Daily Dose Of Jazz

Harry Howell Carney was born on April 1, 1910 in Boston, Massachusetts and grew up close to future bandmate Johnny Hodges. He began playing the piano at age seven, moved to the clarinet at 14, and added the alto saxophone a year later. His first professional gig was in Boston clubs.

Early influences on Carney’s playing included Buster Bailey, Sidney Bechet, and Don Murray. He also reported that, for his baritone saxophone playing, he “tried to make the upper register sound like Coleman Hawkins and the lower register like Adrian Rollini”

After moving to New York City he played a variety of gigs at the age of 17, and soon Carney was invited to join the Duke Ellington band for its performances in Boston in 1927. In October the same year, he recorded his first session with the band and having established himself, stayed with it for the rest of his life.

The band began a residency at the Cotton Club in New York at the end of the year, and Ellington added more personnel in 1928. Carney’s main instrument became the baritone saxophone and he became a dominant figure on the baritone in jazz, with no serious rivals on the instrument until the advent of bebop in the mid-1940s. Within the overall sound of the Ellington band, Carney’s baritone was often employed to play parts of harmonies that were above the obvious low pitching of the instrument; this altered the textures of the band’s sound.

In 1938, Carney was invited to play with Benny Goodman’s band at Carnegie Hall and the recordings were released as The Famous 1938 Carnegie Hall Jazz Concert. By 1944 he added the bass clarinet, co-composed Rockin’ in Rhythm and was usually responsible for executing the bubbling clarinet solo on this tune. In 1957, he was part of a band led by pianist Billy Taylor that recorded the album Taylor Made Jazz.

For over four decades Harry became the longest-serving player in Ellington’s orchestra. On occasions, he would serve as the band’s conductor, recorded one album as a leader and had many showpiece features written for him by the bandleader including his 1973 Third Sacred Concert built around his baritone saxophone.

Over the course of his career, he recorded with Rosemary Clooney, Ella Fitzgerald, Johnny Hodges, Jazz at the Philharmonic, and Billy Taylor. After Ellington’s death on May 24, 1974, some four months later baritone saxophonist and bass clarinetist Harry Carney,  who was an early jazz proponent of circular breathing, passed away on October 8, 1974, in New York City.

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Daily Dose Of Jazz…

Born John Norman Mapp on March 31, 1928 and raised in Queens, New York. He started his music career as a singer with the U.S. Army band during World War II while stationed in Europe. Receiving his honorable discharge, he returned home to continue singing in New York City.

After an evening of performing, Dinah Washington went uptown to a Harlem night club to hear Norman sing at his debut. Impressed by his performance she adopted him as her protégé, encouraged him to continue singing and writing songs, and helped him start his career as a soloist and big-band musician.

As a composer, Mapp’s songs include Jazz Ain’t Nothin’ but Soul, I Worry ‘Bout You, Mr. Ugly, In the Night, Free Spirits, and Foul Play. His songs have been performed by Count Basie, Betty Carter, Marvin Gaye, Gigi Gryce, Peggy Lee, and Arthur Prysock.

Vocalist and composer Norman Mapp, who never regretted making music his career…because it brought him a wealth of experience, passed away in 1988.

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Daily Dose Of Jazz…

Mharlyn Merritt was born on March 30, 1950 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, the daughter of bassist Jymie Merritt. A vocalist rooted in jazz, R&B and classic soul, she has collaborated with her brother Michael on a recording titled Alone Together. She has paid tribute to cabaret with her Jukebox Reveries: Love Songs from the American Songbook as well as experimenting with other genres of music.

A novelist and poet with a Masters of Fine Arts in Creative Writing, Mharlyn is a recipient of a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship in Jazz Performance and an Interdisciplinary Arts Fellowship from the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts.

Her band Messenger, she has opened fr Hugh Masekela, Eddie Palmieri, and Richard Beltzer among others. She has graced numerous sessions as a background vocalist at Sigma Sound Studios in Philadelphia. Having lived in New York and London vocalist Mharlyn Merritt currently resides in Philadelphia and continues to write, perform and record.

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Daily Dose Of Jazz…

Kamil Běhounek was born on March 29, 1916 in Blatná, Czech Republic and was an autodidact on accordion, having learned to play by imitating recordings and BBC broadcasts. While studying law in Prague he began performing in clubs and recorded his first solo accordion date in 1936. By the late 1930s, he was working with the Blue Music Orchestra, Rudolf Antonin Dvorsky, Jiří Traxler, and Karel Vlach.

In 1943, he was forcibly compelled by the Nazis to go to Berlin and make arrangements for the bands of Lutz Templin and Ernst van’t Hoff. Upon returning to Czechoslovakia in 1945, he used some of these arrangements for his own band, then returned to Germany the following year, where he continued arranging for bandleaders such as Adalbert Luczkowski, Willy Berking, Heinz Schönberger, and Werner Müller.

He played with his own ensemble, including in Bonn, Germany and after 1948 he performed in West Germany at American soldiers’ clubs. Between 1968 and 1977 he recorded several albums of folk music but continued to play swing with his own groups. He also wrote an autobiography, Má láska je jazz (Jazz is my Love), which was published posthumously in 1986.

Bohemian accordionist, bandleader, arranger, composer, and film scorer Kamil Běhounek, who occasionally played tenor saxophone, passed away on November 22, 1983 in Bonn, Germany.

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Daily Dose Of Jazz…

Bill Hughes was born William Henry Hughes in Dallas, Texas on March 28, 1930. His family moved to Washington, D.C., when he was nine years old where his father worked at the Bureau of Engraving and played trombone in the Elks Club marching band. He began learning to play the trombone around age twelve and was performing in Washington jazz venues by the age of sixteen. One of the clubs was the 7T Club, where he met and performed with saxophonist and flutist Frank Wess.

While students at Howard University, Hughes and Wess played in the Howard Swingmasters, along with bassist Eddie Jones. Though interested in music he originally wanted to pursue a career as a pharmacist and graduated from the University’s School of Pharmacy in 1952 and began working at the National Institutes of Health.

His career plans changed the following year when Wess, a member of the Count Basie Orchestra, suggested that Count Basie invite him to join the band. Also asked to join the Duke Ellington Orchestra, he declined and in 1953, he joined the Basie band where he already knew members Frank Wess, Eddie Jones, and Benny Powell. He played in a three-piece tenor trombone section with Powell and Henry Coker until 1957, when he decided to take a break from touring in order to help raise his family.

During this hiatus, Bill worked for the United States Postal Service and played trombone at the Howard Theater as well as with some small groups in Washington. A few years after returning to the band in 1963, he switched from the tenor to the bass trombone. In 2003 he took over leadership of the band following the death of Grover Mitchell.  He retired from the band in 2010 and spent the last years of his life in Staten Island, New York with his wife and three children. On January 14, 2018 trombonist Bill Hughes passed away at the age of 87.

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