Jazz In Film
Rhapsody In Blue: 1945 film directed by Irving Rapper and starred Robert Alda, Joan Leslie and Alexis Smith. This biography depicts the life of George Gershwin, a driven composer whose need to succeed destroys his relationship with singer Julie Adams and socialite Christine Gilbert.
The movie includes appearances by Paul Whiteman and His Orchestra and pianist Hazel Scott.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Emanuel Sayles was born on January 31, 1907 in Pensacola, Florida and played violin and viola as a child, then taught himself banjo and guitar. After high school he relocated to New Orleans and played with William Ridgely’s Tuxedo Orchestra. Following this he worked with Fate Marable, Armand Piron and Sidney Desvigne on Mississippi riverboats.
In 1929 he participated in recordings with the Jones-Collins Astoria Hot Eight, then moved to Chicago in 1933, where he led his own group and worked often as an accompanist on blues and jazz recordings with Roosevelt Sykes and others.
Returning to New Orleans in 1949 Emanuel played with George Lewis and toured Japan in 1963-64. He also played with Sweet Emma Barrett, and Punch Miller in Cleveland in 1960, then back to Chicago to play in the house band at Jazz Ltd. Club from 1965-67. Returning once more to New Orleans in 1968, he played with the Preservation Hall Jazz Band.
Sayles recorded as a sideman with Peter Bocage, Kid Thomas Valentine, Earl Hines and Lewis Cottrell, and as a leader recorded extensively as a leader in the 1960s for GHB, Nobility, Dixie and Big Lou record labels. Emanuel Sayles, master banjoist, passed away on October 5, 1986.
Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Buddy Montgomery was born Charles Montgomery on January 30, 1930 in Indianapolis, Indiana, the youngest of the Montgomery brothers. Learning to play piano and vibes he began his professional career in 1948 and would go on to play with Big Joe Turner the following year and then with Slide Hampton.
After a period in the Army, where he led his own quartet, he joined his brother Monk and formed the “Mastersounds” in the late 50’s and produced ten recordings. He would also lead the Montgomery-Johnson Quintet with Ray Johnson from 1957 – 59, and led his first recording session.
Buddy played briefly with Miles Davis but when the Mastersounds disbanded he and Monk joined brother Wes on number of “Montgomery Brothers” recordings, in which he arranged. They toured together in 1968, and it was in the middle of that tour that Wes died. In ’69 he moved to Milwaukee, Wisconsin and taught music until his move to Oakland in the Eighties where he release solo material and played with the Riverside Reunion Band alongside Charlie Rouse, David “Fathead” Newman and Bobby Hutcherson.
Buddy Montgomery, vibraphonist and pianist, continued to compose, arrange, perform, produce, teach and record, producing fourteen recordings as a leader up until his death on May 14, 2009.
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Sacha Distel was born on January 29, 1933 in Paris, France and started playing piano but switched to guitar. In 1948 when he was 15 his uncle Ray Ventura, founder of the Original Dixieland Jass Band that settled in Paris, invited him to see Dizzy Gillespie play with his orchestra.
In 1948, Ventura invited Sacha to listen to Dizzy Gillespie perform with his orchestra, that eventually split into two rival bands: Guy Wormser’s New Orleans die-hards and the cool jazz and bebop aficionados led by Distel. With saxophonist Huber Damisch, Sacha founded the band that placed him among the jazz leaders, winning the “Coliseum’s Night of Jazz “Meilleur Petit Orchestre Moderne” award, with Damisch and Distel winning prizes as musicians on the same night.
The guitarist worked alongside Dizzy Gillespie, Tony Bennett – who popularized the Distel composition “La Belle Vie” or The Good Life – and appeared on The Ed Sullivan Show in the late 1950s after establishing himself as a French crooner.
Sacha would go on to have his own variety show on French television, become popular outside France, perform for the Queen Mother’s 80th birthday, played Billy Flynn in the London production of Chicago, dated Brigitte Bardot for a year, and later married Olympic skier Francine Breaud. After a long illness, vocalist and guitarist Sacha Distel, who had hits with a cover of the Oscar winning “Raindrops Keep Falling On My Head”, “Scoubidou” and his own “The Good Life”, passed away on July 22, 2004, age 71, in Rayol-Canadel, France.
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Bob Moses was born Rakalam Bob Moses on January 28, 1948 in New York City. Studying drums during his childhood by the time he was a teenager in 1964, he was playing with Roland Kirk. In 1966 he and Larry Coryell formed the jazz-fusion group “Free Spirits” two years later and then in 1967 began working with Gary Burton, with whom he would record with in the Seventies.
During this era he released his first album as a leader titled “Bittersuite” in 1975 followed by his “Devotion” in ’79. He was a member of “Compost” with Harold Vick, Jumma Santos, Jack Gregg and Jack Dejohnette; and began working with Dave Liebman/Open Sky, Pat Metheny, Hal Galper, Gil Goldstein, Steve Swallow, George Gruntz and Emily Remler to name a few.
Moses would continue to record from the 80s into the new millennium as a leader for Gramavision, Amulet, Navarre, Sunny Side and Jazzwerkstat record labels with many of his releases receiving critical acclaim.
Drummer Bob Moses currently performs alongside John Lockwood, Don Pate, and John Medeski with noted guitarist Tisziji Muñoz and teaches at the New England Conservatory.
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