JAMAICAN RUMBA

At the age of 18, the budding pianist Arthur Benjamin left his native Australia and Brisbane Grammar School to take up a scholarship at the Royal College of Music (RCM) in London to study composition, harmony and piano. He served in the Royal Flying Corps during WW I and was shot down in 1918, so spending the last few months of the War as a prisoner.

After a brief return to Australia at the end of the War, Benjamin based himself in London to further his composing career which led to his first published work, a string quartet, in 1924. It was to be followed by more chamber music over the next three decades or so, orchestral music, film scores, four operas, songs and piano music. In 1926 he joined the staff of the RCM where he taught piano to a number of students who went on to successful musical careers, including Benjamin Britten. In addition, Benjamin was an adjudicator and examiner for the ABRSM and in that capacity he toured Australia, Canada and the West Indies.

It was on one of these tours that Benjamin heard 'Mango Walk' which became the basis for his most popular piece 'Jamaican Rumba', composed for orchestra in 1938 as one of 'Two Jamaican Pieces'. He wrote a piano duet version for his student Joan Trimble to play with her sister Valerie which, it is thought, might predate the orchestral composition. This edition for clarinet and piano was edited and transcribed by the outstanding clarinettist and teacher Reginald Kell (who, incidentally, taught Benny Goodman).

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