Daily Dose Of Jazz…

Sam Butera was born on August 17, 1927 and raised in an Italian-American family in New Orleans, Louisiana where his father ran a butcher shop and played guitar in his spare time. Hearing the saxophone at seven for the first time at a wedding, with his father’s encouragement he began to play.

His professional career blossomed early, beginning with a stint in big band drummer Ray McKinley’s orchestra directly after high school. At eighteen Butera was named one of America’s top upcoming jazzmen by Look magazine and by his early twenties, he had landed positions in the orchestras of Tommy Dorsey, Joe Reichman, and Paul Gayten.

As the big band era wound down Sam re-settled in New Orleans, where he played regularly at the 500 Club for four years. The club, owned by Louis Prima’s brother, was the connection that led him to his Las Vegas, Nevada collaborations with Prima and Keely Smith.

Prima transitioned from big band to Vegas and the Sahara and called Butera to assemble a band posthaste. They drove from New Orleans to Las Vegas and without a name on opening night in 1954 when Prima asked Butera before a live audience he responded spontaneously, “The Witnesses”, and the name stuck, remaining the bandleader for more than twenty years.

Noted for his raucous playing style, his off-color humor, and the innuendo in his lyrics, he also wrote arrangements, composed music. Sam is widely regarded as the inspiration for the vocal style of fellow New Orleans-born jazz singer Harry Connick, Jr. He went on to appear on television and in movies. Tenor saxophonist Sam Butera transitioned from pneumonia in Las Vegas on June 3, 2009 at the age of 81.

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Daily Dose Of Jazz…

Albert George Hibbler was born on August 16, 1915 in Tyro, Mississippi and was blind from birth. At the age of 12 he moved to Little Rock, Arkansas where he attended Arkansas School for the Blind where he joined the school choir. He went on to begin working as a blues singer in local bands before failing his first audition for Duke Ellington in 1935. However, after winning an amateur talent contest in Memphis, Tennessee, he was given his start with Dub Jenkins and his Playmates. He later joined the Jay McShann band in 1942, followed with  replacing Herb Jeffries a year later and joining Ellington’s orchestra.

He stayed with Ellington for almost eight years, and featured on a range of Ellington standards, including Do Nothin’ Til You Hear From Me, I Ain’t Got Nothin’ But the Blues and I’m Just a Lucky So-and-So. Do Nothin’ lyrics were written specifically for him, reaching #6 on the Billboard pop chart and #1 for eight weeks on the Harlem Hit Parade in 1944.Considered undoubtedly the best of Ellington’s male vocalists, while with Ellington, he won the Esquire New Star Award in 1947 and the Down Beat award for Best Band Vocalist in 1949.

Leaving Ellington’s band in 1951 after a dispute over his wages, Al then recorded with various bands including those of Johnny Hodges and Count Basie, and for various labels including Mercury and Norgran. His biggest hit was Unchained Melody, which reached #3 on the US pop chart, sold over one million copies, and was awarded a gold disc. Its success led to network appearances, including a live jazz club remote on NBC’s Monitor. His other hits were He, 11th Hour Melody, Never Turn Back and After the Lights Go Down Low. 

In the late 1950s and 1960s, Hibbler became a civil rights activist, marching with protestors and getting arrested in 1959 in New Jersey and in 1963 in Alabama. The notoriety of this activism discouraged major record labels from carrying his work, but Frank Sinatra supported him and signed him to a contract with his label, Reprise Records. However, he made very few recordings after that, occasionally doing live appearances through the 1990s.

In 1971, he sang two songs at Louis Armstrong’s funeral. In 1972 he made an album, A Meeting of the Times, with another fiercely independent blind musician, the multi-instrumentalist Rahsaan Roland Kirk. Baritone vocalist Al Hibbler transitioned on April 24, 2001 at Holy Cross Hospital in Chicago, Illinois at the age of 85.

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Daily Dose Of Jazz…

Joseph Copeland Garland was born on August 15, 1903 in Norfolk, Virginia and studied music at Shaw University and the Aeolian Conservatory. He started by playing classical music but joined a jazz band, Graham Jackson’s Seminole Syncopators, in 1924, where he first recorded.

He had a long run of associations as a sideman on saxophone and clarinet from 1925 to the end of the decade with Elmer Snowden, Joe Steele, Henri Saparo, Leon Abbey Charlie Skeete and Jelly Roll Morton. By the 1930s he was playing and arranging with Bobby Neal and the Mills Blue Rhythm Band from 1932 to 1936. When Lucky Millinder replaced him, he joined Edgar Hayes in 1937, then Don Redman the following year, and Louis Armstrong from 1939 to 1942.

In the 1940s, he played with Claude Hopkins and others, and then returned to Armstrong’s band mid decade for two years. Following this he played with Herbie Fields, Hopkins again, and Earl Hines. In the 1950s, he went into semi-retirement.

Garland wrote a number of well-known swing jazz hits, including Serenade To A Savage and Leap Frog. He is credited as the composer with lyricist Andy Razaf for In the Mood which became a Glenn Miller hit. Saxophonist, composer, and arranger Joe Garland transitioned on April 21, 1977 in Teaneck, New Jersey.

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Daily Dose Of Jazz…

Armando Joseph “Buddy” Greco was born Armando Joseph Greco to an Italian-American family in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania on August 14, 1926. His mother introduced him to piano at age four and as a child he sang on the radio, and in his teens performed in the city’s night clubs. Sixteen saw him hired by Benny Goodman and spent four years touring the world with the Goodman orchestra, playing piano, singing, and arranging. Becoming acquainted with Great Britain in 1949 he spent many years performing in numerous clubs. He moved to Essex, keeping his Palm Springs property as a vacation home.

In 1951 he started his recording career, signing with labels such as Coral, Kapp, Epic, and Reprise. 1969 saw Buddy form a duo with jazz guitarist Ron Escheté. He opened a small club in Palm Springs, California which became popular for celebrities to dine. After closing it, he moved to England.

In 2008, he and singer Lezlie Anders toured the UK, performed with the BBC Big Band and at Ronnie Scott’s Jazz Club in London. He was the first Las Vegas headliner to star at a British casino when he performed at the Circus Casino, and he performed a tribute to Frank Sinatra for BBC Radio 2 with the 42-piece BBC Concert Orchestra. He toured the UK with the Swinging Las Vegas Legends show beginning in July 2010.

In 2010, Greco and his wife Lezlie produced the stage show Fever! The Music of Miss Peggy Lee, which met with critical acclaim at its London West End opening. They continued to perform and tour for the next seven years. Vocalist Buddy Greco transitioned on January 10, 2017, in Las Vegas, Nevada, at the age of 90.

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Daily Dose Of Jazz…

In 1970 he played with Albert Ayler at the Fondation Maeght in France. Two years later he toured throughout Europe with Karl Berger, recorded with Mal Waldron for Enja, and with Albert Mangelsdorff. In 1976 Allen played with a German jazz rock group called Embryo and in France he collaborated with Bireli Lagrene.

By 1991 he recorded Life at the Montreux Music Festival in trio-formation with Günter Lenz and Uli Lenz. For over twenty years he played with saxophonist Olaf Schönborn and bassist Mario Fadani in Trio Variety. Since 2009 with tap dancer Kurt Albert and Olaf Schönborn in Melody Rhythm & Tap.

Drummer Allen Blairman was diagnosed with cancer in January and transitioned on April 29, 2022 in Heidelberg, Germany at 81 years of age.

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