Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Dardanelle was born Marcia Marie Mullen on December 27, 1917 in Avalon, Massachusetts and chose her stage name early in her career. Starting her musical career in the 1930s, she led her own trio with guitarist Tal Farlow and bassist Paul Edenfieldin the mid-1940s. They appeared in the Copa Lounge at the Copacabana nightclub in New York City. Their repertoire included jazz standards, hot numbers, blues titles and some original compositions, novelty songs.
In addition to piano, Dardanelle sang and recorded for Victor in 1946. In 1951 she recorded for Columbia Records, but like many of her colleagues, she focused more on her family and disappeared from the music business until the Sixties. By then she began working for radio and television stations as a musician and actress. Outside Chicago, Illinois she had her own show featuring her sons Skip (a drummer) and Brian as a musician. From 1966 to 1984 she lived in Glen Rock, New York and had a comeback as a jazz singer in the late Seventies. It appeared on Stash ‘s two albums Songs for New Lovers and The Colors of My Life , in which Dardanelle toured with her trio, Bucky Pizzarelli, George Duvivier and Grady Tate.
Dardanelle performed and recorded through the Eighties on the Audiophile label with guest appearance by Slam Stewart. on her album New York, New York – Sounds of the Apple which was nominated for the Grammy. A move to Oxford, Mississippi, in 1986 she was a lecturer in Artist in Residence at the University of Mississippi.
Her last public appearance was in 1997 in Greenwood, Massachusetts Jazz and blues and singer, vibist and pianist Dardanelle passed away on August 8, 1997 in Memphis, Tennessee due to complications of a heart valve operation at the age of 79.
Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Quinn Brown Wilson was born on December 26, 1908 in Chicago, Illinois and played violin as a child. Studying composition and arrangement in his youth, he had his first professional experience in the mid-1920s, playing with Tiny Parham, Walter Barnes, Jelly Roll Morton, Erskine Tate, and Richard M. Jones.
The 1930s saw Quinn arranging and playing bass with Earl Hines from 1931 to 1939, in addition to playing bass on record with Jimmie Noone. Not limiting himself to just playing jazz, in the 1940s he began playing electric bass and started recording with R&B and blues musicians, including Lefty Bates and John Lee Hooker.
He continued to play jazz as well, working with Bill Reinhardt in the 1960s and Joe Kelly in the 1970s. Bassist and tubist Quinn Wilson passed away on June 14, 1978 in Evanston, Illinois.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Oscar Frederic Moore was born in Austin, Texas on December 25, 1915 but grew up in Los Angeles, California. During the Thirties he often worked with his brother, Johnny, who was also a guitarist. Beginning in 1937, he spent ten years with Nat King Cole in the guitar-bass-drums trio format that influenced Oscar Peterson, Art Tatum, and Ahmad Jamal.
After he left Cole, he joined his brother in Johnny Moore’s Three Blazers through the 1950s. He recorded two solo albums in 1954, then left the field of music. During the last decades of his life, he laid bricks and ran a gas station.
Barney Kessel stated that Oscar practically created the role of the jazz guitarist in small combos. He was voted top guitarist of 1945, 1946, and 1947 in the Down Beat magazine readers’ poll.
Guitarist Oscar Moore, who performed and recorded with Lionel Hampton, Art Tatum, The Capitol International Jazzmen, Anita O’Day, Lester Young, Benny Carter, Ray Charles, Illinois Jacquet and Sonny Criss, passed away on October 8, 1981 in Las Vegas, Nevada.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Ralph Marterie was born on December 24, 1914 in Acerra, near Naples, Italy and first played professionally at age 14 in Chicago, Illinois. In the 1940s, he played trumpet for various bands. His first job as a bandleader was courtesy of the US Navy during World War II, after which he was hired by the ABC Radio network. With his reputation built from these broadcasts, he secured a recording contract with Mercury Records.
In 1953 his big band recorded a version of Bill Haley’s Crazy, Man, Crazy, which reached #13 on the Billboard jockey chart and #11 on Cashbox in June, 1953. His recordings of Pretend and Caravan also made the Top 10 with the latter selling over a million copies and was awarded a gold disc. His biggest success on the U.S. charts was a cover of Skokiaan in 1954. In 1957, he had success with Tricky and Shish-Kebab.
Big band leader Ralph Marterie, who composed Dancing Trumpet, Dry Marterie, and Carla, passed away on October 10, 1978, in Dayton, Ohio.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Joseph Alison Harris was born on December 23, 1926 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania and took lessons at an early age from Pittsburgh native Bill Hammond, an acclaimed master of traditional rudimental drumming. The training gave him the ability to sit in with a band or orchestra and quickly sight-read almost any style of music. While still in his teens he hit the road playing in big-band ensembles for a globe-trotting career as one of the most versatile jazz drummers of his time, one of the last survivors of the golden era of bebop.
A former Pittsburgh band mate, bassist Ray Brown who had joined Dizzy Gillespie’s pioneering bebop band, arranged for Joe to audition for the drum chair, leading to be a member of the group. Fired for demanding overtime pay for a rehearsal, they later reconciled.
Remaining in high demand throughout his career, he married, lived and played in Sweden for five years during the Fifties, welcoming the contrast from the racial prejudices of the United States. Harris toured Europe with a band led by Quincy Jones, joined a state-run band at Radio Free Berlin and accompanied Charlie Parker, Ella Fitzgerald, Sarah Vaughan, Sonny Rollins, Stan Getz, Billie Holiday and many other greats.
He spent his last decades at his Manchester home, teaching jazz history and drums for years at the University of Pittsburgh, tapered back his performing schedule and mentored younger jazz musicians. Drummer and educator Joe Harris passed away on January 27, 2016 at age of 89.
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