and has periodically been displayed at Liverpool Central Library on William Brown Street.

Gordon Stretton died on May the 3rd, 1982, in Buenos Aires.

For more on this pioneering musician the above book is recommended.

Jeff Daniels is Gordon Stretton's great-nephew and an independent research scholar and Mike Brocken is senior lecturer in popular music studies at Liverpool Hope University 

see also:- http://www.thefootballvoice.com/2020/08/a-liverpool-exemplar-agnes-jones.html