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A toast to ‘Dexter’ outside the Enterprise. Mr Whitehall’s daughter Mina is pictured, back row, third from left, wearing sunglasses |
Friends from across world pay tribute to ‘Dexter’
Family and old pals of star jazz musician attend special wake for man who played with Nina Simone before residency in kebab house!
FRIENDS and family raised a glass to a legendary Camden musician’s memory on Friday.
Although the crowd who gathered at the wake of Derek “Dexter” Whitehall were heavy hearted, the mood was upbeat on account of his musical partner Robert Ellis-Hawke and fellow saxophonist Kellie Santin, who played some of the former duo’s best-known tunes in the upstairs bar of the Enterprise pub in Chalk Farm Road.
Film-maker Elena Cosentino showed a clip of a documentary about the jazz duo she has been compiling for the past four months at the end of the evening.
Among the guests were friends who had travelled from South Africa, Australia and America to pay their last respects to a man they said represented the spirit of Camden Town.
Mr Whitehall died of cancer at the Royal Free on August 10, aged 69.
A former child-soldier, Mr Whitehall spent eight years with the British Army’s Cheshire Regiment, signing up at just 15 with a dream to become a trumpet player.
He was born in Hendon and was evacuated to Cheshire during the London blitz.
Hired as a baratone saxophonist by top Italian rhythm and blues band, The Patrick Samson Set, and working as a zookeeper part-time in Italy, he met his wife and became a father to Mina, who, at 36, now lives in Sussex with her husband and five-year-old son.
After the couple were divorced in the 1970s, Mr Whitehall passed an audition to play music on a cruise ship, sailing between Miami and the Caribbean.
On his return to England he landed a job as an engineer at Madame Tussauds, playing in West End bars and clubs by night.
Having already performed with numerous famous musicians including Nina Simone, he met Ellis Hawke in the 1990s and the pair played a regular slot at the Marathon bar kebab shop in Chalk Farm Road for more than 20 years.
His solo album, The Third Man, which includes his most remembered song, Tango Macabre, attracted the attention of record companies.
But true to form, Mr Whitehall turned down their offer, insisting his music was not for sale and only he would perform his songs.
Mina said she felt very proud to have “such an amazing person as a father”.
She told how he would take her for “high tea” at the Hyde Park Hotel as a birthday treat when she was young.
“He would be dressed head to toe in a trilby, full lounge suit, a bow tie and an overcoat,” she said. “It was absolutely elegant.
“He really instilled in me a sense of occasion and an appreciation for life.”
Poet Alan Ellis, 65, said Mr Whitehall’s friends had always felt an affinity for the Native American Sioux community and read widely about religion.
He added: “He’d go round insulting half the people of Camden, but they loved him for his lively sense of humour. With Dexter it was more the way he looked at you than what he said.”
Financial analyst Emily Hadley, who met the saxophonist eight years ago while she was working at Queen’s, a pub in Regent’s Park Road, Primrose Hill, invited him to visit her family in Massachusetts.
“He drank the cupboards dry,” she said. “My family have all the love in the world for him because he reminded them how to be young. He had a profound effect on my mother and teenage brother. He’s one of the reasons I came back [from the US to Camden].”
Ms Hadley, who lives in Camden High Street, added: “He’d be perfectly at home in heaven as I hear they have a great horn section up there!”
Another fan and friend, Gail Maguire, 42, who lives in Iverson Road, West Hampstead, met Mr Whitehall on her first trip to the Marathon bar when she was 14 years old.
She said: “That man made me feel a million dollars. He made me feel secure, safe and wonderful. I used to think he was playing just for me.” |
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Your comments:
If traders have been warned about the consequences and still ignored them in this way they should be named and shamed. It's disgraceful.
Georgina Parry
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