Charles Gordon Fitzpatrick, one of the most brilliant amateurs of the banjo world, died from pneumonia in the Mile End Hospital on October 27th.
"Fitz," as he was known to all his friends, was born in Calcutta sixty-six years ago and was a self-taught player. At the age of twelve, during an enforced period of idleness resulting from a cycling spill, he accepted the loan of his elder brother's banjo and instruction book "to while away the time."
The young Fitzpatrick quickly reached the Parke Hunter Studies stage, avidly devouring "B.M.G." and “The Banjo World", meanwhile fired by the examples of Ossman and Oakley, to whose discs he listened, enraptured, whenever the opportunity arose.
Having acquired his own zither-banjo, he soon settled down to the task of building the scintillating technique that was to characterise his playing within a few years. Every available Morley, Hunter, Ossman and Cammeyer solo was systematically acquired and given his absorbed and concentrated attention, with a resulting widening of his repertoire and skill.
After a visit to Britain with a touring dance band in the early 'twenties, Fitz returned to England in 1927 with a touring revue and made his home in London at the end of the tour. As a member of the Islington and London B.M. & G. clubs and Founder of the Associated Banjo Circle, he was well known for his brilliant playing and especially for his outstanding ability to improvise delightful accompaniments to anything and everything.
For several years, the supplements of "B.M.G." included periodic examples of his undoubted skill as a composer. "Queen of the Ice," "Mimosa," "Smoke Dreams," "Hit that Bass," "Maralyn," etc. were but a few of the many compositions that flowed without apparent effort from his pen. His popular "Guild March" is a worthy published addition to the banjoist's literature.
Fitz was unique. Technical difficulties did not exist for him; he rippled over the fingerboard with effortless ease. I have heard him play "Russian Rag" from the piano copy, play "Persiflage" with the polish of a Van Eps, and I have watched the scintillating fingering with which he overcame the stiffest obstacles in the high-grade Morley, Cammeyer, Hunter, or Ossman solos he loved —making the whole performance seem so ridiculously easy into the bargain.
He loved to improvise "seconds" and I have one or two memorable tapes wherein Fitz disported himself with impromptu accompaniments to some of the best music of Cammeyer and Morley. A. G. Garden, W. Goudge, Robert White, and I played with him, variously or collectively, on these tapes and we all have fond memories of sessions with Fitz.
Long before the details of Fred Van Eps' system of fingering—thumb, one, two on any string—became known over here, Fitz had already arrived at the same idea in his search for the solution to problems of fingering in extra-difficult solos. He could, therefore, afford to smile when an excited friend babbled enthusiastically about the newly- revealed secrets of Van Eps' "technic!" The tone he produced was always clear and musical. He was not a strong picker and even on nylons his delicacy of touch made it obvious he was originally a player of the zither-banjo, despite his fondness for intricate forms of syncopation.
Those of us who knew him well will long recall his prodigious technique and his inherent diffident manner of its presentation. It is not given to many to attain the high standard of skill that seemed "second nature" to Fitz, the shy, retiring bachelor who, like Morley, made a wonderful friend of the banjo. We shall miss his shy smile, his self- deprecatory humour and the brilliant technique with which he contradicted it.
To his sister in Kingston, his niece and cousins in the London area, we extend our condolences. May he rest in peace. — J. McNaughton.