Sonny Bradshaw - File

Bandleader Sonny Bradshaw is recovering in a London hospital, two weeks after suffering a debilitating stroke in England.

Musicologist Herbie Miller, a close friend of Bradshaw and his wife, Myrna Hague, said he had been in frequent contact with Hague, who told him the veteran musician was "in good spirits".

Hague, he added, said her husband was being treated at the Queen's Hospital in Renford. She said he sustained damage to the brain and right side of his body, but remained "animated and full of life".

Bradshaw has been visited by several well-wishers, including Jamaica's High Commissioner to Britain, Burchell Whiteman, and musicologist Winston 'Merritone' Blake.

link to big-band craze

The 83-year-old Bradshaw, a trumpeter, is one of the last links to the big band craze that took place in Jamaica during the 1940s. His contemporaries include saxophonists Tommy McCook and Joe Harriott, who were his colleagues in the All Star Band.

Bradshaw and saxophonist Bobby Gaynair, who lives in Canada, are the only survivors of that band.

Bradshaw formed the Big Band in the early 1950s and also directed the Sonny Bradshaw Seven in which a number of leading musicians, including saxophonist Dean Fraser and drummer Desi Jones, got their start.

Bradshaw is also a former president of the Jamaica Federation of Musicians and wrote a weekly column, 'Musicman', in The Star, The Gleaner's afternoon tabloid.

Since 1991, Bradshaw and Hague have promoted the Ocho Rios Jazz Festival, an annual event held in June throughout that resort town and Kingston.

Over the years, it has featured traditional jazz performers, like Jimmy Smits and Herbie Mann.

Sonny Bradshaw was awarded the Order of Distinction for his contribution to Jamaican music.