Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Harry Roy was born Harry Lipman on January 12, 1900 in Stamford Hill, London, England, and began to study clarinet and alto saxophone at the age of 16. He and his brother Sidney formed a band which they called the Darnswells, with Harry on saxophone and clarinet and Sidney on piano. During the 1920s they performed in several prestigious venues such as the Alhambra and the London Coliseum, under names such as the Original Lyrical Five and the Original Crichton Lyricals. They spent three years at the Café de Paris, and toured South Africa, Australia, and Germany.
By the early 1930s, Harry was fronting the band under his own name, and broadcasting from the Café Anglais and the Mayfair Hotel. In 1935 he married Elizabeth Brooke, daughter of the white Rajah of Sarawak, with whom he appeared in two musical films, Rhythm Racketeer and Everything Is Rhythm.
During World War II, he toured with his band, Harry Roy’s Tiger Ragamuffins. He was at the Embassy Club in 1942, and a little later, toured the Middle East, entertaining troops. In 1948, Roy traveled to the United States but was refused a work permit, so returning to Britain, he reformed his band and scored a hit with his recording of Leicester Square Rag.
By the early 1950s the big band era had come to an end and his band split up, sending him drifting in and out of the music scene. That decade he ran his own restaurant, the Diners’ Club until it was destroyed by fire. By 1969 Harry returned to music, led a quartet in London’s Lyric Theatre’s show Oh Clarence and his own Dixieland Jazz Band residency during the summer at Sherry’s Dixieland Showbar in Brighton, but by then he was in failing health. Clarinetist and dance band leader Harry Roy passed away in London on February 1, 1971.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Calvin “Cal” Massey was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania on January 11, 1928 and studied trumpet under Freddie Webster. Following his studies, he played in the big bands of Jay McShann, Jimmy Heath, and Billie Holiday.
In the late 1950s Cal headed an ensemble with Jimmy Garrison, McCoy Tyner, and Tootie Heath. Occasionally John Coltrane and Donald Byrd would play with Massey’s group and in the 1950s he gradually receded from active performance and concentrated on composition.
His works were recorded by Coltrane, Tyner, Freddie Hubbard, Jackie McLean, Lee Morgan, Philly Joe Jones, Horace Tapscott and Archie Shepp. Massey played and toured with Shepp from 1969 until 1972 and also performed in The Romas Orchestra with Romulus Franceschini.
Massey’s political standpoint was radical and his work was strongly connected with the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s and ’70s. The Black Panther Party was an inspiration for The Black Liberation Movement Suite which he created with Franceschini and was performed three times at Black Panther benefit concerts. His ideology resulted in him getting whitelisted from major recording companies and only one album was recorded under his name.
Trumpeter and composer Cal Massey passed away from a heart attack on October 25, 1972 at the age of 44 in New York City, New York.
Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Joe Licari was born on January 10, 1934 in Brooklyn, New York and studied with Bob Wilber. His influences were Benny Goodman, Frank Teschemacher, Pee Wee Russell, Johnny Dodds, Sidney Bechet, and Jimmie Noone, using some of their ideas to find his own voice.
Known as an especially “hot” player with an exuberant and always emotive attack, Licari has worked along side of Roy Eldridge, Wild Bill Davison, Conrad Janis, Big Chief Russell Moore, Connie Kay, Bob Haggart, Vic Dickenson, Pee Wee Erwin, Doc Cheatham and the vocalist Julie Wilson. He’s also appeared in films, on television and radio shows and in clubs, sometimes standing in for Woody Allen.
As a leader, he recorded three albums and dozens as a sideman working as a featured player on albums by The Red Onion Jazz Band, Julie Wilson, Big Chief Russell Moore, Herb Gardner, Dick Voigt’s Big Apple Jazz Band, Jim Lowe, Dorothy Loudon, and Betty Comora. As a member of the Grove Street Stompers, they were a prominent fixture for decades on Monday nights at Arthur’s Tavern in Greenwich Village.
Clarinetist Joe Licari continues to record and perform at various clubs around New York City with The Speakeasy Jazz Babies, The Smith Street Society Jazz Band, Swing 39, Mark Shane. Delta Five, and Jon-Erik Kellso`s Hot Four.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Malcolm Cecil was born on January 9, 1937 in London, England. By the time he came of age he was a founding member of the UK’s leading jazz quintet of the late 1950s, The Jazz Couriers, before going on to join a number of British jazz combos led by Dick Morrissey, Tony Crombie and Ronnie Scott into the early 1960s.
Malcolm later joined Cyril Davies and Alexis Korner to form the original line-up of Blues Incorporated. With Robert Margouleff he formed the duo TONTO’s Expanding Head Band, a project based on a unique combination of synthesizers. This led to them collaborating on and co-producing several of Stevie Wonder’s Grammy-winning albums Talking Book, Music of My Mind, Innervisions and Fulfillingness’ First Finale of the early 1970s. They are also credited as engineers for the Stevie Wonder produced 1974 album Perfect Angel by Minnie Riperton.
Their unique sound made them highly sought-after and they went on to venture in not only jazz, but rock and r&b to collaborate with, amongst others, Quincy Jones, Gil Scott-Heron, Weather Report, Bobby Womack, The Isley Brothers, Billy Preston, Stephen Stills, The Doobie Brothers, Dave Mason, Little Feat, Joan Baez and Steve Hillage. Bassist, engineer and record producer Malcolm Cecil continues to perform and produce.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Dick Charlesworth, born Richard Anthony Charlesworth on January 8, 1932 in Sheffield, England. Attending King Edward VII School, at 16, he became a clerk in the Ministry of Labour and was in due course transferred to London. He bought a clarinet and started playing jazz as a hobby in 1952. Entirely self-taught, he became good enough to play clarinet and saxophone in a dance band and performed with jazz bands in south London including Jim Weller’s Jazzmen.
He formed his first group in 1956 and his Dick Charlesworth’s Jazzmen won the South London Jazz Band Championship in 1957. His group was signed by the Melodisc label, and they recorded an EP in December 1957 and produced an album for Doug Dobell’s 77 Records.
Leaving the Civil Service in 1959 he became a professional musician and signed a recording contract with EMI, remarketing the group as Dick Charlesworth’s City Gents. This was the time of light jazz, sporting distinctive attire of pin stripes and bowler hats, with their Latin motto, Dum vivimus vivamus, simply translated as “While we live, let us enjoy life”. They charted one single Billy Boy on the UK Singles Chart in 1961.
When jazz went out of vogue in the Sixties, Dick broke up his band, and from 1964 to 1969 fronted a band on the cruise liners. He then settled in Mojacar, Spain where he ran a music bar. Returning to Britain in 1977, he was active on the London jazz scene until the early 2000s working with, among others, Keith Smith, Rod Mason, Alan Littlejohn, Denny Wright, and appeared on the BBC Radio series, Jazz Score.
In his later years, Charlesworth lived in Thames Ditton, Surrey, and played a residency at various pubs with his band The Dick Charlesworth’s Fraternity Four, and released their final recording in 2004. Clarinetist, saxophonist and bandleader Dick Charlesworth passed away following a heart attack on April 15, 2008, at the age of 76.
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