Despite being blind from infancy, Lancelot Hayward became one of Bermuda’s most respected and best-loved musicians. Largely self-taught, he played with most of Bermuda’s popular bands of the postwar era as well as fronting his own groups and trios.

During the heyday of Bermuda’s hotel and nightclub scene in the 1950s and 1960s, Hayward was in demand as an accompanist by star singers who performed in Bermuda, such as Marvin Gaye, Carmen McRae and Sarah Vaughan. He performed with jazz legends like Arthur Prysock, Joe Williams, Buddy Rich and George Benson, and in 1987 recorded an album with legendary jazz bassist Milt Hinton. He also appeared on television and radio in the United States, Canada, Europe and Japan.

Frustrated at the lack of opportunities for musicians in Bermuda and the prejudice he felt as a black, blind man, Hayward moved in 1966 to New York City, where he worked with influential musicians, and up to his death enjoyed a loyal following as the house pianist at the Village Corner in Greenwich Village. In 1984, he formed The Lance Hayward Singers, a group of blind and sighted singers that still performs to this day, often using his original arrangements.

Musical

Lancelot Henry Stuart Hayward was born into a musical family in Spanish Point, Pembroke, on June 17, 1916 to Henry and Olivia Hayward (née Lathan). He had four siblings — brothers Hadley and Hammond, and two sisters, Cecile Williams and Dorie Trott.

Hayward was not born blind, but his family detected problems with his sight during his first year of life. Juvenile glaucoma was diagnosed by a visiting American doctor, who began treating him. But when the doctor died, the family were unable to afford the necessary overseas treatment and Hayward soon went completely blind.

His parents sent him to a neighbour’s home to learn maths and spelling, and Lance soon proved he was not going to let blindness hold him back. He played football and cricket with neighbourhood children and even learnt to ride a bicycle.

Coming from a musical family — his father played the clarinet, his mother the guitar, his brothers the cornet and sister Cecile the piano — the young Lance also found an outlet in music. By the age of 6, he could play the piano, picking out many tunes by ear.

Teasing

At age 13, he had the opportunity to study at the Perkins School for the Blind in Watertown, Massachusetts. As a student, Hayward was described as “an impressionable, energetic youngster with an imaginative, inquiring mind”, and he learnt to read books and music in Braille. But constant teasing from boys who had been there since the age of 5 or 6, and were therefore more advanced, forced him to return home after three years.

He began playing in local churches and within a year his talent had earned him his first professional job, with local bandleader Al Davis. Hayward also began taking lessons to improve his technique from Joseph Richards, a graduate of the Boston Conservatory of Music, and steadily built a reputation working regularly around the island’s nightclubs.

In 1948, with distant cousin Robert Hayward, he formed the Hayward & Hayward Vocal Ensemble for which they wrote and produced shows. The group toured Toronto and Montreal in 1949, and in 1950 recorded an album, The Hayward & Hayward Vocal Ensemble, in New York. Lance Hayward later formed an all-male chorus, the Mu-En Chorale. Popular Bermudian singers Violeta Carmichael, and Pinky and Gene Steede valued him as a vocal coach.

Struggles

Hayward married Mary Jackson, a schoolteacher, in 1940, but the young couple struggled financially, as work for musicians dwindled to almost nothing during the Second World War. But things improved in 1946 when Hayward’s quintet — including trumpeter Mansfield Allen, drummer Truman Tuzo, saxophonist Nathaniel Proctor and guitarist Leon “Beezey” Blakeney — started a residency at the new Sea Horse Grill at the Imperial Hotel in Hamilton. The band featured regularly on ZBM’s new Saturday night radio show, Live from the Sea Horse Grill.

Although Hayward played many residencies at smaller hotels such as Belmont, Harmony Hall, Inverurie and New Windsor, larger hotels rarely hired him, claiming that his blindness prevented him reading music to accompany top overseas acts — even though Hayward’s excellent ear meant that when the hotels did call in an emergency, he was able to quickly learn whatever was required. Top stars such as Marvin Gaye and Sarah Vaughan frequently requested his services when they played in Bermuda.

From 1957 to 1961, Hayward, drummer Clarence “Tootsie” Bean, guitarist Milton Robinson and bassist Max Smith enjoyed a popular winter residency at the Half Moon Hotel in Montego Bay, Jamaica. In 1959, they caught the attention of young British-Jamaican Chris Blackwell, who recorded them for his fledgeling record label. Lance Hayward at the Half Moon, a live album of jazz standards, became the first release on what became Island Records, one of the world’s most famous recording labels.

