Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Connee Boswell was born Constance Foore Boswell on December 3, 1907 in Kansas City, Missouri but raised in New Orleans, Louisiana. With sisters Martha and Helvetia “Vet”, she performed in the 1920s and 1930s as the trio The Boswell Sisters. They came to be well known locally while still in their early teens, making appearances in New Orleans theaters and on radio. The girls started their career as instrumentalists but became a highly influential singing group via their recordings and film and television appearances.
They made their first recordings for Victor Records in 1925, which featured Connee singing in the style of her early influence, Mamie Smith. The sisters became stage professionals that year when they were tapped to fill in for an act at New Orleans’ Orpheum Theatre. This led to a gig in Chicago, Illinois and then on to San Francisco, California. The desk clerk at the recommended hotel was Harry Leedy was part owner of Decca Records, became their manager on a handshake and later Connee’s husband.
The next stop was Los Angeles, California where they performed on local radio and “side-miked” for the soundies. National attention came with a move to New York City in 1930 and the making of national radio broadcasts. After a few recordings with Okeh Records, they recorded for Brunswick Records from 1931 to 1935.
Connee recorded as a solo artist and had several successful singles. In 1935, the sisters had a No. 1 hit with The Object of My Affection, and the group signed to Decca Records, but after just three releases two sisters called it quits in 1936. Connee, however, continued to have a successful solo career as a singer for Decca but also later recorded for the new Apollo label, RCA Victor, and Decca subsidiary, Design.
During the Forties she was a co-star on NBC Radio’s Kraft Music Hall, starred in her own radio show on the NBC Blue Network, The Connee Boswell Show, and featured on CBS Radio’s Tonight On Broadway, among numerous other radio appearances and films. She was a favorite duet partner of Bing Crosby, and they frequently sang together on radio, as well as recording several hit records as a duo in the 1930s and 1940s.
Vocalist Connee Boswell, who recorded ten albums as a leader and had fifteen hits reach the top 12 on the Billboard list, died on October 11, 1976 from stomach cancer at Mount Sinai Hospital in New York City at age 68.
More Posts: bandleader,history,instrumental,jazz,music,vocal
Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Guy Edgar Kelly was born in Scotlandville, Louisiana on November 22, 1906. In his early career he performed in Baton Rouge, Louisiana with a band led by Toots Johnson before going to New Orleans, Louisiana to play in Papa Celestin’s band in 1927-1928. While residing there he would regularly perform in trumpet duels with Red Allen.
In 1929 he went on tour as a member of Kid Howard’s band, and then joined Boyd Atkins’s band in the summer of 1930. By 1931 Kelly had moved to Chicago, Illinois where he was working with Cassino Simpson and Erskine Tate.
In the 1930s he worked with banjoist Ed Carry, pianists Dave Peyton, Tiny Parham, Albert Ammons, violinist Carroll Dickerson, and clarinetist Jimmie Noone,. Guy appears on the Noone classic composition The Blues Jumped A Rabbit, recorded Chicago on January 15, 1936.
Trumpeter and singer Guy Kelly died February 24, 1940.
Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Wallace Leon Jones was born on November 16, 1906 in Baltimore, Maryland. He began playing trumpet in local Maryland bands such as Ike Dixon’s Harmony Birds and Percy Glascoe’s Kit Kat Orchestra early in his career.
He moved to New York City around 1935 and went to work with his cousin Chick Webb. He then joined Willie Bryant’s ensemble and recorded with Putney Dandridge and Duke Ellington, the latter where he was credited on clarinet, trombone and trumpet from 1938 to 1944.
He appeared in several sound films with Ellington, including 1943’s Cabin in the Sky. After this association, Wallace recorded with Ellington again in 1947, and also worked with Benny Carter, Snub Mosley, and John Kirby, but left music by the end of the Forties.
Trumpeter Wallace Jones died on March 23, 1983 in New York City.
More Posts: history,instrumental,jazz,music,trumpet
Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Rollie Culver was born Rolland Pierce Culver on October 29, 1908 in Fond du Lac, Wisconsin. His first entry into professional entertainment was as a tap dancer, but after 1930 he concentrated on drumming.
He went on to play in the territory band of Heinie Beau for most of the Thirties, then in 1941 he began playing with Red Nichols. He drummed behind Nichols for more than twenty years, working with him right up to his death in 1965.
Throughout the rest of his career he played with Jack Delaney and Raymond Burke, and as a session musician for film soundtracks.
Drummer Rollie Culver died on December 8, 1984 in Culver City, California.
More Posts: drums,history,instrumental,jazz,music
Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Sylvester Lewis was born on October 19, 1908 in Kansas City, Missouri and played locally as a college student around the city in the 1920s. His first major tour was with a traveling revue called Shake Your Feet, where he met Herbie Cowens. This meeting led to him joining the Cowens group, playing at the Rockland Palace in New York City in 1928.
He recorded with Jelly Roll Morton in New York the same year. After a stint with Aubrey Neal in 1929, Lewis joined Claude Hopkins’s band, playing with him from 1930 to 1936 and recording with him extensively between 1932 and 1935.
Leaving Hopkins, he performed in Billy Butler’s orchestra for the theater show Rhapsody in Black and played in Noble Sissle and Eubie Blake’s Shuffle Along in 1941. Sylvester led his own band for troop tours of the Pacific during World War II, and recorded with Roy Eldridge in 1946 after his discharge.
He began studying the Schillinger system in the late 1940s, but gave up music entirely after 1949 and spent the rest of his life working for the New York City Subway.
Trumpeter Sylvester Lewis died in 1974 in New York City.
More Posts: history,instrumental,jazz,music,trumpet