MS Mus. 1746/3

This series, which makes up the majority of the Lew Stone collection (MS Mus.1746), comprises arrangements of songs (in some cases original compositions) to be performed by Lew Stone’s Orchestra or Band. For most songs, there is a general (though not unbroken) pattern of a full score for Stone’s own reference and individual instrument parts for a fourteen-piece band (piano, bass, drums, guitar, alto and tenor saxophones, trumpets and trombones). Much of this material bears the traces (annotations, doodles, wear and tear, cigarette-scorches) of having been played from by the band during performances or broadcasts.

Only a small number of items have been dated, and those given should be understood as rough approximates. However, the material as a whole spans Lew Stone’s entire career as a band-leader and arranger, the earliest corresponding to the band he led at the Monseigneur Restaurant in London during the 1930s and the latest to the year before his death in 1969.

Some are autograph manuscripts and others were produced by copyists, but even the latter tend to bear Lew Stone’s or his musicians’ annotations. Stone’s widow Joyce is known to have copied material (Staveacre, p. 27) but it is not known whether any of this collection is in her hand.

Some drafts have been written on the reverse of discarded scores of different songs; their context has determined their position in the collection but cross-references have been made where applicable.