Hollywood On 52nd Street
The song Never Let Me Go was composed by Jay Livingston (music) and Ray Evans (lyrics) and introduced by Nat King Cole in the 1956 crime drama film titled The Scarlet Hour.
The movie was a relatively bold experiment for a mid-1950s Paramount release. The studio expended a great deal of money on the project and enlisted the services of top-flight director Michael Curtiz and populated with a cast of young unknowns. Carol Ohmart and Tom Tryon (future novelist) star with supporting cast including Jody Lawrence, Elaine Stritch, James Gregory and Edward Binns.
The Story: Ohmart and Tryon portray Paulie and Marsh, respectively the film’s villainess and protagonist. Knowing that Marsh is hopelessly in love with her, Paulie uses him as a dupe in an upcoming jewelry heist. Only after a killing has occurred does Marsh come to his senses. Lawrence is good girl to whom Marsh eventually retreats.
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Daily Dose Of jazz…
Urban Clifford “Urbie” Green was born August 8, 1926 in Mobile, Alabama and was taught the piano as a child by his mother, jazz and popular tunes from the beginning. He picked up the trombone when he was about 12 and although he listened to such trombone greats as Tommy Dorsey, J.C. Higginbotham, Jack Jenney, Jack Teagarden and Trummy Young, he was more influenced by the styles of Dizzy Gillespie, Charles Parker and Lester Young. Vocalists Perry Como and Louis Armstrong also influenced his style.
After his father died when he was 15, Green went straight into professional music, first joining the Tommy Reynolds Band and then stints with Bob Strong, Jan Savitt and Frankie Carle. While at Auburn High School he played with The Auburn Knights Orchestra, a college big band. In 1947, he joined Gene Krupa’s outfit and quickly moved up to Woody Herman’s 3rd Thundering Herd Big Band in 1950 to play with his brother, Jack.
By 1953 Urbie was in New York City quickly establishing himself as the premier trombonist in the booming recording industry and in 1954 he was voted the “New Star” trombonist in the International Critics Poll from Down Beat magazine. He was voted “Most Valuable Player” several times by the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences. He recorded with virtually all of the major jazz musicians of the 1950s and 1960s and led his own groups while also joining tours as a featured performer.
He collaborated with innovative producer Enoch Light for the Command and Project 3 labels, producing The Persuasive Trombone of Urbie Green and 21 Trombones, and was sideman and soloist on the album ‘s Continental by Ray Conniff in 1961. In the Seventies he began making innovations with his instrument designing a signature mouthpiece for Jet Tone and collaborated with Martin Brass on practical improvements to trombone design.
He would go on to record with Enoch Light and the Light Brigade, Dick Hyman, Maynard Ferguson and Doc Severinsen before moving over to CTI where he played more of his music and less solos with his band. He would record with Blue Mitchell, Herbie Mann, Manny Albam,, Steve Allen, Ray Bryant, Count Basie, Paul Desmond, Gil Evans, Art Farmer, Aretha Franklin, Dizzy Gillespie, Johnny Griffin, Billie Holiday, Coleman Hawkins, Milt Jackson, Bobby Hutcherson, Wes Montgomery, Mark Murphy and the list goes on and on.
By the 1980s and beyond Urbie’s recording career began a slowing down with only two live, straight jazz works; Just Friends, and Sea Jam Blues. In 1995 he was elected into the Alabama Jazz Hall of Fame and he still plays live at the Delaware Water Gap Celebration of the Arts Festival every September, just miles down the road from his home.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Rahsaan Roland Kirk was born Ronald Theodore Kirk on August 7, 1935 in Coumbus, Ohio and grew up in the neighborhood called Flytown. He felt compelled by a dream to transpose two letters in his first name to make Roland. He became blind at an early age as a result of poor medical treatment. In 1970 he added “Rahsaan” to his name after hearing it in a dream.
Rahsaan preferred to lead his own bands and rarely did he perform as a sideman, although he did record lead flute and solo on Soul Bossa Nova with arranger Quincy Jones in 1964, as well as drummer Roy Haynes and had notable stints with bassist Charles Mingus. His playing was generally rooted in soul jazz or hard bop but his knowledge of jazz gave him the ability to draw from ragtime to swing to free jazz. In additional to classical influences he borrowed elements from composers like Smokey Robinson and Burt Bacharach, Duke Ellington and John Coltrane.
His main instrument was the tenor saxophone and two obscure saxophones: the stritch, a straight alto sax lacking the instrument’s characteristic upturned bell and a manzello, a modified saxello soprano sax, with a larger, upturned bell. Kirk modified these instruments himself to accommodate his simultaneous playing technique. He also played flute, clarinet, harmonica, English horn, recorder and trumpet, as well as incorporating an interesting array of common items such as garden hose, alarm clocks and sirens.
