Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Lorraine Winifred Geller was born Lorraine Walsh on September 11, 1928 in Portland, Oregon. She started out with the all-female big band Sweethearts of Rhythm, based in New York. She met saxophonist Herb Geller, married him in 1951, and together they moved to Los Angeles, California where they played with many musicians on the West Coast jazz scene, such as Shorty Rogers, Zoot Sims, Stan Getz, and Red Mitchell. She also did sessions with Charlie Parker and Dizzy Gillespie.
In 1957, she accompanied Kay Starr and the following year, concentrating on raising her daughter, she pared down her performances. She did, however, play at the first Monterey Jazz Festival. On October 13, 1958 pianist Lorraine Geller transitioned in Los Angeles, attributed to heart failure or pulmonary infection.
More Posts: bandleader,history,instrumental,jazz,music,piano
Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Norman Louis Bates was born on August 26, 1927 in Boise, Idaho. His mother was an organist and he was a younger brother of bassist Bob Bates. He played in Jimmy Dorsey’s band for a year in 1945, then with Raymond Scott and Carmen Cavallaro shortly thereafter.
By 1948 he was part of the Dave Brubeck Trio, and the following year performed with Paul Desmond. Norman recorded with Jack Sheedy’s Dixieland Jazz Band in 1950.
After spending four years in the Air Force, Bates played with Wally Rose’s Dixieland Band in 1955 and then replaced his brother Bob in Brubeck’s quartet, playing on multiple albums from Dave Brubeck and Jay & Kai at Newport (1956) onwards. He also recorded with Desmond’s group again in 1956. In 1957 he left Brubeck, and led a trio in San Francisco, California.
Double bassist Norman Bates transitioned on January 29, 2004.
Bestow upon an inquiring mind a dose of a Boise bassist to motivate the perusal of the genius of jazz musicians worldwide whose gifts contribute to the canon…
More Posts: bass,history,instrumental,jazz,music
Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Dick Collins was born Richard Harrison Collins on July 19, 1924 in Seattle, Washington into a musical family where several of his parents and grandparents were professional musicians. He attended Mills College in 1946–47, where he studied music formally under Darius Milhaud, and moved with Milhaud to Paris, France for the next academic year. As a student at Mills, he first met Dave Brubeck, and while in Paris he played with Hubert Fol and Kenny Clarke.
Returning to the States he landed in San Francisco, California where he began playing with Brubeck in his Bay Area-based octet, then completed his bachelor’s degree in music at San Francisco State College. In the 1950s he performed and recorded with Charlie Barnet, Charlie Mariano, Nat Pierce, Paul Desmond, Cal Tjader, and Woody Herman. By 1957 Dick was working with Les Brown, an association that continued for nearly a decade that included worldwide tours.
In 1965, Collins took a position as a music librarian, which he held through 1967, and took a second position from 1971 to 1986, mostly receding from active performance. In later years, he still occasionally performed live or recorded, including with Nat Pierce, Mary Ann McCall, and Woody Herman.
Trumpeter Dick Collins transitioned on April 19, 2016 in Hesperia, California, at the age of 91.
More Posts: bandleader,history,instrumental,jazz,music,trumpet
Daily Dose Of Jazz…
George Robert Orendorff was born on March 18, 1906 in Atlanta, Georgia but when he was nine years old his family moved to Chicago, Illinois. His early musical years were spent learning the guitar before picking up cornet and spending his high school days with fellow students Eddie South, Wallace Bishop and Lionel Hampton. He began his career at 17, playing in Chicago dance bands, one of them led by Detroit Shannon.
Following a 1925 tour with the Helen Dewey Show, the revue dumped him in Los Angeles, California where he played with Paul Howard from 1925 to 1930. He then played with Les Hite for most of the 1930s and recorded with Louis Armstrong from 1930 to 1931. In the 1940s he accompanied Ceele Burke, and after his WWII army service, he became a post officer and an official in the American Federation of Musicians. George also recorded on the West Coast Jazz and Rhythm and Blues scene and continued to play with Les Hite.
Later in his career he worked with Maxwell Davis, Ike Lloyd, and T-Bone Walker among others. Trumpeter George Orendorff transitioned on June 28, 1984 in Los Angeles.
Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Paul Desmond was born Paul Emil Breitenfeld on November 25, 1924 in San Francisco, California. His father was a pianist, organist, arranger, and composer who accompanied silent films in movie theaters and produced musical arrangements for printed publication and for live theatrical productions. He started his study of clarinet at the age of twelve and continued while at San Francisco Polytechnic High School. During high school he developed a talent for writing and became co-editor of his high school newspaper.
As a freshman at San Francisco State College he began playing alto saxophone, however, he was drafted into the U.S. Army, where he spent three years in the Army band stationed in San Francisco. After his discharge in 1946 he legally changed his name to Desmond. Working in the San Francisco Bay Area as a backing musician, occasionally with Dave Brubeck.
Following a breakup and a reunion with Brubeck, the quartet became especially popular with college-age audiences, often performing in college settings like on their ground-breaking 1953 album Jazz at Oberlin at Oberlin College. The group played until 1967, when Brubeck switched his musical focus from performance to composition and broke the unit up. During the 1970s Desmond joined Brubeck for several reunion tours, with Brubeck’s sons Chris, Dan and Darius.
He worked several times during his career with baritone saxophonist Gerry Mulligan, guitarist Jim Hall, Chet Baker, and Ed Bickert. Alto saxophone and composer Paul Desmond, who was one of the most popular musicians to come out of the cool jazz scene, passed on May 30, 1977, not of his heavy alcohol habit but of lung cancer, the result of his longtime heavy smoking.
More Posts: bandleader,history,instrumental,jazz,music,saxophone