Prejudice

In 1966, frustrated by racial prejudice and the practice of hotel owners employing overseas musicians on contract at the expense of local musicians, Hayward moved to New York, leaving his family, including children Stuart and Sylvia, in Bermuda.

Hayward soon found work playing at various hotels and clubs on Long Island before striking up a lifelong friendship in the early 1970s with a Greenwich Village club owner, Jim Smith, who employed him first at Jacques-in-the-Village and then at the Village Corner, where he played regularly for 16 years until his death.

In New York, Hayward played with jazz legends such as Buddy Rich, George Benson, Mongo Santamaria, Nancy Wilson, Howard McGhee and Bill Lee — father of the film-maker Spike Lee. He also taught jazz piano and voice, and continued to take classical piano and organ lessons himself well into old age.

Through his friendship with Bill Lee, Hayward was credited as one of the musical consultants on the Spike Lee jazz movie Mo Better Blues (1990) for which Bill Lee was musical director.

His few recorded works include A Closer Walk, by Lance Hayward & Friends (1984); Hayward & Hinton, with Milt Hinton (1987); and Killing Me Softly, with bassist Lyn Christie and drummer Tootsie Bean (1987), the latter with liner notes by influential jazz writer Nat Hentoff.

Hayward, who was an avid cricket fan and supporter of the St George’s Cup Match team, returned regularly to visit his family and to perform. In 1985, he became the first Bermudian to perform as a featured artist at the Bermuda Festival. Such was his reputation as a musician that when he died from complications of duodenal cancer at Mount Sinai Hospital, aged 75, on November 9, 1991, Lance Hayward’s obituary was carried in The New York Times.

His contribution to Bermudian music was recognised with several awards, including the Queen’s Certificate and Badge of Honour in 1980 and a National Heritage Award in 1984. In 1988, he was presented with a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Bermuda Arts Council and in 2010, he was posthumously inducted into the Bermuda Music Hall of Fame.

Hayward’s two children also made names for themselves — Stuart as a writer, independent MP and one of Bermuda’s leading environmentalists, and Sylvia as a women’s rights activist.

Milestones

June 17, 1916 Born in Spanish Point, Pembroke

1929-1932 Attends Perkins School for the Blind in Watertown, Massachusetts

1933 First professional job, playing with bandleader Al Davis

1940 Marries schoolteacher Mary Jackson

1946 Hayward’s band begins a successful residency at the Imperial Hotel and a regular feature on ZBM’s Saturday night radio show Live from the Sea Horse Grill

1948 Forms Hayward & Hayward Vocal Ensemble with cousin Robert Hayward

1949 Hayward & Hayward Vocal Ensemble tours Canada

1950The Hayward & Hayward Vocal Ensemble album is recorded in New York

1959Lance Hayward at the Half Moon, a live album of jazz standards recorded at the Half Moon Hotel in Montego Bay, Jamaica, is the first record released on Island Records.

1966 Leaves Bermuda for New York City, eventually becoming the house pianist at the Village Corner in Greenwich Village for more than 16 years

1980 Awarded Queen’s Certificate and Badge of Honour

1984 Presented with National Heritage Award

1984 Releases A Closer Walk, by Lance Hayward & Friends

1985 Forms The Lance Hayward Singers in New York

1987 Releases Hayward & Hinton, with Milt Hinton and Killing Me Softly, with bassist Lyn Christie and drummer Tootsie Bean

1988 Presented with Lifetime Achievement Award by the Bermuda Arts Council

November 9, 1991 Dies in New York at age 75

2010 Inducted into the Bermuda Music Hall of Fame

Quotables

“The work was [always] seasonal — three or four months steady, three or four months ‘iffy’, and the rest of the year no work at all. A lot of good musicians gave up music for a steady job doing something else. If a musician can’t work steadily at music, it’s almost impossible for him, or her, to continue musical growth. And when a musician stops growing it’s a dead end.”

“It was better to eat apart than starve together.” — describing the effect on his family of his move to New York City in 1966

“It’s been very gratifying to know you can come from a little place like Bermuda and get recognition in the US. But it’s sad that with a tourist industry so great, Bermuda’s musicians have to go away to get the kind of recognition and money they’re worth. But I feel I’m doing a service; Bermudians don’t have to feel locked into Bermuda — if I could get away and make it, anyone can.”

“The inspiration is here; the stimulation is here. I remember sitting at a club one night and there were five noted pianists in the place at the same time. In Bermuda I often felt very lonely. There were few people who could talk my language. This I can get in New York every night of the week.”

“For Crissake, lady, I’m just blind, I’m not deaf!” — son Stuart recounting his father’s response to a lady shouting in his ear

• Courtesy of Bermudabiographies.bm and Meredith Ebbin, and written by Chris Gibbons