British bassist Peter Ind turns 90 today, and we have fond memories of his visit to the Performing Arts Reading Room in 2009. Ind is an important jazz double bassist and record producer who studied with Tim Bell and James Merrett and became a professional musician in 1947. I was anxious to talk to him about his recordings with Lennie Tristano, with whom he played the very first Newport Jazz Festival in 1954. We discussed his work in the house band on the Queen Mary, which first brought him to New York to study with Tristano, and his record label Wave, which he began in 1961 and for which he recorded sessions by Gerry Mulligan, Booker Little, Warne Marsh, Kenny Barron and his own groups. We also talked about his time as the owner of a jazz club, the fabled Bass Clef in London.
Ind and his wife Sue were gracious enough to present to us for the collection three books Peter had written: Jazz Visions – Lennie Tristano and His Legacy (2005), The Environment and Cosmic Metabolism – Looking at the Stars and Thinking about the Earth (2007), and Painting the Energy of Nature (2008).