The Jazz Voyager

The Jazz Voyager is flying into Baltimore, Maryland on Thursday for crab cakes and jazz. First stop is breaking bread with friends and enjoying the company and camaraderie. The following night I will be in the audience at the Keystone Korner Baltimore to hear the Bill Charlap Trio. It’s been a few years since I’ve heard the trio with Bill on piano, Peter Washington on bass and Kenny Washington on drums.

But there’s so much more to the city so during the day this Jazz Voyager will be moving about the city investigating the Top Of The World Observation Deck, the Lexington Market, National Aquarium and the American Visionary Art Museum.

The trio will be in residence for two nights ~ October 21 & 22, two sets each evening at 7:30 and 10:00 pm, with a Sunday, October 23rd late afternoon show at 5:00pm. Tickets range $35.00 ~ $45.00 plus fee.

The Keystone Korner Baltimore address is 1350 Lancaster Street, 21231.  For more information, the number is 410-946-6726 or keystonekornerbaltimore.com.

More Posts: adventure,album,bass,club,drums,festival,genius,jazz,museum,music,piano,preserving,restaurant,travel

Daily Dose Of Jazz…

Johnny McClanian Best, Jr. was born in Shelby, North Carolina on October 20, 1913. He played piano as a child and learned trumpet from age 13. In the 1930s he worked with Les Brown, Charlie Barnet, and Artie Shaw from 1937 to 1939, then joined Glenn Miller’s orchestra for three years in 1939.

Before serving in the Navy during World War II as a lifeguard he spent a short time with Bob Crosby. During his service he played in Shaw’s military band and Sam Donahue’s band. Following a stint with Benny Goodman after the war, then he relocated to Hollywood, California where he worked with Crosby again on radio and played in numerous studio big bands in the 1940s and 1950s.

Touring with Billy May in 1953, later in the decade he led his own group locally. His trumpet can be heard along with Ella Fitzgerald on her album Get Happy. In 1964 he toured Japan with Crosby, and joined Ray Conniff for worldwide tours in the 1970s.

In 1982, he broke his back while working in his avocado orchard and used a wheelchair late in life, but was active into the 1980s. He played the trumpet solo on the Glenn Miller recording At Last, which was featured in the film Orchestra Wives.

Trumpeter Johnny Best,  who played on Begin the Beguine which put Artie Shaw in business, transitioned on September 19, 2003.

More Posts: bandleader,history,instrumental,jazz,music,trumpet

Daily Dose Of Jazz…

Patrick Cairns “Spike” Hughes was born October 19, 1908 in London, England and spent his childhood mostly with his mother, a psychiatrist who was involved in extensive travel in France and Italy, as well as a more settled period of education at Perse School in Cambridge. By 1923 when he was 15 he spent an extended period in Vienna, Austria studying composition with Egon Wellesz.

He began writing his first music criticism for The Times of London and heard his first jazz at the Weinberg Bar, Weihburggasse, a band led by trumpeter Arthur Briggs. Returning to the UK in 1926, Hughes had a solo cello sonata performed in London and wrote the incidental music for two theatre productions in Cambridge.

His interest in jazz was stimulated by the London revue Blackbirds, starring Florence Mills and Edith Wilson in 1926. It was an enthusiasm he shared with his friends, the composers Constant Lambert and William Walton and the conductor Hyam Greenbaum. He taught himself double bass using a German string bass made of tin, the spike of which led to his nickname. He formed his own jazz group in 1930 and was one of the earliest artists signed to Decca Records in England and recorded over 30 sessions between 1930 and 1933.

Originally billed as Spike Hughes and his Decca-Dents, but it was changed either to his Dance Orchestra or Three Blind Mice for smaller sessions. From 1931, he played regularly with the Jack Hylton Band and his career in jazz culminated in 1933 with a visit to New York, where he arranged three recording sessions involving members of Benny Carter’s and Luis Russell’s orchestras with Coleman Hawkins and Henry “Red” Allen from Fletcher Henderson’s band.

After the New York recordings, Spike ceased performing jazz and orchestrated and conducted shows for C B Cochran and using the pseudonym Mike wrote jazz reviews for Melody Maker, Daily Herald and The Times from 19531 to 1967. He established performance and recording opportunities for American bands in England.

He wrote radio plays accompanied by his own musical scores for the BBC, writing and broadcasting, conducting the BBC Theatre Orchestra, and for BBC Television. As a writer, regular BBC broadcaster and critic his subjects also included food and travel. He wrote sixteen composition, five film scores, fifteen books and recorded four albums,

Composer, arranger and double bassist Spike Hughes, who became better known as a broadcaster and humorous author, transitioned on February 2, 1987.

More Posts: bandleader,bass,history,instrumental,jazz,music

Three Wishes

It was Al Shorter that she approached with the question of three wishes and he told Nica he had only one wish that summed it all up:

1. “I want to live more than my life. That’s all my three wishes, really.”

More Posts: baroness,flugelhorn,history,instrumental,jazz,music,pannonica,three,trumpet,wishes

Daily Dose Of Jazz…

George Washington was born October 18, 1907 in Brunswick, Georgia and raised in Jacksonville, Florida. He began playing trombone at age ten and attended Edward Waters College in the early-1920s.

Washington relocated to Philadelphia in 1925 and played with J.W. Pepper before moving to New York City shortly thereafter. In New York, he studied under Walter Damrosch at the New York Conservatory, playing with various ensembles in the late 1920s.

In 1931, he began playing with Don Redman, and gigged with Benny Carter in 1932 and Spike Hughes in 1933. In the mid-1930s, he played and arranged for the Mills Blue Rhythm Band and worked with Red Allen and Fletcher Henderson. From 1937 to 1943, he played in Louis Armstrong’s orchestra. After his tenure with Armstrong he moved to the West Coast, and played with Horace Henderson, Carter again, and Count Basie.

From 1947 he led his own ensemble, playing in California and the Las Vegas Strip in Nevada. He and drummer Johnny Otis collaborated often, and in 1960 Washington worked with Joe Darensbourg. He did freelance work as a player and arranger later in his life. To date there is no record of his death

More Posts: bandleader,history,instrumental,jazz,music,trombone