At times Rahsaan would play a number of these horns at once, harmonizing with himself, or sustain a note for lengthy durations by using circular breathing or play the rare, seldom heard nose flute. Many of Kirk’s instruments were exotic or homemade, but even while playing two or three saxophones at once the music was intricate, powerful jazz with a strong feel for the blues. Politically outspoken, he would often talk about issues of the day in between songs at his concerts, such as Black history and the civil rights movement and lacing them with satire and humor. According to comedian Jay Leno, when he toured with him as his opening act, Kirk would introduce him by saying, “I want to introduce a young brother who knows the black experience and knows all about the white devils… Please welcome Jay Leno!”
In 1975, Kirk suffered a major stroke that led to partial paralysis of one side of his body. However, he continued to perform and record, modifying his instruments to enable him to play with one arm. He died from a second stroke on December 5, 1977 after performing in the Frangipani Room of the Indiana University Student Union in Bloomington, Indiana.
His influence went well beyond jazz to include such rock musicians as Jimi Hendrix, Ian Anderson of Jethro Tull, Eric Burdon and War, T.K. Kirk, Hope Clayburn, Jonny Greenwood and Ramon Lopez, all who idolized or paid tribute to, and David Jackson, George Braith and Dick Heckstall-Smith who took to playing multiple saxophones, and Steve Turre, Courtney Pine who utilizing his circular breathing during play. He left to us nearly four-dozen albums as a leader and another eleven with aforementioned Jones, Mingus and Haynes, and Tubby Hayes, Tommy Peltier, Jaki Byard and Les McCann.
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Ravi Coltrane was born August 6, 1965 in Long Island, New York to saxophonist John and pianist Alice Coltrane and was named after sitar player Ravi Shankar. Raised in Los Angeles, California, he was not yet two years old in 1967 when his father died.
Ravi graduated from El Camino Real High School in 1983 and three years later was studying music with a focus on the saxophone at the California Institute of the Arts. He worked extensively with M-Base guru Steve Coleman, who influenced his musical conception.
Coltrane has played and recorded as a sideman with Geri Allen, Kenny Barron, McCoy Tyner, Pharoah Sanders, Herbie Hancock, Carlos Santana, Stanley Clarke, Branford Marsalis and many others. In 1997, after performing on over thirty recordings as a sideman, Ravi entered the studio to record his first album as leader Moving Pictures, with drummer Jeff “Tain” Watts, bassist Lonnie Plaxico and pianist Michael Cain.
This led to extensive touring and a series of recording sessions as a leader producing his sophomore project From the Round Box, followed by Mad 6 and In Flux. He has performed in India as part of a State Department tour delegation to promote HIV/Aids awareness. He has played Monterey , Montreux, Newport and the Vienna jazz festivals, is a part of the Blue Note 7, and has worked with Renee Rosnes, Drew Gress, Luis Perdomo, E.J. Strickland, Al Jarreau, Earl Klugh, David Gilmore, Ralph Alessi and the late George Duke. Post-bop saxophonist Ravi Coltrane continues to perform, record, tour and produce.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Rickey Woodard was born August 5, 1950 in Nashville, Tennessee and picked up his first music experiences playing saxophone in the family band. He went on to attend Tennessee State University and following graduation joined the Ray Charles band, spending seven years with him.
Woodard became a member of the Clayton-Hamilton Jazz Orchestra, has recorded with Frank Capp, and is a member of Jeanine and Jimmy Cheatham’s Sweet Baby Blues Band. In 1988 he moved to Los Angeles and started playing sessions for Concord Records that soon led to a recording contract.
By 1993 Rickey embarked on a series of yearly visits to the Peterborough Jazz Club in England. There he was billed with veteran British jazz musicians such as Dick Morrissey, John Burch and Tony Archer. In 1994 he was a part of the recording session Seven Sensational Saxophones – Fujitsu-Concord 26th Jazz Festival with Jesse Davis, Gary Foster, Bill Ramsay, Ken Peplowski, Chris Potter and Frank Wess.
He recorded his debut album The Frank Capp Trio Present Rickey Woodard in 1991 and has released seven more as a leader or co-leader in the company of Joe Chambers, Eric Reed, Cedar Walton, Ernie Watts, Pete Christlieb, Gerry Wiggins, Chuck Berghofer, Tony Dumas, Roy McCurdy, James Williams, Christian McBride and Ray Brown. As a sideman he has another ten projects as a sideman working with Horace Silver, Kenny Rogers, Nnenna Freelon and Diana Krall.
Saxophonist Rickey Woodard continues to lead his own quartet, perform and tour with the Clayton-Hamilton Jazz Orchestra, The Juggernaut and The Cheathams.
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