Ken Sykora, Date of Birth, Place of Birth, Date of Death

    

Ken Sykora

British musician

Date of Birth: 13-Apr-1923

Place of Birth: London

Date of Death: 07-Mar-2006

Profession: radio personality, jazz guitarist, jazz musician

Nationality: United Kingdom

Zodiac Sign: Aries


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About Ken Sykora

  • Ken Sykora (13 April 1923–7 March 2006), born Charles Kenneth Sykora was an English jazz guitarist and radio presenter.Sykora had two older sisters: Rose M.
  • Sykora, born in 1911, shortly after her parents' marriage, and Clara Phyllis Sykora.
  • He studied geography at the University of Cambridge, where he organized the Cambridge University Band Society.
  • He then studied business and economics at the London School of Economics.
  • During World War II, he served as an intelligence officer in the Far East.
  • After the war he taught in London at the London School of Economics and the College for Distributive Trades.
  • Influenced by guitarist Django Reinhardt, he led his own band in the 1950s, appearing with other bandleaders such as Ted Heath.
  • During this time he appeared on the Melody Maker reader's poll for best British jazz guitarist for five consecutive years and won it twice.He had a short first marriage to Margery Mileham whom he had married in 1947.
  • He married his second wife, cabaret singer Helen B.
  • Grant, in 1957 in Westminster.
  • The couple moved to Suffolk, where their three children were born: one daughter, Alison (born 1961), and two sons, Ian Dougal (born 1963) and Duncan (born 1960).
  • During this time he worked on radio for the BBC.
  • He hosted the popular BBC programme Guitar Club.
  • For BBC Radio 2, he created and presented the programme series Be My Guest, interviewing Count Basie, Bing Crosby, Bob Hope, Andrés Segovia, Isaac Stern and Gloria Swanson, among others.
  • In January 1962 he was a guest on Desert Island Discs. In the 1970s, Sykora and his family moved to Scotland, where the couple ran the Colintraive hotel in Colintraive on the Kyles of Bute.
  • After five years he sold the hotel as Helen who had a drinking problem had struggled with such ready access to alcohol.
  • The Sykoras then moved to Blairmore in Argyll, and he continued to produce music programmes for BBC Radio Scotland and for Radio Clyde.
  • Sykora died in Blairmore on 7 March 2006.In 2012, Linda Chirrey and Marc Mason created a documentary film about his life and career, The Man with the Jazz Guitar.

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