Max Darewski

Max Darewski was the younger brother of Herman Darewski, the song-writer and music publisher. He was born in Manchester in 1894; by the age of ten, he was described as a ‘child musical prodigy, composer, and conductor’, and was appearing at south coast resorts with music-hall stars of the calibre of Marie Dainton. Perhaps the fact that his elder brother was married to singer Madge Temple helped, but he was clearly successful on his own terms: in 1902, he composed England's Crown to mark the Coronation of Edward VII;  a couple of years later, he created a minor sensation by conducting a full orchestra playing his own compositions at Bournemouth. And in 1905 he conducted the massed bands of the Brass Band Festival at the Crystal Palace in south London. At around this period, he also toured Europe as a pianist…on the evidence of his few recordings, a very good one, though he was no jazz or even pure ragtime player. Monkey Blues, which he wrote in 1918 and recorded five years later, is neither a blues nor a rag, but it shows flashes of real jazz feeling, which mark it out from the majority of piano novelties of the time. Max Darewski died, aged 35, in 1929.