Ronnie Ball

Birmingham born pianist Ronnie Ball was born in December 1927. He played local gigs from the age of fifteen before moving to London in 1948 with Tony Kinsey and worked with Reggie Goff's Sextet as well as leading his own trio. He joined Cab Kaye in 1949 before working on the Queen Mary on the transatlantic cruise run to New York He had become fascinated with the individual approach to jazz development favoured by pianist Lennie Tristano and had actually had an opportunity to study with Tristano while working on the cruise liners. In London he worked as part of the house trio at the Studio 51 club, where he accompanied virtually all of the leading British modern jazzmen at one time or another. He recorded with many of them and made a few records under his own name. In 1952 he decided to leave the United Kingdom, following in the footsteps of George Shearing, for New York where he worked with Tristano disciples and got to record an album with altoist Lee Konitz in 1954. He made only a handful of records in London and very little is available on CD. He died in New York in 1984.

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