Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Frank Guarente was born Francisco Saverio Guarente on October 5, 1893 in Montemiletto, Italy and received formal training in music before emigrating to America in 1910. He settled in Allentown, Pennsylvania, where a brother of his lived.
Relocating to New Orleans, Louisiana in 1914, where he took a job in a bank and associated with ethnically Italian musicians such as Nick LaRocca and Tony Parenti. He met King Oliver and eventually started getting gigs with New Orleans brass bands. He played at Tom Anderson’s club and toured Texas under the name Ragtime Frank with his ensemble, the Alabama Five.
Serving in the United States Army during World War I in 1917, then played in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania with Charlie Kerr and Eddie Lang. Putting together his own group in 1921 in New York City, which included Arthur Schutt and Chauncey Morehouse. Soon after, Paul Specht picked his players up to join a larger orchestra, and Guarente played with Specht on European tours through 1924.
Leading a Specht side group called The Georgians, they recorded between 1922 and 1924 in the style of the Original Dixieland Jass Band. He left Specht in 1924, to form his own group, The New Georgians, that toured Europe and remained active until 1927. This he followed by working in England with the Savoy Orpheans and ensembles associated with Bert Firman.
Returning to the United States in 1928, he joined Specht’s orchestra again, playing until 1930. He joined Victor Young’s band in 1930, remaining there until 1936, and also played with Jimmy Dorsey, Tommy Dorsey, Jack Teagarden, Bing Crosby, and The Boswell Sisters on record and radio. In 1937 ill health forced him to stop performing and on July 21, 1942 in New York City, trumpeter, composer and bandleader Frank Guarente transitioned at the age of 48.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Alexander Louis Bigard, Jr. was born on September 25, 1899 in New Orleans, Louisiana into a musical family. His brother was Brney and his cousins were Natty Dominque and A.J. Piron. He studied drums under Louis Cottrell, Sr., and played at times with Cottrell in A.J. Piron’s band in the 1910s.
He played with the Excelsior Brass Band and Maple Leaf Orchestra, as well as with Peter DuConge, Buddy Petit, and Chris Kelly in the late 1910s and early Twenties. He was a member of Sidney Desvigne’s band in 1925, then with Kid Shots Madison. For much of the Thirties he worked with John Robichaux.
In the mid-1940s he was in Kid Rena’s band, then formed his own ensemble, the Mighty Four, in the 1950s.During the Dixieland revival period of the 1960s, he was a regular at Preservation Hall, and performed or recorded with Harold Dejan, Kid Howard, Punch Miller, De De Pierce, Billie Pierce.
Becoming deaf around 1967 he left active performance. Drummer Alex Bigard, who was involved for decades with the New Orleans jazz scene, transitioned on June 27, 1978 in his hometown.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Joe Kayser was born St. Louis, Missouri on September 14, 1891 and at age 26 in 1917 he relocated to New York City to join Earl Fuller’s band, which played at a restaurant called Rector’s. He enlisted in the U.S. Navy during World War I, forming a band which included Benny Kubelsky on violin. Following the war, the Meyer Davis Organization hired him to lead a dance band which played in North and South Carolina.
Forming his own self-named dance jazz band in 1921 and shortly after he attempted to tour across the Carolinas. Three years later he relocated to Chicago, Illinois where his band performed through 1936.
During those Chicago days Joe began in 1929 to take positions as musical director of theater orchestras with the Diversey Theater in Chicago, followed by the Midland Theatre in Kansas City, Missouri. He continued to tour with his orchestra while holding these positions.
He played at the 1933 World’s Fair, accompanying Sally Rand but by 1963 had dissolved the band to work for NBC. Afterwards Kayser became an executive for MCA in 1943, remaining there until his retirement in 1955.
Drummer and bandleader Joe Kayser transitioned on October 3, 1981 in Evanston, Illinois.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Francis Craig was the son of a minister born on September 10, 1900 in Dickson, Tennessee. He studied mathematics and political science at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tennessee. While he was at Vanderbilt, he formed an orchestra, the Vanderbilt Jazz Band. When the university’s chancellor told him to change the name of the group, disband it, or leave Vanderbilt, he dropped out and changed the orchestra’s name.
Craig went on to have three stints on WSM radio in Nashville and his Francis Craig Orchestra played on the station from 1926 to 1928 and again in 1935~1939. He returned to the station in 1947 to work as a disc jockey on the program Featured by Francis Craig. He also worked on WGN in Chicago, Illinois, in 1940.
The recording of his own composition Near You was released by Bullet Records and reached the Billboard Best Seller chart in 1947, peaked at #1 and lasted 21 weeks on the chart. It was the first pop hit record ever to come out of Nashville. His other compositions were Dynamite, Beg Your Pardon and Red Rose, among others.
Songwriter, pianist and dance band leader Francis Craig, who played honky~tonk transitioned at age 66 on November 19, 1966, in Sewanee, Tennessee.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Lawrence William “Beau” Dixon was born on September 5, 1894 in Chillicothe, Ohio, the second of five children. His father was a farm laborer and part-time musician, from whom he learned to play music from an early age.
From 1923 to 1928 he played in Chicago, Illinois and Columbus, Ohio with Sammy Stewart’s Ten Knights of Syncopation, which recorded for Paramount Records. During the Twenties Beau also worked with Vance Dixon’s Jazz Maniacs, Fess Williams, Dave Peyton, Paul Jordan, Clarence Moore, and Grant Williams.
In 1931 he joined Earl Hines’s band and remained with him until 1937 as rhythm guitarist and arranger. Dixon worked with Franz Jackson’s Original Jass All Stars in the Chicago area in the 1950s and 1960s.
Banjoist and guitarist Beau Dixon, who suffered for years with pulmonary emphysema and tuberculosis, transitioned on January 16, 1970 in Chicago.