Daily Dose Of Jazz…

Dave Schildkraut was born on January 7, 1925 in New York, New York and started playing professionally in 1941, first with Louis Prima. He followed this five year residency with Buddy Rich and Anita O’Day through the end of the decade and into the Fifties.

He moved on to hone his craft further by working with Stan Kenton, Pete Rugolo, Oscar Pettiford, Miles Davis, George Handy, Tony Aless, Ralph Burns, Tito Puente, Johnny Richards, and Kenton again in 1959. During the 1960s, Dave freelanced around New York City, appearing regularly with Eddie Bert at the West End Cafe. Later in his life he went into semi-retirement.

His playing was fluid and brilliant in pure bebop style but Schildkraut only recorded one album as a leader, in 1979. However, the album wasn’t released until 2000 by Endgame Records as Last Date. As a sideman he recorded sixteen albums.

Alto saxophonist Dave Schildkraut, whose style mimicked Charlie Parker but later showed influences of John Coltrane, Warne Marsh and Lee Konitz, transitioned on January 1, 1998 in Darien, Connecticut.

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The Quarantined Jazz Voyager

Life is full of choices and the choice not to protect yourself should only impact you. As another surge is underway it is your responsibility to protect others from your irresponsible choices. For those of us who remain vigilant I say well done. So with that in mind, I feel I am selecting the right choice to open up this 2022 year.

Out of the stacks comes the studio album The Natural Soul by alto saxophonist Lou Donaldson. It was recorded on May 9, 1962 at the Van Gelder Studios in Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey and released on Blue Note Records in March of 1963. The producer was Alfred Lion and the cover design was by Reid Miles of Capital Punishment. His use of lower case letters give this funky, greasy, soul jazz album suitably comfortable and informal.

Donaldson leaves his hard bop world to continue delving into the soul~jazz foray. He likes to groove and on this one he does just that. So sit back and enjoy the ride!

Tracks | Original LP ~ 41:54 w/CD Bonus Track ~ 49:07 All compositions by Lou Donaldson except where noted

1. Funky Mama (Big John Patton) – 9:08
2. Love Walked In (Gershwin, Gershwin) – 5:12
3. Spaceman Twist – 5:38
4. Sow Belly Blues – 10:13
5. That’s All” (Alan Brandt, Bob Haymes) – 5:36
6. Nice ‘n’ Greasy (John Adriano Acea) – 5:27
7. People Will Say We’re in Love (Hammerstein II, Rodgers) – 7:53 (CD Bonus Track)

• Lou Donaldson – alto saxophone
• Tommy Turrentine – trumpet
• Grant Green – guitar
• Big John Patton – organ
• Ben Dixon – drums

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Daily Dose Of Jazz…

Harry Herbert Pace came into this world on January 6, 1884 in Covington, Georgia. No information is available about his parents but his grandfather was a slave related to his master who ultimately freed him. The young lad however completed elementary school at the age of twelve.

Enrolled at Atlanta University, Pace found work as a printer’s devil or an apprentice mixing tubs of ink and fetching type to pay his way through school. However, after learning that pay equity was higher for whites employees than black employees he left and began working odd jobs on campus instead. While at school he met W. E. B. Du Bois, who was one of his professors, and he went on to graduate valedictorian of his class in 1903, at 19.

A move to Memphis, Tennesse saw Harry going into the printing business with Du Bois. Then two years later they put together the short-lived magazine The Moon Illustrated Weekly. By 1912 he was collaborating and writing songs with W. C. Handy, who took a liking to him. They founded the Pace and Handy Music Company, which brought him to New York City. Around 1920, the company began working with composers William Grant Still and Fletcher Henderson.

A visionary who saw that the growing popularity of the phonograph would shift the music business as it reached a wider audience wanted to expand beyond selling sheet music for parlour playing. Handy had no interest in changing the business, so Pace resigned.

While living in 1921 Harlem, New York he established Black Swan Records after singer  Elizabeth Taylor Greenfield, who was called the Black Swan. Their offices were in Times Square and he set up a recording studio in the basement of his brownstone. He brought in Henderson as recording manager and Still as arranger. The label’s first hit was a recording of Down Home Blues and Oh, Daddy, sung by Ethel Waters. Even with outstanding artists the label failed, went into bankruptcy and was sold to Paramount Records in 1923.

In 1925, Pace founded the Northeastern Life Insurance Company in Newark, New Jersey, which became the largest African-American-owned business in the North during the 1930s. Moving to Chicago, Illinois he attended the Chicago-Kent College of Law, receiving his degree in 1933. Around this time, he began passing for White and opened a law firm in downtown Chicago in 1942. His progeny would not discover his African ancestry until well after his death.

Music publisher, record label owner and life insurance executive Harry Pace, who  is featured on the documentary series Profiles of African-American Success and in the miniseries The Vanishing of Harry Pace on Radiolab. transitioned on July 19, 1943, in Chicago.

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Daily Dose Of Jazz…

Chuck Flores was born Charles Walter Flores on January 5, 1935 in Orange, California, and grew up in Santa Ana, California. Best known for his work with saxophonist Bud Shank in the 1950s, he also had a two-year stint with Woody Herman from 1954 to 1955.

Throughout his career Chuck performed and recorded with, among others, Carmen McRae, Art Pepper, Maynard Ferguson, Al Cohn, and Shelly Manne. His drum teacher Manne and others considered him an underrated drummer.

In his later years, Flores became a highly sought after and renowned educator who was a longtime faculty member at Musicians Institute in Los Angeles, California.

A few of his students were Danny Seraphine, Chad Wackerman, John Wackerman, Brooks Wackerman, Ray Mehlbaum, Pete Parada, Jamie Wollam, Jose Ruiz and Zack Stewart.

Drummer Chuck Flores, who was one of the relatively small number of musicians associated with West Coast jazz who were actually from the West Coast, transitioned on November 24, 2016.

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Three Wishes

The question was posed to Charlie Persip by Pannonica and he gave a response to his three wishes as:

1. “Money, money, money.”

*Excerpt from Three Wishes: An Intimate Look at Jazz Greats ~ Compiled and Photographed by Pannonica de Koenigswarter

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