Trombone player on one of the most famous pop songs of all time leaves behind just £1,000 in his will after his death aged 79

Daily Mail​

09-05-2025

A respected orchestra musician who played trombone on one of the most famous songs in pop music history left £1,000 in his will after dying aged 79, it has emerged.
Peter Bassano was among the performers on The Beatles ' 1968 hit single Hey Jude that topped the charts worldwide and sold an estimated 8million copies.
Mr Bassano, who also worked as a conductor, lecturer and author, spoke in the past about how his involvement in the Fab Four track earned him more than anything else.
Tributes were paid after his death on February 1 this year, and now details of the legacy he left have been revealed.
Documents show the estate he bequeathed was worth £1,000, to be shared equally between his children, the Sun reported.
Mr Bassano, who was a member and fellow of the Royal College of Music, previously wrote of being inspired to pursue music after watching the late Queen Elizabeth II 's coronation in 1953.
And he was intrigued by the trombone when seeing Salvation Army bands marching by during his childhood in Southend, Essex.
His posts during his career included being music director of the Oxford University Sinfonietta, performing in the London Symphony Orchestra for 27 years and serving as head of brass at the Royal College of Music between 1993 and 2004.
He was married to renowned viola player Kathryn Bassano, a former member of the Academy of St Martins in the Fields and who played on soundtracks for Harry Potter and Lord Of The Rings films.
The couple told in 2014 of being declared bankrupt and forced to leave their six-bedroom house in the Chilterns where they had lived for 16 years.
Mr Bassano said his troubles began when he had to borrow heavily after becoming embroiled in a legal battle over the cost of an extension to the house in Great Missenden, Buckinghamshire.
He told the Mail on Sunday at the time: 'The extension was intended to increase the value of the house but once we got involved in litigation, it was difficult to withdraw without incurring further costs.
'I don't blame anyone else for our financial predicament. But we were hit by a perfect storm of the banking crisis, my earnings dropping and a huge fall in the value of the house.'
As well as his performing and conducting activities, Mr Bassano also published several books - including a memoir called Before The Music Stopped that covered his work with rock bands including The Beatles and the Bee Gees.
Recording sessions for Hey Jude - which would be The Beatles' first release on their newly founded record label Apple - took place in London in July 1968.
While the band initially rehearsed the song and taped demo tracks at their usual base of EMI Studios at Abbey Road in St John's Wood, north-west London, the main recordings including a orchestra were carried out at Trident Studios in Soho.
Mr Bassano not only played trombone as part of the orchestral backing, he was also among those singing along to its 'Na, na, na, na-na-na-na' chorus outro.
He spoke about the experience in a podcast interview in 2022, recalling: 'I turned up with my trombone and producer George Martin said, "All I want you to do is play four notes consecutively".
'We did that - that was straightforward. Then he said he wanted us to sing.
'We learnt it all and sang away. I thought, this sounds awful, it won't get anywhere.
'John Lennon brought out a crate of beer with him and it became a party. My critical appraisal was proven to be totally incorrect.'
Hey Jude, with B-side Revolution, was released on August 30 1968 in Britain, along with three other launch releases by Apple Records - Mary Hopkin's Those Were The Days, Sour Milk Sea by Jackie Lomax and the Black Dyke Mills Band's Thingumybob.
Copies of each were sent in gift-wrapped boxes to the Queen and other members of the royal family, as well as then-Prime Minister Harold Wilson.
The Beatles also publicised the release of Hey Jude by performing it on ITV show Frost On Sunday in September that year - with the programme's presenter David Frost introduced them as 'the greatest tearoom orchestra in the world'.
In his reminiscences about being involved in the song's recording, and its royalties, Mr Bassano said: 'Over the years, that single easy and enjoyable session has earned me more money than anything else I have ever done.'
Hey Jude remains a staple of the live sets performed by Sir Paul McCartney, now 83, including at the Live 8 concert in Hyde Park in July 2005 and the London 2012 OIympics opening ceremony seven years later.
Tributes shared following Mr Bassano's death in February this year included a quote from Finnish composer and conductor Esa-Pekka Salonen, who said: 'Few musicians possess this type of intellectual curiosity and knowledge.'
Mr Bassano's career involved performing in the orchestras for West End musicals while he also founded a brass quintet called Equale Brass, conducted at the Royal Albert Hall during the Proms and adjudicated for the BBC Young Musician of the Year.