Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Sam Allen was born on January 30, 1909 in Ohio and accompanied silent films in movie palaces from the age of ten, and in the next few years seemed to have absorbed plenty of slapstick hi-jinx and derring-do from the Hollywood sagas he accompanied. In 1928 he moved to New York City, where he joined Herbert Cowans’s band at the Rockland Palace. Within a year he moved back to Ohio, where he played with Alex Jackson in 1930. Soon afterward he joined James P. Johnson‘s orchestra as the second pianist, as one piano could not play all the chords in the scores. This engagement he followed with an extended run in Teddy Hill’s band, which occupied him for most of the 1930s and included tours of Europe.
Early in the 1940s Sam worked one of his most musically satisfying collaborations as piano man in the sometimes rowdy combo of violinist Stuff Smith. He then became the pianist for the madcap jive jazz duo of Slim Gaillard and Slam Stewart, the gig for which he was best known, his years in the movie houses came in handy. His talent was further challenged with the bebop hyper-drive of trumpeter Dizzy Gillespie during the same decade.
By the end of the Forties decade Allen moved to Washington and worked locally as a solo pianist for a time, giving up being a touring sideman. Finally he relocated and settled into the Oakland, California, where he often accompanied vocalist Billie Heywood, among others.
Pianist Sam Allen passed away in September 1963.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Beverly Kenney was born on January 29, 1932 in Harrison, New Jersey and her life saw her working for Western Union as a telephone birthday singer. After moving to New York City in 1954, she recorded a demo with Tony Tamburello and by the end of the year she had moved to Miami, Florida where she landed a recurring engagement at the Black Magic Room. Jimmy and Tommy Dorsey heard her and for several months she toured with the orchestra they co-led.
Moving back to New York, Beverly worked in clubs with George Shearing, Don Elliott and Kai Winding. After a short tour of the Midwest with Larry Sonn, she signed to Roost Records and released her first album in 1956. This recording, Beverly Kenney Sings for Johnny Smith with the quartet of the jazz guitarist Johnny Smith. The album was a success and as a result she secured a residency at the Birdland jazz club, where she was accompanied by the Lester Young Quintet. Her second release was Come Swing with Me with Jimmy Jones led an ensemble behind her for her third and final release for Roost in 1957.
She moved to Decca Records and released three further albums with them, including Beverly Kenney Sings For Playboys in 1958, Born to Be Blue and Like Yesterday in 1959. Beverly Kenney Sings For Playboys featured liner notes by Steve Allen, in which he praised her vocal style and stated, “A word to Playboys: I would not recommend this album as Music to Make the Romantic Approach By. You’re apt to get more interested in Beverly than the girl you’re trying to impress”.
Kenney was a critically acclaimed musician, but she saw little widespread acceptance, due at least in part to the burgeoning rock & roll movement. She had an intense personal dislike for this music, even going so far as to compose a song called “I Hate Rock and Roll”, which she performed on The Steve Allen Show in 1958.
On April 13, 1960, vocalist Beverly Kenney committed suicide with an overdose of alcohol and seconal. She was 28 years old. She remains a cult figure in Japan, where all of her albums have been reissued to CD and have remained in print on a relatively steady basis. Japan’s SSJ Records have released three collections of unreleased Beverly Kenney material between 2006 to 2009: Snuggled on Your Shoulder, Lonely and Blue and What Is There To Say?, culminating in a dozen albums.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Janine Santana was born January 28th in Brooklyn, New York of Puerto Rican and Finnish ancestry and spent her childhood in Brooklyn and youth in Trenton, New Jersey. She developed a love for Afro-Cuban/ Caribbean traditions and Jazz and began working and studying as a professional actor at a very young age, long before studying music at Aims Community College.
A 1994 move to Denver, Colorado focused her more on performance, music recording and broadcasting. She leads a 6-12 piece Latin Jazz Ensemble and her well received 2009 recording Soft as Granite had Janine working with alto saxophonist Richie Cole, trumpeters Greg Gisbert and Brad Goode, and arranger/percussionist José Madera.
