There, he advanced his interest in ceramics, developing that medium for its sculptural potential. In 1960 Goldsmiths took him on to its staff and, a great and astonishingly tolerant teacher, he taught there until 1991. He also spent periods teaching in the United States, and throughout his career advised the Inner London Education Authority on three-dimensional art education in London schools. In addition, Bright’s own work developed, creating sculptural pieces in ceramics and bronze using images of horses and birds of prey.

In 1996, when Anthony Minghella – also born in Ryde – won an Oscar for directing The English Patient, an exultant Bright designed his own Isle of Wight flag and displayed it in the window of his home in south London. An avid cricketer, who played for the Hampshire Juniors, he experienced a schoolboy cricketer’s thrill of a lifetime in 1950, when, aged 11, he and his friends were joined in play by members of the visiting West Indies team, one of whom proved to be the Barbadian legend Everton Weekes.Bright took great pride in his native place. Ken Bright was an artist and teacher who built at Goldsmiths College in London a Ceramics department that stood as possibly the most distinguished course of its kind in England. In the Sixties, when he started out, the department was lodged in a disused concrete bunker, a former bomb-disarming facility, at the back of the college grounds. Dank, poorly lit, and cold in winter (when students and teachers huddled in its tiny staff room), the studio – directed by Bright and his colleagues David Garbett and Doug Jones – nevertheless attracted excellent postgraduates, art students, training teachers and mature students.
Born in Ryde on the Isle of Wight in 1939, Bright had, he felt, an idyllic childhood, roaming across the island, exploring the great houses abandoned by their owners during the Second World War. Ken Bright, artist and teacher: born Ryde, Isle of Wight 20 June 1939; Head of Ceramics Department, Goldsmiths College, London 1977-91; married 1966 Mary Cassidy (three daughters); died London 15 July 2005.

He shared billing with many of the emerging bebop musicians but resolutely avoided their influence to stay with swing, although there are signs of the new music in his solo work on the recordings by the Esquire All Stars of 1943.Casey made a particularly successful trip to California, and appeared with Armstrong, Hawkins, Tatum, Jack Teagarden and others in a historic Esquire All-American Awards concert at New York’s Metropolitan Opera House. Casey told me, with some diffidence, of Billie Holiday’s habit of sitting naked in the musicians’ band room before and after being on stage. Casey worked and recorded on many occasions with Holiday and with many of the great Mainstream musicians of the Thirties and Forties – Louis Armstrong, Coleman Hawkins, Edmond Hall, Benny Carter, Art Tatum, Earl Hines, Frankie Newton.When Waller died Casey joined the trio of the pianist Clarence Profit but eventually formed his own trio with a pianist and a bassist. The same year, Casey joined the Harlem Blues and Jazz Band, which toured the world with success until the middle Nineties. A small band drawn from the group and led by Casey was resident at the Louisianan Community Bar and Grill from 1992 to 1997.A 90th birthday celebration arranged for Al Casey today at St Peter’s Church in New York will now become a musical memorial to the guitarist.Steve Voce. In 1957 he joined the rhythm and blues band led by the saxophonist King Curtis, which led to much studio work.In 1980, by then a veteran, he made a rewarding first tour of Britain with the pianist Ralph Sutton.

They worked in 52nd Street’s Onyx Club for 11 months and then crossed the street for a long residency at the Down Beat By now he was winning magazine polls for his playing. Waller, in an unusual display of taking responsibility, behaved to Casey like a father, and the guitarist grew up to be a quiet and gentle man, loved by everyone he met.This was despite the fact that over the years he must have been exposed to some of the most surreal musical happenings – and not just with Waller. As far as could be judged it never lost any of its irresistible swing in later performances.Once in Waller’s band Casey stayed with the mighty pianist and alcoholic for most of the next 10 years During that time he made more than 230 recordings with him. He hated the sound of it and as soon as he could jettisoned it for the ukulele. Once in New York he studied guitar at DeWitt Clinton High School before his uncles sent him to the Martin Smith Music School for three years.During the first part of his career Casey played a mainly chordal style on the guitar and it was only later, after Waller’s death in 1943, that he concentrated on electric guitar and the delightful single string solos that swung so much. He had such a powerful ability to swing that he had no need for complex solos and compared to other guitarists used a minimum of notes. This style can best be heard on the remarkably swinging blues feature that he recorded with Waller “Buck Jumpin’ ” (1941).