Daily Dose Of Jazz…
George Stevenson was born into a musical family on June 20, 1906 in Baltimore, Maryland. His brother Cyrus and his father both played piano. At 15 he studied saxophone and trombone with A. J. Thomas eventually joined his Baltimore Concert Band. His trombone style was greatly influenced by Tricky Sam Nanton.
By 19 he joined pianist Harold Stepteau and his Melody Boys, before organizing his own 11-piece Baltimore Melody Boys. They disbanded in 1928 and he moved to New York City. He would go on to play with Sammy Price and His Texas Blusicians and Hot Lips Page and His Band. Through the 1930s and 1940s he worked with various other bands including the Savoy Bearcats, Charlie Johnson, Fletcher Henderson, Claude Hopkins, Jack Carter’s Orchestra, Lucky Millinder, Cootie Williams and Roy Eldridge, and Cat Anderson.
From 1948 he went on to freelance with several leaders, continuing to perform through the 1960s. He briefly led his own band in 1959 and his last performances were with Max Kaminsky a year before his death.
Trombonist George Stevenson died on September 21, 1970.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Joseph Vankert Thomas was born on June 19, 1909 in Uniontown, Pennsylvania. His first band job was with the Earl Hood Orchestra and after eight months Horace Henderson offered him a job. Heplayed alto saxophone under Hood and Henderson, but took up the tenor saxophone when he joined Stuff Smith’s band in 1932.
He played with Jimmie Lunceford’s band from 1933 until the leader’s death in 1947, often soloing and occasionally singing. After Lunceford died, Thomas and Ed Wilcox co-led his ghost band until he left to form his own septet. This band members were trumpeter Johnny Grimes, trombonist Dicky Harris, baritone saxophonist Ben Kynard, pianist George Rhodes, bassist George Duvivier, and drummer Joe Marshall. They recorded between 1949 and 1951.
When Joe left the music industry he went to work for his family’s undertaking business. He played occasionally, accepting an invitation to the 1970 Newport Jazz Festival, and recorded again under his own name in 1979. Three years later he recorded with a septet that included Grimes, Harris, and Duvivier from his band three decades earlier.
Tenor saxophonist and vocalist Joe Thomas died on August 3, 1986 in Kansas City, Missouri. Material from his career is held by the University of Missouri, Kansas City.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Dennis Dotson was born on June 18, 1946 in Jacksonville, Florida and grew up in Rusk, Texas where he first picked up the trumpet. While attending Sam Houston State College in Huntsville, Texas and studying trumpet with Kit Reid and Fisher Tull and composition with John Butler, he began his professional career playing around Houston, Texas.
For over fifty years Dotson has played in the house bands in Las Vegas, free- lanced in New York City and Houston, and was trumpet soloist in the Woody Herman and Buddy Rich big bands. As a small group player he has performed with Joe Lovano, Joe Henderson, Marvin Stamm and David Liebman, among others. His other big band experience saw him performing alongside Carl Fontana, Bobby Shew, Tom Harrell, and Kenny Wheeler.
As an educator Dennis is jazz trumpet instructor at the University of Texas at Austin and was on the faculty at Houston Community College and the University of Houston. He has led several All-Region high school jazz bands and has been a guest soloist/ adjudicator/clinician at over forty high schools and colleges.
Trumpeter Dennis Dotson continues to be very active in jazz and commercial circles throughout the state of Texas and has been a sideman on numerous jazz recordings.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Takeshi Ogura was born on June 17, 1962 in Tokyo, Japan. He initially studied piano and trumpet before switching to the guitar. Moving to New York City at 26, he studied jazz guitar with be-bop guitar pioneer Chuck Wayne while attending The College of Staten Island in the Eighties. There he studied harmony and composition with Dr. Joseph Scianni. For ten years he was active on the New York jazz scene, then life caught up with him and he quit playing.
Takeshi got back to playing guitar in 2001 and has steadily built a reputation as a versatile and expressive player. Taking up residence in the Bronx, he often appears around the city with his jazz trio playing his compositions and unique arrangements of jazz standards. Since 2009 he regulary performs at The Bass Line in Mt. Vernon, New York.
He has shared stage performances with Duke Jones, Norman Connors, Sean Smith, Scott Fragala, Tyrone Govan, John Cooksey, John Fumasoli, James “Sugar Bear” Skelton, Jr., Art Bennett, Jasper Cain, Bill Crow, Seiji Ochiai, Dwayne Purdue, and Hiroshi Yamazaki.
Guitarist Takeshi Ogura, who has never led a recording session, continues to support this local and regional jazz scene with his trio and funk-jazz band New Project, along with Alan Eicher, Rondew Monroe and Greg Brown.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Gene Shaw was born Clarence Eugene Shaw in Detroit, Michigan on June 16, 1926. He played the piano and trombone as a child and didn’t begin playing the trumpet sometime around 1946 after hearing Dizzy Gillespie’s Hot House while recovering from injuries sustained in the army.
He attended the Detroit Institute of Music, and studied with pianist Barry Harris. In his hometown he played with Lester Young, Wardell Gray, and Lucky Thompson. His move to New York City in 1956 had him playing with Charles Mingus’s Jazz Workshop a year later and among his credits with the bassist are Tijuana Moods, East Coasting, where he used a Harmon mute, although he was initially wary of using it, given its association with the sound of Miles Davis.
Later that same year over a fight with Mingus, he destroyed his instrument and quit music. Not returning to playing until 1962, Gene formed his own ensemble. He retired again two years later, then returned to music once more in 1968.
As a leader he recorded three albums between 1962 and 1964 on the Argo label titled Breakthrough, Debut in Blues and Carnival Sketches. As a sideman with Mingus he also recorded three albums, East Coasting and A Modern Jazz Symposium of Music and Poetry on the Bethlehem label in 1957, and Tijuana Moods in 1962 on RCA.
Trumpeter Gene Shaw, who was an active member of the Chicago Gurdjieff society and a student of Fourth Way psychology, including its music, died in Los Angeles on August 17, 1973.
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