Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Robert Cameron Gordon was born June 29, 1941 in Hartford, Connecticut and taught himself by listening intently to the stylings of Jimmie Noone, Jimmy Dorsey and Frank Teschmacher, among others. He studied with Chicago clarinetist Joe Marsala. As a teenager he would go to Eddie Condon’s jazz club in New York’s Greenwich Village, sit at a table near the bandstand and nurse a Coke all night as he listened.
Early in his career, he played with Wild Bill Davison, Bobby Hackett, Zutty Singleton, Muggsy Spanier and had a long run with Jim Cullum’s Happy Jazz Band in San Antonio, Texas. Moving to San Diego, California in the 1970s, he played with numerous groups around the county. By the mid-1970s Gordon frequently recorded and toured with singer Leon Redbone, and appeared on the Johnny Carson Show. In 1979, the two survived injuries in a crash of a twin engine prop jet in Clarksburg, West Virginia.
In the late 1990s, Bobby joined the Roadrunners, a popular quintet on the West Coast festival circuit. During this time, he played with Marty Grosz, the Orphan Newsboys and Destiny’s Tots. His longest gig was at Milligan’s Bar & Grill in La Jolla, California leading a quartet.
Clarinetist and bandleader Bobby Gordon, who had been in poor health for years, transitioned from cardiopulmonary arrest on December 31, 2013.
More Posts: bandleader,clarinet,history,instrumental,jazz,music
Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Patricia Adams was born on June 28th in Westchester, New York. She earned a Bachelor of Science and a Masters in Business Administration degrees in the 1960’s. She studied music theory, harmony, and improvisation at the New England Conservatory in Boston and at the Performing Arts School of Worcester in the Nineties. Her continued studies have led her to Semenya McCord, Dominique Eade, Frank Wilkins, Jim Carson, Jeannie Lovetri, Sheila Jordan and Kirk Nurock.
Stepping onto a nightclub stage for the first time in 1992 at Scullers Jazz Club in Boston, many open mics and pro bono gigs later, she traded her thirty-five year career in human resources management for life as a full time artist. Her venues now attract those who enjoy the jazz and blues standards of the 1930’s and ’40’s. She plays with some of the world’s renowned jazz artists, including Ray Santisi, Marshall Wood, Bob Moses, Joe Hunt, Bill Wurtzel, John Repucci, Frank Wilkins, Fred Hunter, Ross Schneider, Joe Lovano, Stanley C. Swann, III and the late Jimmy Hill, so far.
As an educator she is at Berklee College of Music in Boston, Massachusetts with her leadership skills workshop for the entrepreneurial musician. Vocalist and bandleader Patricia Adams, who is a voting member of the National Academy of Recording Arts & Sciences, also served on the board of the New England Conservatory, continues to perform.
More Posts: bandleader,history,instrumental,jazz,music,vocal
Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Litsa Jane Davies was born on June 27, 1963 in Hampshire, England. Growing up in Poole, Dorset, she attended Harry Harbin school where her music teacher recognized her vocal talent. At 14 she was singing with him on jazz gigs and appeared locally on television in 1977. By 1979 she was gigging with pianist Mike Hatchard and the following year began a six-year stint with the National Youth Jazz Orchestra. While with NYJO she sang on three albums, notably Why Don’t They Write Songs Like This Anymore?, which featured her throughout.
She performs with her own quintet and has toured with the European Jazz Orchestra. She has sung on radio with the BBC Big Band, the bands Night Owls and Bone Structure as well as her own group. During the early and mid-80s Litsa played festivals with her quintet, and sang with the Burch Trio and saxophonist Iain Ballamy. The following year she joined the cast of the London West End musical Chess at the Prince Edward Theatre going on to play the lead until the show closed in 1989. She continued to sing on BBC radio.
In 1990 Davies concentrated on raising her children while singing backup for Tom Jones and performing with various bands including the Ian Pearce Big Band, the Ross Mitchell Dance Orchestra and the Mark Graham Dance Band. By 1995 she reappeared with a week-long engagement at Ronnie Scott’s club.
Vocalist Litsa Davies, gifted with fine interpretative skills and intelligent phrasing, continues to deliver ballads and up-tempo songs with swing.
More Posts: bandleader,history,instrumental,jazz,music,vocal
Daily Dose Of Jazz…
James Archibald McLin was born in Brooksville, Florida on June 26, 1908. He started on piano before picking up the banjo, then later the guitar. He played locally in Florida before relocating to New York City in 1928. He played both guitar and banjo in the early 1930s for James P. Johnson, Ward Pinkett, and Roy Eldridge.
Later in the decade he recorded with Willie “The Lion” Smith, Buster Bailey, Midge Williams, and Billie Holiday. In the early 1940s he worked with Sidney Bechet, Dave Nelson, and Claude Hopkins, then played trombone and mellophone in a military band while serving in the United States Navy during World War II. After his discharge he worked again with Hopkins and played guitar for The Ink Spots.
Banjoist and guitarist Jimmy McLin transitioned on December 15, 1983 in St. Petersburg, Florida.
Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Eddie Blair was born into a musical family in Johnstone, Renfrewshire, Scotland on June 25, 1927. His father played cornet and violin and as the ten year old took after his father picking up the cornet. Playing with the Johnstone Silver Band gave him the musical grounding that facilitated dance band work before he joined the Royal Signals in 1945.
After demobilization in 1948 Blair attended Glasgow College of Technology, playing with jazz and dance bands in the evenings. He got his first brief taste of London, England with the Ken Mackintosh Band before returning to college. By 1951 his work with Mackintosh and Glasgow pianist George Scott Henderson, whose quintet won the runner-up 1949 Melody Maker ‘All Britain’ contest, had come to the notice of Johnny Dankworth, who invited Blair to replace the Germany-bound Deuchar.
After four years with Dankworth’s Seven and Orchestra, Eddie joined Ted Heath for 11 years, recording regularly and touring the US in 1956 but also recording with Johnny Keating, the Swinging Scots big band, Vic Lewis, Tubby Hayes, Stan Tracey and Ronnie Scott.
Along with Jimmy Deuchar and Aberdonian Bobby Pratt they formed the all-Scottish trumpet section on Hayes’ Jazz for Moderns and his absolute dependability made him a natural for session work. TV programs including The Avengers, Jimmy Rushing, Sacha Distel, blues band Savoy Brown and Mike Oldfield’s sister, Sally all figured in his performing and subsequent session recordings.
At sixty-five in 1992, he retired to concentrate on skiing and golf. Trumpeter Eddie Blair, who in the late 1940s and 1950s became absorbed into the London jazz scene and whose style influenced Deuchar and Kenny Wheeler, transitioned on Boxer Day, December 26, 2020 at age 93 in Rustington, West Sussex, England.
More Posts: history,instrumental,jazz,music,trumpet