Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Jack Nimitz was born in Washington, DC on January 11, 1930. He first began playing clarinet at age 12, and picked up the alto saxophone at 14. He played in local DC bands and after specializing on baritone sax he found work in the territory bands of Willis Connover, Bob Astor, Johnny Bothwell and Daryl Harpa.
Through the Fifties Nimitz played with Woody Herman, Stan Kenton and Herbie Mann and was in the house band of the Savoy Theater. Moving to Los Angeles, California he worked in film music in addition to performing with Bill Berry, Benny Carter, Onzy Matthews, Gerald Wilson, Supersax, Frank Strazzen, Thelonious Monk, Terry Gibbs, Dizzy Gillespie, Louis Bellson, Quincy Jones, Kenny Burrell, Horace Silver, Gene Ammons, Shelly Manne, Chuck Mangione, Charles Mingus, Gil Fuller, Oliver Nelson, Milt Jackson, Frank Capp and Joey DeFrancesco into the 1980s.
Additionally Jack recorded with the vocalists Johnny Hartman, June Christy, Peggy Lee, Nat King Cole, Carmen McRae, Anita O’Day and Diane Schuur. By the Nineties he was recording again with Claire Fischer, Lalo Schifrin, Stewart Liebig, Bill Perkins, Bud Shank and Gerald Wilson.
In 1995 he released his first of two albums under his own name, The Jack Nimitz Quintet, and played his final performance on May 10, 2009, in Northridge, California. Baritone saxophonist Jack Nimitz passed away at the age of 79 one month later on June 10, 2009 from complications from emphysema in Studio City, Los Angeles, California.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Allen Eager was born on January 10, 1927 in New York City and grew up in the Bronx. Reading by age 3, he learned to drive at the age of 9 with the help of his mother, after catching him driving a garbage truck near their hotels in the Catskill Mountains. He took clarinet lessons with David Weber of the New York Philharmonic at the age of 13 and went on to make the tenor saxophone his instrument.
When he was 15 Eager briefly played with Woody Herman and also took heroin for the first time. The next year he played in the Bobby Sherwood band, then went on to play with Sonny Dunham, Shorty Sherock, Hal McIntyre, Tommy Dorsey and John Bothwell all by 1945. After World War II he became a regular on the 52nd Street scene in New York, led his own ensemble there from 1945–47 and recorded his debut as leader for Savoy Records in 1946 with pianist Ed Finckel, bassist Bob Carter and drummer Max Roach.
Influenced by the playing of Lester Young, he was in good company with his contemporaries Zoot Sims, Stan Getz, Al Cohn and others. He adopted the musical forms pioneered in bebop but also adopted the drug dependency of a lot of the bebop players in the 1940s. As a white saxophonist of the time, Eager was a member of several bands led by black musicians including Coleman Hawkins, Fats Navarro, Charlie Parker, Red Rodney and Tadd Dameron by 1950.
During the Fifties he played with Gerry Mulligan, Terry Gibbs, Buddy Rich and Howard McGhee. He lived and performed in Paris from 1956-1957, returned to the States and recorded his last session for the next 25 years, The Gerry Mulligan Songbook with Mulligan leading. He essentially retired from jazz and while dealing with his own drug addiction did appear in Jack Kerouac’s 1958 book The Subterraneans as the character Roger Beloit. Allen went on to pursue other activities such as skiing, auto racing, and LSD experimentation with Timothy Leary. After several notable racing finishes at Sebring and Europe in 1963 a crash left him with broken bones.
He occasionally dabbled in music again, playing alto saxophone with Charles Mingus, Frank Zappa, recorded a 1982 Uptown Records session titled Renaissance. He toured with Dizzy Gillespie and Chet Baker and played in England. Tenor and alto saxophonist Allen Eager passed away from liver cancer on April 13, 2003 in Daytona Beach, Florida.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Roger Guérin was born on January 9, 1926 in Saarbrücken, Germany and initially studied violin, followed by cornet and trumpetat the Paris Conservatory. It was there as a teenager that he won first prize.
Roger began working professionally in 1947, playing with Aime Barelli, Django Reinhardt, Don Byas, Hubert Fol, James Moody, Benny Golson, Bernard Peiffer, Fats Sadi, Lucky Thompson, Kenny Clarke, Blossom Dearie, Martial Solal, Michel Legrand and Andre Hodeir.
Playing at the 1958 Newport Jazz Festival l with a youth ensemble, Guérin also played in Les Double Six in 1959, later returning to this group. He replaced Clark Terry in Quincy Jones’s Big Band in 1960. He worked on the soundtrack to the film Paris Blues in 1961 with Duke Ellington and went on to work extensively as a vocalist for Michel Legrand.
He has over 150 album credits to his name including recording with the Kenny Clarke/Francy Boland Big Band, and has won the Prix Django Reinhardt in 1959. Trumpeter and vocalist Roger Guérin passed away on February 6, 2010 in Nimes, France.
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Daily Dose Of jazz…
F. Bill Goodwin was born in Los Angeles, California on January 8, 1942. He is the son of announcer and actor Bill Goodwin of the Burns and Allen radio and television programs.His professional drumming career began in 1959 and has worked with Bil Evans, Dexter Gordon, Art Pepper, Jim Hall, George Shearing, Bobby Hutcherson, June Christy, Joe Williams, Tony Bennett,, Mose Allison, and the Manhattan Transfer among others.
He joined vibraphonist Gary Burton when he brought him to the East Coast in 1969. After a three year stint with Burton’s group, Bill settled in the Poconos and worked the local hotels and resorts. It was there that he and bassist Steve Gilmore met. They are both charter members of the Phil Woods Quintet, joining at the quartets inception in 1974.
In the mid-Seventies Goodwin worked with Tom Waits on his Nighthawks at the Diner album and with Steely Dan. He has been a featured performer at the W. C. Handy Music Festival as a member of the festival’s All-Stars alongside guitarist Mundell Lowe and pianists/vocalists Johnny O’Neal and Ray Reach, vibraphonist Chuck Redd and guitarist Tom Wolfe.
Drummer Bill Goodwin won a Grammy for the Phil Woods albums More Live and At the Vanguard and has produced several albums for trumpeter Tom Harrell, Keith Jarrett, Gabor Szabo, Bill Plummer and Paul Horn. He currently teaches jazz drumming at William Paterson University while continuing to perform as the drummer for the Phil WoodsQuartet/Quintet and the Little Big Band.
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Eldee Young was born January 7, 1936 in Chicago, Illinois. He started playing upright bass at the age of 13, helped by his eldest brother who played guitar.
In 1955 Eldee joined the Ramsey Lewis Trio and after a decade together recording more than twenty albums, split along with band mate Isaac “Red” Holt to form the Young-Holt Trio. They would change their name to the Young-Holt Unlimited in 1968. After they dissolved six years and ten records later, he continued playing, mainly with small groups in Chicago.
He also played with pianist Jeremy Monteiro for more than 20 years, appeared on recording sessions with James Moody, Eden Atwood and Lorez Alexander, among others.
Double bassist and cellist Eldee Young, who performed mainly in the cool jazz, post bop and R&B mediums passed away of a heart attack in Bangkok, Thailand on February 12, 2007.
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