Conguera, percussionist, leader, arranger, studio musician, broadcaster, artist, designer, writer and actor Janine Santana currently continues to perform, record and collaborating with generations of jazz and Latin jazz musicians on a brand new project with the likes of Luques Curtis, Bobby Porcelli, David Amram, Jose’ Madera on timbales and arrangements, Ricky Gonzalez as producer/pianist/arranger and Ray Vega on trumpets.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Milt Raskin was born on January 27, 1916 in Boston, Massachusetts and played saxophone as a child before switching to piano at age 11. In the 1930s he attended the New England Conservatory of Music and worked on local Boston-area radio.
Moving to New York City, Milt played with Wingy Manone in 1937 at the Famous Door and with Gene Krupa in 1938-39. He then played with Teddy Powell and Alvino Rey before rejoining Krupa again for a short time. Following this stint, he joined the Tommy Dorsey Orchestra for two years in 1942, replacing Joe Bushkin.
He relocated to Los Angeles, California in 1944, where he occasionally worked in jazz, recording with Artie Shaw, Billie Holiday and Georgie Auld, but concentrated on work as a studio musician and musical director. Much of his studio work from the 1940s on was uncredited, and he never led his own jazz recording session. He did, however, formed and led his Exotic Percussion Orchestra and released a few albums in the 1950s and Sixties.
Swing pianist, composer and arranger Milt Raskin passed away on October 16, 1977 in Manhattan, New York.
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Ronnie Stephenson was born January 26, 1937 in Sunderland, England and as a boy wanted to become a tap dancer like his idol Gene Kelly, but he was persuaded by his father and his pianist brother to take up the drums. Already playing his first public gig the same week he took his first drum lesson at the age of 14, Ronnie was soon working with his elder brother Bob’s band, and then with the Ray Chester’s Sextet. Moving to Birmingham he joined the Cliff Deeley Band at the Tower Ballroom, and played for several months before going on the road.
At 16 he joined singer Lita Roza, a national star who had left the Ted Heath band to tour the variety theatre circuit as a soloist. The 10 months he spent with her garnered him great experience in the music business. Conscripted into the Army, Stephenson performed in The Royal Signals Band until he was demobbed in 1957. Having a close association with Ronnie Scott, he spent two years in Scott’s Quartet, playing the club and accompanying many visiting stars.
He toured Germany with Tom Jones in 1969 and then sat the resident drum chair with the Kurt Edelhagen Band after moving to Cologne, Germany with his wife and two children. After three years with Edelhagen, Ronnie teamed up with pianist Paul Kuhn in Berlin, Germany and toured all over Europe with a variety of bands and artists. He played on the Bond themes Diamonds Are Forever and You Only Live Twice and on other film scores, including Chitty Chitty Bang Bang. Stephenson joined the Theater des Westens Orchestra in Berlin from 1981 to 1995, and taught at the University of Berlin from 1990 to 1993. He retired from music due to poor health, settled in Scotland, and turned to golf as a restorative, becoming a member of Strathmore Golf Club.
Drummer Ronnie Stephenson, one of the most in-demand drummers of the British jazz scene, passed away on August 8, 2002. Over the course of his career he performed or recorded with Sonny Rollins, Stan Getz, Wes Montgomery, Zoot Sims, Quincy Jones, Paul Gonsalves, Johnny Griffin, Roland Kirk, Gerry Mulligan, Sonny Stitt, Barney Kessel, Benny Golson, Benny Goodman, Nelson Riddle, Ella Fitzgerald, Mel Tormé, Tony Bennett, Ronnie Ross, Stan Tracey, Ted Heath, Dick Morrissey, Terry Smith, Jack Parnell, John Dankworth, Tubby Hayes, Cleo Laine, Peter Herbolzheimer, Horst Jankowski, Paul Kuhn, Rolf Kuhn, Kenny Clarke, Victor Feldman, Heinz von Hermann and Hans Rettenbacher, among many others including pop stars Matt Monro, Engelbert Humperdinck, Cilla Black and Shirley Bassey.
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