Twelve years ago, Noreen Davies had a dream. In it, the artist and cafe owner, then 72, saw herself wielding an unusual instrument. “There was a jazzy tune on in the background and I was playing along on a trombone, bending the notes and having a great time,” she says. “When I woke up, I knew I had to learn it.”
She headed to her cafe in Leominster, Herefordshire, and had a meeting with her accountant. “At the end, I asked him if he knew anyone with a trombone I could try out and he said he had five! Turns out he played in a local brass band with his wife, so he ended up bringing one round to me, along with an old music book on the instrument, and that’s how it all started.”
Now 84, Davies has gigged throughout the West Midlands with groups exploring everything from the blues to vintage jazz and big band funk. No matter the tune, she has stayed true to her vision of bending the notes on the giant horn, twisting and wailing like a held string on an electric guitar. “I’ve only had two lessons and in the first one the teacher told me to just play what was written, but I do whatever I want to,” she says. “I use it more like a percussion instrument, improvising over the tunes.”
The trombone is notoriously difficult to learn, since players have to judge the distance between notes by pulling and pushing its tubing, rather than pressing fixed keys. Davies, though, found the instrument easy, thanks to her musical history. At 14, she took up the guitar and taught herself to play chords with her younger brother. “I forced him to play along with me. I taught myself the piano, too, by working out songs I liked listening to,” she says. “I realised that you don’t need to read music to learn; you can work it out with just a few chords. But by the time I went off to college, I wasn’t playing much any more. It just brings me so much joy to play and to have reconnected to my love of music.”
Davies met her husband, Gus, and began teaching in a primary school before the opportunity to open her first cafe arose in 2005. She decided to close every Monday and spend the day painting – an activity she hadn’t practised since her school days – and soon built up a reputation for her wistful images of high street shopfronts. Now, she paints three days a week and uses the cafe’s walls as a gallery.
Davies’ confidence to play live grew through hosting monthly music nights at the cafe, including a jam session with Ric Sanders of Fairport Convention, although she faced a setback when a series of operations on her lungs meant she was unable to play for several months.
One evening in 2018, when she had regained her strength, she went along to a jam session in nearby Bromyard and met two young musicians who were looking for a trombone to round out their trio. Luckily, she had hers in the boot of her car in case such an opportunity arose. “We did a few numbers together and they ended up adopting me,” she says. “We played for a couple of years, until Covid. It was great fun.”
The open world of jam sessions and gigs has since led Davies to more instruments. She is back on the piano and has added the accordion, the washboard and the baritone ukulele. “I ended up in a vintage jazz band because they needed a washboard player and I was the only one who took it up in the local area. I also play Bob Dylan tunes on the ukulele and I’m trying to learn some Cole Porter on the accordion,” she says. “I just got a bass ukulele, too, but that will have to wait, as I can’t play too many instruments at once …”
It sounds like a hectic schedule, but Davies wouldn’t have it any other way. “Playing music and improvising with other people is essential to me now,” she says. “Everyone should try it out – just get yourself to a jam session somewhere and see what happens. I’m glad I had my dream.”
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