Daily Dose Of Jazz…

Glauco Masetti was born on April 19, 1922 in Milan, Italy and was classically trained on violin, attending the Milan and Turin conservatories. An autodidact on reed instruments, in the late 1940s he worked with Gil Cuppini for the first time, an association that would continue into the 1960s.

Masetti often worked as a session musician in the first half of the 1950s with Gianni Basso and Oscar Valdambrini among others. He led his own ensemble from 1955, and played with Eraldo Volonté and Chet Baker. In addition to working with Cuppini again for most of the 1960s, he also played with Giorgio Gaslini during that decade.

Reedist Glauco Masetti passed away on May 27, 2001 in Milan.

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Daily Dose Of Jazz…

Kenneth Colyer was born on April 18, 1928 in Great Yarmouth, Norfolk, England, but grew up in Soho, London, and served as a member of his church choir. Listening to his elder brother’s jazz records which influenced him. He joined the Merchant Navy at 17, travelled around the world and heard famous jazz musicians in New Orleans, Louisiana^.

In the UK, Colyer played with various bands and joined the Crane River Jazz Band in 1949  with Ben Marshall, Sonny Morris, Pat Hawes, John R. T. Davies, Julian Davies, Ron Bowden and Monty Sunshine. Rejoining the Merchant Navy, and jumping ship in Mobile, Alabama, he travelled to New Orleans, where he played with his idols in George Lewis’ band. Though offered the job of lead trumpeter on a tour, he was caught by the authorities, detained and deported.

Ken went on to join the Chris Barber Band and made their first recordings on the Storyville in 1953. Parting company the following year, then briefly joined a band in the mid-1950s with clarinetist Acker Bilk and trombonist Ed O’Donnell.

Then he put together his own band with Mac Duncan, Ian Wheeler, Johnny Bastable, Ron Ward, Colin Bowden and Ray Foxley. This band played together until the early 1960s before incorporating a new lineup.

After a bout with stomach cancer in 1972 he stopped being a bandleader but continued to work, occasionally associated with Chris Blount’s New Orleans Jazz Band. A biography, Goin’ Home, was compiled by Mike Pointon and Ray Smith. Trumpeter and cornetist Ken Colyer, who was known for skiffle interludes and devoted to New Orleans jazz, passed away on March 8, 1988.

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Daily Dose Of Jazz…

Alton Purnell was born in New Orleans, Louisiana on April 16, 1911. He sang before playing piano professionally, beginning to do so locally in New Orleans in 1928. He played in the 1930s with Isaiah Morgan, Alphonse Picou, Big Eye Louis Nelson, Sidney Desvigne, and Cousin Joe, and with Bunk Johnson in the middle of the 1940s.

Purnell joined George Lewis’s band after Johnson’s broke up in 1946, and remained there well into the 1950s, including for international tours. In 1957 Purnell relocated to Los Angeles. There he worked with Teddy Buckner, Young Men from New Orleans, Joe Darensbourg, Kid Ory, Barney Bigard, and Ben Pollack. He also recorded extensively as a leader, including for Warner Bros. Records, GHB, and Alligator Jazz. He toured internationally as a guest soloist from 1964.

He sang before playing piano professionally, beginning to do so locally in New Orleans in 1928. He played in the 1930s with Isaiah Morgan, Alphonse Picou, Big Eye Louis Nelson, Sidney Desvigne, and Cousin Joe, and with Bunk Johnson in the middle of the 1940s. Purnell joined George Lewis’s band after Johnson’s broke up in 1946, and remained there well into the 1950s, including for international tours.

Pianist Alton Purnell, who was a longtime Dixieland performer, passed away January 14, 1987 in Inglewood, California.

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Daily Dose Of Jazz…

Theodore “Wingy” Carpenter was born on April 15, 1898 in St. Louis, Missour. Losing his left arm as the result of an accident during his early teens, the amputation was performed by a noted surgeon who was an uncle of jazz musician Doc Cheatham. Sometime later, he took up the trumpet and by 1920 he was working in traveling carnival shows. In 1921 he toured with Herbert’s Minstrel Band.

By 1926 he had settled in Cincinnati, Ohio, where he worked with Wes Helvey, Clarence Paige, Zack Whyte, and Speed Webb. In 1927, he played in Buffalo, New York, with Eugene Primus. Off and on from late 1926 through 1928, he was featured on the Whitman Sisters’ Show with pianist Troy Snapp’s band.

During the early 1930s, Wingy was featured with Smiling Boy Steward’s Celery City Serenaders and another Florida band led by Bill Lacey. In the mid-1930s, he began regular touring with bandleaders including Jack Ellis, Dick Bunch, and Jesse Stone. In the late 1930s, he settled in New York City, where he worked with Skeets Tolbert and Fitz Weston.

From 1939 on working as the leader of his own band, Carpenter had periods at well-known clubs such as The Black Cat, The New Capitol, Tony Pastor’s The Yeah Man, and other venues. He continued to lead his band through the 1960s, playing occasional dance dates. Several of his works are still accessible as MP3 downloads, including Look Out Papa Don’t You Bend Down, Preachin’ Trumpet Blues, Put Me Back in the Alley, Rhythm of The Dishes and Pans, and Team Up.

Trumpeter, vocalist and bandleader Wingy Carpenter, one of several one-armed trumpeters who worked in the music business, passed away on July 21, 1975, in New York City.

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Daily Dose Of Jazz…

Gil Fuller was born Walter Gilbert on April 14, 1920 in Los Angeles, California. In the 1930s and 1940s, Fuller did extensive work writing and arranging for bandleaders such as Les Hite, Floyd Ray, Jimmie Lunceford, Billy Eckstine, and Tiny Bradshaw. He also worked with Benny Carter, Benny Goodman, Woody Herman, Count Basie, Machito, and Tito Puente.

Post World War II, he found himself increasingly in demand as a bebop arranger along with fellow modern arrangers Tadd Dameron, Gil Evans, and George Russell. Fuller’s work with Dizzy Gillespie was of particular note, yielding the tunes Manteca, Swedish Suite, Tin Tin Deo, and One Bass Hit. He is the composer of the jazz standard ballad I Waited For You, co-credited with Dizzy Gillespie.

Starting his own publishing company in 1957, he continued to work with some jazz musicians including Stan Kenton in 1955 and again during the 1960s. Gil also branched out into film music and pop with Ray Charles, among others. Arranger Gil Fuller passed away on May 26, 1994 in San Diego, California.

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