Vic Lewis West Coast All Stars - Me & You! (1997)

When Bill Haley and the Comets erupted on to the British music scene in 1956 with Rock Around the Clock, most jazz bandleaders and musicians knew the writing was on the wall. Vic Lewis, who has died aged 89, moved from fronting his big band into artist representation, later working with Brian Epstein, manager of the Beatles. But he never lost his interest in jazz, retaining contact with top American musicians, especially those associated with the bandleader Stan Kenton, and bankrolling high-quality recording sessions. He also wrote songs with the lyricist Don Black and conducted the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra.
Lewis grew up in Golders Green, north London, and inherited a love of cricket from his father, a member of Kent's second XI, and his predilection for music from his mother's side. His maternal great-grandfather was a music publisher who played banjo with the Ethiopian Harmonists and his grandfather, another banjoist, tap-danced.
Lewis transferred from the banjo to the four-string guitar, inspired by the recordings of the American jazz guitarist Eddie Lang. Dispatched to the Essex coast to benefit from the sea air, he located some like-minded players and formed his Swing String Quartet.
They auditioned for Carroll Levis, who then ran talent shows and found them work with Radio Luxembourg and the BBC. Lewis recalled playing with Django Reinhardt and Stéphane Grappelli before the second world war and associating with musicians such as the pianist George Shearing and the drummer Carlo Krahmer, often persuading them to record privately with his augmented group, now known as the Blue Swingers.
In 1938 he travelled to New York, where his friendship with Leonard Feather, the US-based British jazz writer, enabled Lewis to record with his heroes, including the clarinettists Joe Marsala and Pee Wee Russell and the cornetist Bobby Hackett. He also met the tenorist Lester Young, then rehearsing with Count Basie's band at a 52nd Street club, who introduced him to Basie. Invited to listen to the band, Lewis recalled that: "Until that day only small group jazz had interested me. The experience of sitting there with Basie's men broadened my musical outlook in a single afternoon."
Lewis spent the next six years in the RAF, including a lengthy stint at Bomber Command HQ, High Wycombe, Buckinghamshire. When the saxophonist Buddy Featherstonehaugh's swing quintet was posted en masse to High Wycombe, Lewis joined them and travelled weekly with the group to London to record for HMV and broadcast on the BBC's Radio Rhythm Club. When the quintet disbanded, the drummer Jack Parnell and Lewis formed the Vic Lewis and Jack Parnell Jazzmen (1944-46). Their recording of Ugly Child was a minor hit, prompting Parnell's uncle, the impresario Val Parnell, to book them on to the variety circuit. When Parnell left to join Ted Heath, Lewis's remaining Jazzmen continued to play the dancehalls.
Prompted by his pianist, Ken Thorne, Lewis formed a big band which debuted in November 1946. Its distinctive sound was much inspired by Kenton, and its talented soloists were to include the young tenor-saxophonist Tubby Hayes. Represented by the agent Harold Davison, they became a sensation in the British big band world, representing their country at the 1949 Paris international jazz festival and touring all over Europe.
The Lewis band also appeared with the Louis Armstrong All-Stars in London in 1956, and toured with the major pre-rock American singers Frankie Laine and Guy Mitchell, but Lewis folded the band in 1960, becoming a booker with Harold Davison's organisation before setting up his own agency. The artists that Lewis managed and promoted included Nina Simone, Carmen McRae, Sarah Vaughan, and Andy Williams. Epstein's Nems Enterprises bought out Lewis's agency in 1964, appointing Lewis to its board. When Epstein died three years later, Lewis became managing director, concentrating on the careers of stars such as Cilla Black, Elton John and Matt Monro. He quit in 1977 to devote his time to classical and jazz music.
He maintained an involvement with the cricket world, as member of the Middlesex County committee for a quarter of a century from 1976 and formed his own cricket club. He said: "Cricket is not just another sport. Cricket is a religion, a way of life, a brotherhood."
Lewis published an autobiography, Music and Maiden Overs (1987), written with the publicist Tony Barrow. He also collaborated with Robert Feather on a volume of photographs, My Life in Jazz, (2007). Lewis was a vibrant, clubbable man and was appointed MBE in 2007 for services to music and cricket.
Lewis's wife Jill predeceased him. He is survived by their daughter Dannie and granddaughter Jasmine.
Victor Joseph Lewis, bandleader and entrepreneur, born 29 July 1919; died 9 February 2009