The star attraction was not in the house that night. While many others were present – the luminaries of the Canadian jazz scene – perhaps the country’s best studio and jazz concert drummer of the day was absent. In fact, it was because he was absent, that all the stars came out. It was 45 years ago that Toronto-born drummer Archie Alleyne suffered serious injuries in a car accident. He was not able to work … at either of his jobs.
“I didn’t have a car, so I had to carry my drum kit on streetcars and the subway,” he told my father, Alex Barris, back then. “I’d play from nine at night to one a.m., get home with my drums by three a.m. and be up four hours later to go to my day job.”