Daily Dose Of Jazz…

Photographer Chuck Stewart was born in Henrietta, Texas in 1927 and grew up in Tucson, Arizona. He received a Kodak Brownie camera as a present when he was 13 years old and used it that same day to take photos of Marian Anderson, who had come to visit his school. After they were developed, he was able to sell his photos for two dollars, making him a professional photographer from the first day he took pictures. He attended Ohio University as a photography major, one of the only two universities in the United States that offered the program at the collegiate level and the only one that would then accept African American students.

While in college, his friendship with photographer Herman Leonard helped him make connections with record companies in New York City. His clients would include Impulse, Mercury, Reprise and Verve, for whom he took cover photos of artists such jazz and R&B icons as Louis Armstrong, Count Basie, Ray Charles, Miles Davis, Ella Fitzgerald, Duke Ellington, Lionel Hampton, Rahsaan Roland Kirk, Charles Mingus, Eric Dolphy, Max Roach, Sonny Rollins, Sarah Vaughan and Dinah Washington, appearing on more than 2,000 albums and in publications including Esquire, Paris Match and The New York Times, as well as in the Encyclopedia of Jazz by jazz journalist Leonard Feather. He also worked for Chess Records in Chicago and its Argo subsidiary.

Stewart always tried to capture his subjects in as flattering a pose as possible, saying “I didn’t want them picking their nose or scratching their behind. It was important to me that I take a picture of a person in a manner that I thought they looked best.” During the 1950s and 1960s he was turned down for more lucrative advertising photography when agencies said that their clients “don’t have black people down here sweeping the floors” and would rather resign the account than accept him.

A widowed father of three children, Stewart has lived in Teaneck, New Jersey since 1965 in a home furnished with carpeting and fixtures that he received from some of his photography assignments. Despite having a piano in his home and exposure to many of music’s greats, Stewart remarked that he himself “couldn’t play Chopsticks”, even after years of lessons.

In conjunction with Stewart’s recognition with the Milt Hinton Award for Excellence in Jazz Photography, Jazz at Lincoln Center presented an exhibition titled Looking at the Music: The Jazz Photography of Chuck Stewart, which ran from November 2008 to February 2009. In 2014, 25 of Chuck’s photographs documenting the recording of John Coltrane’s A Love Supreme were inducted into the Smithsonian.

Photographer Chuck Stewart passed away on January 20, 2017.

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Daily Dose Of Jazz..

Fred Lee Beckett was born on January 23, 1917 in Nettleton, Mississippi and began playing horn in high school. He began playing the trombone professionally in Kansas City, Missouri in the 1930s. Soon after beginning his career he landed a job with Eddie Johnson’s Crackerjacks in St. Louis, Missouri.
He went on to play with Duke Wright, Tommy Douglas, Buster Smith and Andy Kirk over the next few years. Beckett spent time as well in a territory band with Prince Stewart and played a gig in Omaha, Nebraska with Nat Towles. Towards the end of the Thirties he played with Harlan Leonard.
The early 1940s saw Fred performing and recording extensively with Lionel Hampton, and providing trombone support behind Dinah Washington recordings. Serving in the Army during World War II he contracted tuberculosis and passed away of the illness on January 30, 1946. He was twenty-nine years old.

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Daily Dose Of Jazz…

Ed Lewis was born on January 22, 1909 in Eagle City, Oklahoma. His  early career saw  him in Kansas City, Missouri playing with Jerry Westbrook as a baritone saxophonist, but in 1925 he switched to trumpet He played with Paul Banks and Laura Rucker before joining the Bennie Moten Orchestra, where he was the primary trumpet soloist from 1926-1932 until Hot Lips Page joined the outfit.

In the 1932 he worked with Thamon Hayes for two years followed by a three year stint with Harlan Leonard, the in 1937 played for a short time with Jay McShann. That same year Ed joined the Count Basie Orchestra, remaining until 1948 and though he recorded frequently with the orchestra, he almost never soloed.

In the 1950s Lewis led his own band in New York City for strictly local gigs, and worked for a period as a taxicab driver. He returned to play with The Countsmen in Europe in 1984, shortly before his death.

Harry “Sweets” Edison considered Lewis and Snooky Young the two greatest first trumpet players he ever played with. Trumpeter Ed Lewis, who never led his own recording session, passed away on September 18, 1985.

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Daily Dose Of Jazz…

Bob Whitlock was born Von Varlynn Whitlock on January 21,1931 in Roosevelt, Utah. As a young musician in 1947 he accompanied Lena Horne and in 1949 was with Steve White. By the early 1950s he was in Charlie Barnet’s band then went on to join Gerry Mulligan. He introduced Mulligan to his friend Chet Baker and with Chico Hamilton made up the quartet.

In 1952 Bob worked in the bands of Art Pepper and Russ Freeman and that same year he played in the session at The Tradewinds Club with Harry Babasin, Dave Pell, Sonny Criss, Wardell Gray, Lawrence Marable and Chet Baker. The mid-1950s saw him working on the Stan Getz album, Getz and the Cool Sounds. In 1957 he played in a trio with Joe Albany and Warne Marsh on the album The Right Combination.

Whitlock led a quartet and taught music theory at the University of California. In 1961 he performed in Paris, he played and toured with George Shearing from1965 to 1956, then in 1966 he played with Joe Pass on the Simplicity sessions. After this recording session there are no further known recordings.

Bassist Bob Whitlock, who was a part of the West Coast jazz scene, passed away from a stroke at age 84 on June 30, 2015 in Long Beach, California.

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Daily Dose Of Jazz…

José James was born on January 20, 1978 in Minneapolis, Minnesota and combines jazz, soul, drum’n’bass, and spoken word into his own unique brand of vocal jazz. Though his main influences are John Coltrane, Marvin Gaye, and Billie Holiday, his sound is reminiscent of ’70s jazz-soul icon Terry Callier, and his music feels more like an update of Gil Scott-Heron’s approach, but he makes it distinctly his own.

José attended The New School for Jazz and Contemporary Music and in 2008 debuted his first album, The Dreamer, on the Brownswood label. Blackmagic followed in 2010, as well as, For All We Know on the Impulse! Label, the latter becoming the winner of both the Edison Award and L’Académie du Jazz Grand Prix for best Vocal Jazz Album of 2010.

Signing to Blue Note Records in 2012 James issued Trouble, his first single for the label, with his fourth album, No Beginning, No End released the following year. New compositions brought the release of 2014’s While You Were Sleeping, a collection that reflected rock alongside R&B and jazz.

In commemoration of the 100th birthday of his musical mother, Billie Holiday, José recorded nine songs written by or associated with her on Yesterday I Had the Blues. He fronted a band that included pianist Jason Moran, bassist John Patitucci, and drummer Eric Harland.

Vocalist and bandleader José James, who blends modern jazz and hip-hop, continues to perform globally both as a leader and with other groups.

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