Daily Dose Of jazz…

Larry Sonn was born in Woodmere on Long Island New York City on January 17, 1919. He graduated from the Juilliard School of Music in New York and began his career with the Southern Symphony Orchestra in Columbia, South Carolina. He took the first trumpet position, but later turned to the popular idioms of jazz and the big band sound. He was soon playing trumpet and arranging for the top orchestras in the United States including Glenn Miller, Teddy Powell, Bobby Byrne, Charlie Barnett, and Vincent Lopez.

In the early 1940’s he moved from New York to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania and then to San Antonio, Texas.  While performing there an executive from the new Hotel Reforma in Mexico City heard him play. Impressed by Larry’s virtuosity, he offered him a short-term contract at the hotel’s Ciro’s Nightclub that lasted nine years.

Returning to America for a stay late in the1950’s but still Mexico called. Larry came back to form one of the foremost big bands in the country, touring, doing radio shows for XEW, and recording for RCA Victor, CBS, Cisne, Peerless, Sonart and other labels.

Retiring from music in 1972 Sonn relocated forty miles south of Mexico City, opened a popular book store specializing in US editions for English-speaking residents and tourists. After several years he retired completely. Trumpeter, arranger, composer and bandleader Larry Sonn at 91, is alive and well in the City of Eternal Spring, Cuernavaca, Morelos, Mexico.

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The Jazz Voyager

The Jazz Voyager is flying east for another visit to the Motor City and some atmosphere and jazz at Cliff Bell’s. Starting out as a pub, turned speakeasy during Prohibition, it has become one of the premier jazz venues in the Midwest. I’m going to stop by Hitsville U.S.A. and take a nostalgic walk down the soul music memory lane before hitting the club.

I will be checking out a musician I have never heard before but is one who is keeping the tradition alive. He is a Grammy nominated saxophonist who goes by the name of De’Sean Jones and he brings his trio with him for the night. I’ll be catching the second set, as usual, just in case he decides to give anything extra.

The cover charge is $25.00 and Cliff Bell’s is located at 2030 Park Avenue, Detroit, Michigan 48226. For more information visit cliffbells.com.

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Daily Dose Of Jazz…

Stanley Brian Reynolds was born on January 16, 1926 in Lincoln, England. He began his musical career when he toured with the Tommy Sampson Orchestra at age 14. By 1948, he was playing with Ted Heath and His Music, and from the 1950s, he also worked with Vic Lewis, Dave Shepherd, Kenny Baker, Johnny Keating, Louie Bellson and Buddy Rich.

As a session musician, he was involved as a soloist on the Beatles’ White Album with a trumpet solo in Martha My Dear. In 1975, under his own name he created his own big band album, The Greatest Swing Band in the World…is British (PYE).

In the 1980s, he worked with Barbara Thompson and Chris Smith. In the field of jazz he was involved in 84 recording sessions between 1948 and 1989,

Trumpeter Stan Reynolds died on April 14, 2018. at age 92.

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Daily Dose Of Jazz…

Werner Dies was born on January 15, 1928 in Frankfurt, Germany. An autodidact on guitar and saxophone, he studied clarinet and composition starting in 1947. From 1947 to 1955 he played guitar in the dance band of Willy Berking, and was a member of the bands Hotclub Combo and Two Beat Stompers.

He led his own ensemble, went on a tour of Yugoslavia in 1955 and from 1955 to 1965 he was a member of Hazy Osterwald’s sextet, and also worked as a session musician and arranger. He toured with Joe Turner and, in 1968, Charly Antolini.

He had a hit in Germany in 1954 with Schuster bleib bei deinen Leisten (The Little Shoemaker) that spent eight weeks at #1 on the German hit parade starting in October 1954. He later worked for Howard Carpendale, Adam & Eve, Graham Bonney, and other singers, and produced easy listening music with his own ensemble, the Werner Dies Sax Band.

He wrote a treatise on clarinet improvisation that was published in 1967. He produced the group Bläck Fööss from 1973 to 2003. Tenor saxophonist, clarinetist, guitarist, composer, and arranger Werner Dies died on February 5, 2003.

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Jazz Poems

ELEVEN

From Velvet Bebop Kente Cloth

There ain’t/No word

I ain’t/Heard

ain’t/No word

Bird/Ain’t heard

Language is an/Inventor’s

>Privilege

I/Blow psalms.

I/Blow sinners’ deeds.

I/Blow prayer before death.

I/Blow curses.

I/Blow laughter.

I/Blow vocabulary of my axe.

You can’t/Hold

folks/Down who Be-Bop

but you/Kin hold

them/Up.

Every Be-Bopper/Renew

his/Subscriptions

to/Genius when he riff some

thing/New on his axe.

STERLING D. PLUMPP 

from Jazz Poems ~ Selected and Edited by Kevin Young

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