Atlanta Jazz Festival… 1985

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Daily Dose Of Jazz…

Dámaso Pérez Prado was born on December 11, 1916 in Matanzas, Cuba to a school teacher and a journalist. He studied classical piano in his early childhood, later playing organ and piano in local clubs. For a time, he was pianist and arranger for the popular Cuban band Sonora Matancera and worked with Havana casino orchestras for most of the 1940s.

In 1949 he moved to Mexico to form his own band and record for RCA Victor. Specializing in mambos, the upbeat adaptation of the Cuban danzón, Perez stood out with their fiery brass riffs, strong saxophone counterpoints and his signature grunt ¡Dilo! (Say it!). In 1950 arranger Sonny Burke heard Qué Rico El Mambo while on vacation in Mexico and recorded it back in the United States as Mambo Jambo. The single was a hit, which caused Pérez to launch a US tour, his appearances were 1951 sell-outs and he began recording US releases for RCA Victor.

Prado composed several famous songs Caballo Negro, Lupita, and Mambo no.8 among others, reached #1 with a cha-cha-chá arrangement of Cherry Pink and Apple Blossom White, held the spot for ten consecutive weeks and sold a million copies. The song went on to be danced to by Jane Russell in the 1954 movie Underwater!, and in 1958 his final #1 hit Patricia scaled the Jockeys and Top 100 charts and was introduced onto the Billboard Hot 100.

His popularity outside the Latino communities in the United States came with  the peak of the first wave of interest in Latin music during the 1940s, 1950s and early 1960s. He performed in films in the United States, Europe and Mexico until his success waned, his association with RCA ended and music made way for rock and roll and pop music.

The early Seventies saw Prado returning to Mexico City to continue a healthy career in Latin America. He toured and continued to record material released in Mexico, South America and Japan. Revered as one of the reigning giants of the music industry he was a regular performer on Mexican television, was featured in a musical revue titled Sun, and his final United States concert to a pack house was in Hollywood in 1987.

During his lifetime, at one time or another, Ollie Mitchel, Alex Acuña, Maynard Ferguson, Pete Candoli, Beny Moré, Johnny Pacheco, Armando Peraza, Mongo Santamaría, Luisito Jorge Ballan Garay lll performed as part of his orchestra. His music has appeared in the films La Dolce Vita, Goodbye Columbus, Space Cowboys and on television shows The Simpsons, and HBO’s Real Sex series.

With persistent ill health plaguing him for the next two years, pianist, composer, arranger and bandleader Pérez Prado passed away of a stroke in Mexico City, Mexico on September 14, 1989, aged 72.

Put A Dose In Your Pocket

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Daily Dose Of Jazz…

Franco Ambrosetti was born December 10, 1941 in Lugano, Switzerland and received classical piano training, but is a self-taught trumpeter. He matriculated through school and holds a Masters Degree in economics from the University of Basel. He frequently worked professionally with his father, a saxophonist who once played sax opposite Charlie Parker, in a group that also included George Gruntz, among others.

Ambrosetti has recorded with both American and European musicians and performed at jazz festivals and concerts with Kenny Clarke, Dexter Gordon, Phil Woods, Cannonball Adderley, Joe Henderson, Michael Brecker, Mike Stern, Hal Galper and Romano Mussolini, among others.

He has recorded some two-dozen albums as a leader most notably on the Enja Record label and another eighteen as a sideman. Trumpeter, flugelhornist and composer Franco Ambrosetti continues to perform, record and tour.

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Daily Dose Of Jazz…

Robert Alexander Scobey, Jr. was born on December 9, 1916 in Tucumcari, New Mexico. He began his career playing in dance orchestras and nightclubs in the 1930s and by 1938 was working as second trumpeter for Lu Watters in the Yerba Buena Jazz Band. 1949 saw him leading his own band under the name Bob Scobey’s Frisco Band and the following year secured a three-year residency at the Victor & Roxie’s, which expanded their popularity.

Clancy Hayes joined the band to sing, play banjo bringing his own compositions such as Huggin’ and a Chalkin‘. The collaboration recorded over two hundred tracks until he left in 1959 to follow a solo career. The Frisco Band broadcasted in 1952 and 1953 on Rusty Draper’s television show. In 1953 Louis Armstrong sang with the band and the following year  blues singer Lizzie Miles began recording and touring with the band, a relationship that lasted three years.

Beginning in 1955 Scobey and his band played San Quentin Prison, the roadhouse Rancho Grande, recorded for Verve Records and RCA Victor,. and toured colleges and universities, recorded many student favorites on the album College Classics.

Bob opened the Club Bourbon Street in Chicago, Illinois in 1959, and began suffering with stomach issues while touring in 1960. Trumpeter Bob Scobey passed away of cancer on June 12, 1963. His wife produced a biography titled He Rambled!, arranged for his band to form again and record some blues songs, and saw to the reissuing of his albums.

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Daily Dose Of Jazz…

Larry Vuckovich was born on December 8, 1936 in Kotor, Montenegro and spent his childhood in Yugoslavia where he received classical piano lessons. He became familiar with jazz listening to radio broadcasts of AFN and Voice of America. Suffering persecution under Tito, his family emigrated to the US in 1951, received political asylum and settled in San Francisco, California.

Visited local jazz clubs Larry listened to jazz greats such as Miles Davis, Dizzy Gillespie and John Coltrane, and started playing jam sessions with musicians on the local jazz scene such as John Handy and Cal Tjader. He studied music at San Francisco State University alongside Roland Kirk, Mickey Roker and Bob Cranshaw, while getting instructed by Vince Guaraldi.

1959 saw Vuckovich starting his professional career in the band of Brew Moore. Soon thereafter, he accompanied singers like Irene Kral, David Allyn and Mel Tormé. By 1965 he had joined the band of Jon Hendricks to tour with him throughout the world, before settling in Munich, Germany as house pianist of the jazz club Domicile. While working there, he performed with Lucky Thompson, Pony Poindexter, Clifford Jordan, Dexter Gordon, Slide Hampton and Dusko Goykovich among others.

Returning to San Francisco he took up residency at the Keystone Korner until 1983 playing with the likes of  Arnett Cobb, Buddy Tate, Leon Thomas, Philly Joe Jones and Charles McPherson. From 1985 to 1990, Vuckovich worked in New York City with Curtis Fuller, Milt Hinton, Al Cohn, Tom Harrell and many others. Afterwards, he returned to the West Coast in order to pursue projects of his own, which included bands Blue Balkan, Young at Heart and La Orquesta el Vuko.

He has also performed with Bobby Hutcherson, Larry Grenadier, Hadley Caliman, Cal Collins and Eddie Vinson. He became the artistic director for the West Coast Jazz Festival and the Nappa Valley Jazz Festival and founded his own label “Tetrachord Music”, for which he also acts as producer. Pianist Larry Vuchovich continues to perform, tour and record under his own name for Concord, Hot House, Inner City and Palo Alto Jazz record labels

Uplift Someone’s World

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