Daily Dose Of Jazz…
William Hooker was born on June 18, 1946 in New Britain, Connecticut. He began his music education singing in the church choir before receiving private drum lessons from the age of 10. He training continued as he played in the Nathan Hale Junior High, New Britain High School and Central Connecticut State College bands.
Starting off playing in rock and roll bands it wasn’t until he was sixteen that he got into jazz, learning standards from an older musician who taught him the essentials of leading a band. During his college years he listened to as many records and live performances as he could, gaining a wealth of knowledge. He also was a member of an organ trio as he matriculated through college and has since performed as a leader of many ensembles in San Francisco, California and New York City, leaning towards avant-garde, improvised and new music.
He has performed or recorded with Billy Bang, Thurston Moore, David Murray, David S. Ware, William Parker, Melvin Gibbs, Donald Miller, DJ Olive, Elliott Sharp, Malachi Thompson, Zeena Parkins, Lee Ranaldo, DJ Spooky, Rob Brown, Roy Campbell, Mark Hennen, Steven Bernstein, Roy Nathanson, Jason Hwang, Dave Soldier, Sabir Mateen, Glenn Spearman, Joseph Celli, Ellen Christi, Liudas Mockūnas, among many others.
Lauded by Downbeat, The Wire and the San Francisco Chronicle as an inspired and fluent drummer who gives long performances of consistent energy and is a kingpin of the free jazz world, drummer and composer William Hooker continues to perform, compose and record.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Sing Miller was born James Miller in New Orleans, Louisiana on June 17, 1914. He started out his career singing with the Harmonizing Browns Quartet and playing banjo, but in the late 1920s he switched to piano. He did solo freelance work and as an accompanist in New Orleans in the 1930s, playing with Percy Humphrey for a time.
Serving in the military during World War II, after his discharge he played with Earl Foster’s band from 1945 to 1961. During the 1960s he was a regular at Preservation Hall, working with Kid Thomas Valentine, Kid Sheik Colar, The Humphrey Brothers, Jim Robinson, and Polo Barnes. He did asolo tours of Europe in 1979 and 1981, and recorded two full-length albums under his own name, a 1972 effort for Dixie Records and one in 1978 for Smoky Mary.
Pianist Sing Miller, who was a longtime performer on the New Orleans jazz scene, passed away on May 18, 1990.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Marilyn Moore was born on June 16, 1930 in Chicago, Illinois. She began her singing career during the 1950s and recorded only one solo album as a leader on the Bethlehem label titled Moody Marilyn Moore in 1957.
Her vocal style was similar to Billie Holiday’s, and according to jazz critic Will Friedwald, the two were friends. When Marilyn was an aspiring teenager vocalist in California she wrote her for advice. They wrote some thirty letters to one another during the 1940s. Holiday encouraged her and advised her to look up producer John Hammond when she arrived in New York City.
Vocalist Marilyn Moore, the first wife of saxophonist Al Cohn, who played on her album and the mother of guitarist Joe Cohn, passed away on March 19, 1992 in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida.
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Melvin Moore was born on June 15, 1923 in Chicago, Illinois. In 1944 the trumpeter began his career playing with Lucky Millinder, then joined Duke Ellington’s Orchestra from 1948 to 1950. This he followed with performance in rhythm and blues bands. By 1951 he was recording with Dizzy Gillespie and singing on such titles as The Champ and Swing Low, Sweet Cadillac.
At the end of 1951 he was recording some vocal titles for King Records with Terry Gibbs, Billy Taylor, Mundell Lowe and Charles Mingus. In 1957 he was a member of Don Redman’s orchestra, the following year he recorded with John Pisano and with Billy Bean. Between 1964 and 1966 he worked with Gerald Wilson and he also accompanied Johnny Hartman. During the Sixties he performed on separate dates at the Monterey Jazz Festival with Mingus, Thelonious Monk and Dizzy Gillespie.
By 1967 he was playing in B.B. Kings band followed by the Seventies bands of Esther Phillips, T – Bone Walker, Don Sugarcane Harris, Johnny Otis, Jerry Garcia and Shuggie Otis and in the early 1980s with Ted Hawkins. Moore is not to be confused with the singer born in 1917, who sang with Jimmie Lunceford and Ernie Fields .
Trumpeter, violinist and singer of swing and bebop Mel Moore passed away on February 26, 1989 in New York City.
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John Simmons was born June 14, 1918 in Haskell, Oklahoma and played trumpet at first, but a sports injury prevented him from continuing on the instrument. He picked up bass instead, landing his first professional gigs a mere four months after starting on the instrument. Early on he played with Nat King Cole and Teddy Wilson in 1937 before moving to Chicago, Illinois where he played with Jimmy Bell, King Kolax, Floyd Campbell, and Johnny Letman.
1940 saw him playing with Roy Eldridge and then spent 1941 to 1942 playing at various times with Benny Goodman, Cootie Williams, and Louis Armstrong. From 1942 to 1943 John played in the CBS Blue Network Orchestra, then played with Duke Ellington, Eddie Heywood and Illinois Jacquet through 1946, in addition to doing much studio work.
Simmons recorded with Lester Young, James P. Johnson, Hot Lips Page, Ben Webster, Billie Holiday, Sidney DeParis, Sid Catlett, Coleman Hawkins, Don Byas, Benny Carter, Bill DeArango, Al Casey, Ella Fitzgerald, Charles Thompson, Milt Jackson, Buddy Rich, Tadd Dameron, Matthew Gee, Maynard fErguson and Thelonious Monk among numerous others.
Much of the 1950s Simmons continued to work as a studio musician recording with Erroll Garner, Harry “Sweets” Edison, Art Tatum, and the Rolf Ericson/Duke Jordan band. One of his last associations was with Phineas Newborn in 1960 before ill health forced his retirement not long afterwards. Bassist John Simmons passed away on September 19, 1979 in Orange, New York.
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