Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Ingrid Jensen was born on January 12, 1966 in North Vancouver, British Columbia but grew up Nanaimo, Canada. She began playing trumpet as a child and after receiving several scholarship offers she matriculated through Malaspina University and Berklee School of Music.
In her early days Jensen played in the New York subways on her way to establish herself as a leader and soloist. Since her rise to prominence on the jazz scene she has signed, recorded and released albums with Enja, Justin Time, Universal and Artist Share.
She has been nominated for several Juno Awards, winning one with her first release, Vernal Fields with featuring Lenny White, George Garzone and Larry Grenadier. Ingrid spends much of her time touring with her own projects and playing with the Grammy award winning Maria Schneider Jazz Orchestra. Ingrid also guests at prestigious universities around the world and occasionally performs with her sister, saxophonist Christine Jensen.
She has performed with a wide array of musicians including but not limited to Steve Wilson, Jeff “Tain” Watts, Dr. Lonnie Smith, Gary Bartz, Bob Berg, Terri Lyne Carrington, Geoffrey Keezer, Chris Connor, Clark Terry, Frank Wess, Dr. Billy Taylor and the DIVA Big Band.
Trumpeter and Flugelhornist Ingrid Jensen has performed with Corrine Bailey Rae on Saturday Night Live, has backed comedian Denis Leary and continues to perform, record and tour.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Wilbur de Paris was born on January 11, 1900 in Crawfordsville, Indiana to a father who played trombone, banjo and guitar. By the autumn of 1906, when he was five, de Paris had started playing alto saxophone, and a year later was working for his father in one of his plantation shows that mainly worked the TOBA circuit in the South.
De Paris heard jazz first at age 16, as a member of a summer show that played at the Lyric Theatre. He met Louis Armstrong whilst playing the saxophone at Tom Anderson’s Cafe with A. J. Piron. After high school, de Paris worked for his father for a time, then worked for more travelling shows in the east. He followed this period with a move to Philadelphia in the early Twenties and started his first band – Wilbur de Paris and his Cottonpickers.
Post Wall Street Crash in 1929, Wilbur disbanded his second group and went to New York, playing and recording for many years with the jazz greats.In the late 1940s, together with his brother, Sidney, he started a band called New New Orleans Jazz, featuring legendary jazzmen including Jelly Roll Morton, Zutty Singleton and Omer Simeon. This band became an institution in New York City during the 1950s, recorded extensively and toured the world.
Trombonist and bandleader Wilbur de Paris, known for mixing New Orleans jazz with swing, passed away on January 3, 1973, eight days shy of his 73rd birthday.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Haywood Henry was born Frank Haywood Henry on January 10, 1913 in Birmingham, Alabama. He began on clarinet before choosing baritone saxophone as his primary instrument, but continued to play clarinet on occasion throughout his career. In 1930 he was a member of the Bama State Collegians, then returned to play with them again from 1934 under Erskine Hawkins, playing with him with Hawkins into the 1950s.
Following Hawkins, Haywood worked with Tiny Grimes, Julian Dash, the Fletcher Henderson Reunion Band, and occasionally stood in for Harry Carney in the Duke Ellington Orchestra. In the 1960s he played with Wilbur DeParis, Max Kaminsky, Snub Mosley, Louis Metcalf, Earl Hines, Sy Oliver and the New York Jazz Repertory Company.
During the 1950s and ‘60s he played, mostly anonymously, on over 1000 rock and roll records. He also worked in the orchestras of Broadway shows in the 1970s. He participated in an Erskine Hawkins reunion ensemble in 1971, and performed well into the 1980s.
Henry recorded three albums as a leader: one for Davis Records in 1957, one for Strand early in the 1960s, and the last for Uptown in 1983. Baritone saxophonist Haywood Henry was inducted into the Alabama Jazz Hall of Fame in 1978 and passed away on September 15, 1994.
Jazz In Film
Pete Kelly’s Blues: This 1955 film was directed by and starred Jack Webb with co-stars Janet Leigh, Edmond O’Brien and Lee Marvin. In 1927 Kansas City Pete Kelly and his jazz band play nightly at a speakeasy. A local gangster starts to move in on them and when their drummer is killed Kelly gives in, even though this also means taking the thug’s alcoholic girl as a singer. Kelly soon realizes he has made a big mistake selling out in this way and that rich girl Ivy is now the only decent thing in his life.
The film included roles portrayed by jazz legends Peggy Lee as Rose Hopkins, Ella Fitzgerald as Maggie Jackson and Herb Ellis as Bedido. Pianist Don Abney, bassist Joe Mondragon and drummer Larry Bunker back the vocalists.
Matty Matlock who also sits in the clarinet chair also did the jazz arrangements. The band was comprised of Teddy Buckner on cornet, George Van Epps and Moe Schneider on trombone, Eddie Miller on tenor saxophone, Ray Sherman, piano; Jud de Naut, bass; Nick Fatool on drums, and trumpeters Joe Venuti, Thomas Jefferson, Harper Goff, Perry Bodkin and Dick Cathcart, with the latter dubbing the for Jack Webb.
Musical Numbers: Pete Kelly’s Blues, Sing Me A Rainbow, He Needs ME, Oh Didn’t He Ramble, I Never Knew, Hard-Hearted Hannah, Sugar, Bye Bye Blackbird and Somebody Loves Me.
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Daily Dose Of jazz…
Jimmy Maxwell was born on January 9, 1917 in Stockton, California. He took up the trumpet at age four and studied with a host of legendary brass teachers including Herbie Clarke in the Thirties.
During the 1930s Jimmy played with Gil Evans, Jimmy Dorsey, Maxine Sullivan and Skinnay Ennis before joining Benny Goodman. From 1943 into the early Seventies he worked as a studio musician for NBC playing on The Perry Como Show, The Patti Page Show, The Pat Boone Show and The Tonight Show.
He augmented his studio work during this period touring the Soviet Union in 1962, playing on hundreds of recordings and commercials and working as a sideman with among others Woody Herman, Count Basie, Duke Ellington, Oliver Nelson, Gerry Mulligan, Maynard Ferguson, Quincy Jones, the New York Jazz Repertory Company and Chuck Israel’s National Jazz Ensemble.
Maxwell played the trumpet solo theme for the soundtrack of The Godfather. Later in life he worked with Dixieland jazz and swing ensembles and would reunite with Benny Goodman. Jimmy Maxwell led one session for Circle Records in 1977. He retired from recording and performing later in life but the swing jazz trumpeter still taught music from 1950 until 2001, passing away the following year on July 20, 2002.
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