Alfie Noakes

Noakes, Alfie

Alfie (Alfred) Noakes. Trumpeter, b Toronto 26 Jun 1903, d Christchurch, England, 27 Feb 1982. He was a cornetist at 10 with the Riverdale Silver Band in Toronto, subsequently played with the Imperial Concert Band under Walter Murdoch, and was a trumpeter in the dance bands of Burton Till, Luigi Romanelli, and Frank Whiteman. He travelled to England with the nine-piece co-operative band which performed and recorded 1924-6 as the New Princes' Toronto Band (see Les Allen). Thereafter one of the leading dance-band musicians in Britain, Noakes was noted for his fine articulation and pure tone. He played lead trumpet for Alfredo in the late 1920s, for Ambrose, Jack Harris, Ray Noble, Lew Stone, Jay Wilbur and others during the 1930s, and for Geraldo during the 1940s. Noakes' several hundred recordings with these and other orchestra leaders are listed in Brian Rust and Sandy Forbes' British Dance Bands on Record 1911-1945 (Harrow, England, 1987). Noakes retired from music in the mid-1950s.