Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Paul Mares was born on June 15, 1900 in New Orleans, Louisiana and was self-taught on the cornet and trumpet and picked up his early experience laying the riverboat Capitol playing with the Tom Brown Band. Leaving his hometown in 1919 he moved to Chicago, Illinois and worked with Ragbaby Stevens before freelancing around the city.
In 1921 Paul formed the Friars Society Orchestra, a group that prominently featured trombonist George Brunies and clarinetist Leon Rappolo. From 1922-23, the band recorded for Gennett Records and became one of the best-regarded bands in the city. The band, which broke up in 1924, included up-and-coming jazz musicians, including the members of the Austin High School Gang and Bix Beiderbecke.
Mares who was influenced by King Oliver, played in New York for a short time, went back to New Orleans the following year and led a couple more sessions. In 1934, a move to Chicago the following year had him making a brief comeback and leading a recording session that resulted in four titles before he retired again.
By 1935 Mares he was playing trumpet and fronting a recording session with his band called Paul Mares and his Friars Society Orchestra. The name referred to the Friar’s Inn club where the Rhythm Kings had first played in Chicago. The 1935 band included the white New Orleanian and N.O.R.K. veteran Santo Pecora on trombone, the black New Orleanian Omar Simeon on clarinet and the Chicagoan altoist Boyce Brown, as well as George Wettling on drums, pianist Jess Stacey, bassist Pat Pattison, and guitarist Marvin Saxbe.
He then largely retired from playing to work in the family fur business, and the New Orleans Rhythm Kings passed into history. He ran a barbeque restaurant, did defense plant work during World War II, and returned to music in 1945, leading a final band from 1945-48 that unfortunately never recorded. Cornetist and trumpeter Paul Mares passed away on August 18, 1949 in Chicago.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Marcus Miller, born William Henry Marcus Miller Jr. on June 14, 1959 in Brooklyn, New York and raised in a musical family. Classically trained as a clarinetist, he also plays keyboards, saxophone and guitar. He began to work regularly in New York City, eventually playing bass and writing music for jazz flutist Bobbi Humphrey and keyboardist Lonnie Liston Smith.
Spending 15 years as a session musician, he arranged and produced frequently, was a member of the Saturday Night Live band from 1979 to 1981, and co-wrote Aretha Franklin’s Jump To It along with Luther Vandross. He has played bass on over 500 recordings, appearing on over 500 albums by such artists as Herbie Hancock, The Crusaders, Wayne Shorter, McCoy Tyner, Frank Sinatra, George Benson, Michael Jackson, Beyoncé, Mariah Carey, Eric Clapton, Dr. John, Aretha Franklin, Elton John, Joe Walsh, Jean-Michel Jarre, Grover Washington Jr., Donald Fagen, Bill Withers, Bernard Wright, Kazumi Watanabe, Chaka Khan, LL Cool J, and Flavio Sala.
He won the Most Valuable Player award given by NARAS to recognize studio musicians three years in a row and was subsequently awarded Player Emeritus status and retired from eligibility. In the nineties, Miller began to write his own music and make his own records, putting a band together and touring regularly.
Between 1988 and 1990 he appeared regularly both as a musical director and as the house band bass player in the Sunday Night Band during two seasons of Sunday Night on NBC late-night television, hosted by David Sanborn.
As a composer, Miller co-wrote and produced several songs on the Miles Davis album Tutu, including its title track. He also composed Chicago Song for David Sanborn and co-wrote ‘Til My Baby Comes Home, It’s Over Now, For You To Love, and Power of Love for Luther Vandross and wrote Da Butt, which was featured in Spike Lee’s School Daze.
Miller hosts a jazz history show called Miller Time with Marcus Miller, is a film score composer, was nominated and won several Grammy Awards. Bassist Marcus Miller continues to perform, record and tour.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Philip L. Bodner was born June 13, 1917 in Waterbury, Connecticut and played in the Forties and 1950s as a sideman for studio recordings in New York City. He played on jazz sessions with Benny Goodman, with Miles Davis and Gil Evans in 1958.
Organizing The Brass Ring, a group modeled after Herb Alpert, in the mid-1960s they had popular success. Bodner also played with Oliver Nelson and J.J. Johnson during that decade. His associations in the 1970s included Oscar Peterson, Yusef Lateef, Peanuts Hucko, Wild Bill Davison, Ralph Sutton and he also played the signature piccolo part on the disco hit The Hustle by Van McCoy. Other work in the 1970s included playing with Ralph Sutton and Johnny Varro, working with Mingus Epitaph, and arranging Louie Bellson’s tribute to Duke Ellington’s Black, Brown and Beige.
The 1980s saw him working in a swing style with Marty Napoleon, Mel Lewis, George Duvivier, Maxine Sullivan, and Barbara Carroll. He released an album under his own name, Jammin’ at Phil’s Place, on Jazzmania Records in 1990, with Milt Hinton, Bobby Rosengarden, and Derek Smith as sidemen.
Multi-instrumentalist and studio musician Philip Bodner, active in jazz and popular music idioms. Best known as a reedist, he played clarinet, saxophone, oboe, English horn, piccolo, flute, conductor and arranger passed away on February 24, 2008 at age 90 in New York City.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Rubin “Zeke” Zarchy was born on June 12, 1915 in New York City. He first learned the violin, but after a stint as a bugler with his Boy Scout troop, he switched permanently to trumpet while in his early teens.
In 1935 Zarchy was working with the Joe Haymes Orchestra, followed by Benny Goodman, and then Artie Shaw. He went on to work through the end of the decade with Bob Crosby and Red Norvo, Tommy Dorsey, and Glenn Miller.
Between 1942 and 1945 he played in US Army bands: he was part of what became Miller’s Army Air Force Band (officially, the 418th Army Band), playing lead trumpet as Master First Sergeant. Zeke’s trumpet can be heard on recordings as Benny Goodman’s Bugle Call Rag, Glenn Miller’s Moonlight Cocktail, and Bob Crosby’s South Rampart Street Parade.
After the war, Frank Sinatra invited Zarchy to move to Los Angeles, California where he became a first-call studio musician. He played on numerous recordings, including those led by Boyd Raeburn, Jerry Gray, Sarah Vaughan, and Frank Capp. He appeared in film in The Glenn Miller Story in 1954.
During the 1960s and 1970s, Zeke played in the CBS house bands of several television variety shows, including The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour, The Danny Kaye Show and The Jonathan Winters Show, and was a member of the NBC Staff Orchestras in New York and Los Angeles.
In his later years, he made many music tours of Europe, South America, and Australia, as well as thirty-two concert trips to Japan. He tutored several young trumpet players who became successful performers and studio musicians. Trumpeter Zeke Zarchy passed away in Irvine, California, on April 11, 2009.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Bob Gordon was born in St. Louis, Missouri on June 11, 1928. Moving to Los Angeles, California in 1948 he studied at Westlake College of Music. Becoming a part of the West Coast jazz scene he was best known as a sideman for musicians like Stan Kenton, Shelly Manne, Chet Baker, Maynard Ferguson, Shorty Rogers, Spud Murphy, Red Norvo, Bill Holman, Dave Pell, Herbie Harper, and Jack Montrose.
In May 1954, only a few weeks before the sessions with Clifford Brown, Gordon recorded as a leader for Pacific Jazz titled Meet Mr. Gordon. As a co-leader, he recorded another five during his short career,
Cool jazz baritone saxophonist Bob Gordon passed away in a car accident on his way to playing at a Pete Rugolo concert in San Diego, California on August 28, 1955. He was 27.
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