The Jazz Voyager
Nighttown is my next destination for jazz and I am looking forward to sitting in a cool looking club that has been in existence for six decades. Opened in 1965 in a building that dates back to the 1920s, and what began as a single 40 seat storefront joint has evolved into one of the largest performance spaces and restaurants in the city. Named after Dublin’s Red-Light District in James Joyce’s Ulysses, Nighttown is located at 12387 Cedar Road, Cleveland, Ohio 44106.
Attracting an eclectic group of patrons to its ambience fashioned after the turn-of-the-century restaurants of the 1920s New York, it features renowned jazz artists four or more nights a week. This weekend the Jazz Voyager is spending the a couple of days in the city on the shores of Lake Erie and checking out the Cleveland Jazz Orchestra featuring Vince Mastro tonight at 8:30pm and on Sunday at 7:00pm, I will be catching the talents of pianist Chuchito Valdes. For dinner reservations and cover charge for performances the number is 216-795-0550. #jazzvoyager#wannabewhereyouare
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Lester Boone was born August 12, 1904 in Tuskegee, Alabama and studied at the Illinois College of Music before beginning his career in the Chicago bands of Alex Calamese, Charlie Elgar, Clarence Black and Carroll Dickerson. At the end of the 1920s he played in Albert Wynn’s Creole jazz band and on his recording Down by the Levee for Vocalion Records.
The following years he worked with Harry Dial, got his first big break playing with Earl Hines, and by the early Thirties was hitting with Louis Armstrong. He then moved on to play with Jerome Carrington, Emperor Marshall, Eubie Blake, the Mills Blue Rhythm Band and Jelly Roll Morton. Bouncing between Chicago and New York City he played with trumpeter Hot Lips Page and Eddie South. By 1941 he was accompanying Billie Holiday on her recording session of Am I Blue? on the Decca label.
With Tom Lord he was involved in 24 recording sessions between 1928 and 1941. From the early 1940s into the Sixties he played in New York with his own bands including with Everett Barksdale at clubs such as Harvey’s and the Lucky Bar.
Alto and baritone saxophonist and clarinetist Lester Boone, who had the honor of having the great Satchmo personally introduce his solo in that unmistakable growly voice of his, passed away in 1989.
Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Johnny Claes was born Octave John Claes on August 11, 1916 in London, England and received his education at Lord Williams’s School. He began playing trumpet in a jazz band that included Max Jones on reeds, and another with Billy Mason on piano. By the 1930s he had moved to the Netherlands, where he worked with Valaida Snow and Coleman Hawkins and in Belgium he worked with Jack Kluger’s.
Returning to England, Johnny led his own group, the Clay Pigeons, making a recording in 1942. Unfortunately for the jazz world in the late 1940s he abandoned his jazz career and settled in Belgium as a professional racing driver.
By 1955 Claes’ he had contracted tuberculosis and his health problems worsened. Finally trumpeter, bandleader and professional racer Johnny Claes succumbed to the disease in Brussels on February 3, 1956 at the age of 39.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Claude Thornhill was born on August 10, 1909 in Terre Haute, Indiana and as a youth was recognized as an extraordinary piano talent and along with clarinet and trumpet prodigy Danny Polo, formed a traveling duo. While a student at Garfield High School he played with several theater bands before entering the Cincinnati Conservatory of Music at age sixteen.
He and clarinetist Artie Shaw started their careers together at the Golden Pheasant in Cleveland, Ohio playing in the Austin Wiley Orchestra. By 1931 they were in New York City and in 1935 he was playing on sessions with Glenn Miller, Paul Whiteman, Benny Goodman, Ray Noble, Billie Holiday and arranged Loch Lomond and Annie Laurie for Maxine Sullivan.
Later in the decade he moved out to the West Coast with the Bob Hope Radio Show and arranged for Judy Garland in Babes in Arms. In 1939 he founded the Claude Thornhill Orchestra with his old friend Danny Polo was his lead clarinetist. Although the band was a sophisticated dance band, it became known for its superior jazz musicians and for his and Gil Evans’s arrangements.
Encouraging the musicians to develop cool-sounding tones, the band played without vibrato. The band was popular with both musicians and the public and Miles Davis’s Birth of the Cool nonet was modeled in part on Thornhill’s sound and unconventional instrumentation. The band’s most successful records were Snowfall, A Sunday Kind of Love, and Love for Love.
1942 saw him enlisting in the Navy and playing across the Pacific Theater with Jackie Cooper as his drummer and Dennis Day as his vocalist. After his discharge in ‘46 he reunited his ensemble and Danny Polo, Gerry Mulligan and Barry Galbraith returned with new members, Red Rodney, Lee Konitz, Joe Shulman, and Bill Barber. For a brief time in the mid 1950s, Claude was briefly Tony Bennett’s musical director.
Pianist, arranger, composer, and bandleader Claude Thornhill passed away on July 1, 1965. A large portion of his extensive library of music is currently held by Drury University in Springfield, Missouri and in 1984 he was inducted into the Big Band and Jazz Hall of Fame.
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Butch Warren was born Edward Warren on August 9, 1939 in Washington, D.C. and began playing professionally at age 14 in a local Washington, D. C. band led by his father, Edward Warren. He later worked with other local groups, including Stuff Smith as well as with altoist and bandleader Rick Henderson at the historic Howard Theatre on 7th and T Streets.
Moving to New York City in 1958 Butch played first with Kenny Dorham and appeared on his first recording in 1960 along with saxophonist Charles Davis, pianist Tommy Flanagan and drummer Buddy Enlow. During his stay in New York City he became house bassist for Blue Note Records.
As a sideman, he recorded with Miles Davis, Hank Mobley, Donald Byrd, Sonny Clark, Dexter Gordon, Elmo Hope, Grant Green, Slide Hampton, Booker Ervin, Walter Bishop Jr. Horace Parlan, Bobby Timmons, Don Wilkerson, Herbie Hancock, Joe Henderson, Jackie McLean, and Stanley Turrentine. He played with Thelonious Monk in 1963 and 1964 before moving back to Washington, D.C.
Back home he briefly worked in television before becoming seriously ill. Following the onset of his illness he played professionally only occasionally, including a regular gig at the jazz club Columbia Station in the Adams Morgan neighborhood. Bassist Butch Warren, whose solos were inventive and played in the hard bop genre, passed away October 5, 2013.
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