Royden Ainsworth says he’ll still have his saxophone hanging around his neck when he’s 90 – he says there is no end to playing for him. He sees himself playing all the way out the door.
A well-seasoned jazz musician and composer, Ainsworth can’t imagine his life without music. He is still composing, organising gigs and playing regularly with two jazz bands across the region.
Ainsworth’s constant companions since he was 12 have been things you blow – saxophones, clarinets, flutes and more.
Having contracted polio when he was seven and spending three years in hospital, Ainsworth wasn’t as active as many other kids his age – music was a remedy for many things, and music was his destiny with a career as a professional musician working both live gigs and in recording studios, backing overseas artists in big bands, recording and playing at all the major venues, TV stations, nightclubs, leagues clubs and the theatre.
Name your favourite artist, and he’s probably backed them. He played in the ABC showband and the Channel 9 Midday Showband for many years.
Approaching 85 Ainsworth still spends much of his time playing music and sharing his experience with other musos and this weekend to celebrate the start of another turn around the sun, he is having a birthday bash in Lismore.
If you like to see Royden Ainsworth and the Wooyung Motu Social Club, you can find them on Sunday at the Lismore Jazz Club event held at the Lismore City Bowlo from 2pm.
