Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Joseph Copeland Garland was born on August 15, 1903 in Norfolk, Virginia and studied music at Shaw University and the Aeolian Conservatory. He started by playing classical music but joined a jazz band, Graham Jackson’s Seminole Syncopators, in 1924, where he first recorded.
He had a long run of associations as a sideman on saxophone and clarinet from 1925 to the end of the decade with Elmer Snowden, Joe Steele, Henri Saparo, Leon Abbey Charlie Skeete and Jelly Roll Morton. By the 1930s he was playing and arranging with Bobby Neal and the Mills Blue Rhythm Band from 1932 to 1936. When Lucky Millinder replaced him, he joined Edgar Hayes in 1937, then Don Redman the following year, and Louis Armstrong from 1939 to 1942.
In the 1940s, he played with Claude Hopkins and others, and then returned to Armstrong’s band mid decade for two years. Following this he played with Herbie Fields, Hopkins again, and Earl Hines. In the 1950s, he went into semi-retirement.
Garland wrote a number of well-known swing jazz hits, including Serenade To A Savage and Leap Frog. He is credited as the composer with lyricist Andy Razaf for In the Mood which became a Glenn Miller hit. Saxophonist, composer, and arranger Joe Garland transitioned on April 21, 1977 in Teaneck, New Jersey.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Jesse Alexandria Stacy was born on August 11, 1904 in Bird’s Point, Missouri, a small town across the Mississippi River from Cairo, Illinois. His first piano teacher was Mabel Irene Bailey, who played piano for silent movies. In 1918 Stacy moved to Cape Girardeau, Missouri. He received his only formal music training with Clyde Brandt, a professor of piano and violin at Southeast Missouri State Teachers College, now Southeast Missouri State University while holding down a job sweeping Clark’s Music Store.
By 1920, Stacy was playing piano in Peg Meyer’s jazz ensemble at Cape Girardeau High School, the Bluebird Confectionery, and the Sweet Shop. Schoolmates called them the Agony Four. By 1921, the band was known as Peg Meyer’s Melody Kings and started touring the Mississippi River on the Majestic and other riverboats.[6]
The early 1920s saw Jess moving to Chicago, Illinois where he performed with Paul Mares, leader of the New Orleans Rhythm Kings, playing Chicago-style jazz. In 1935, Benny Goodman asked him to join his band, then moved to New York City, and spent 1935–39 with the Benny Goodman Orchestra, including a Carnegie Hall concert in 1938, where he played an unplanned piano solo during Sing, Sing, Sing (With a Swing). After leaving the Goodman Orchestra, he joined the Bob Crosby Orchestra and the Bob Crosby Bob-Cats.
Moving to Los Angeles, California in 1950 his career declined to club work and after a drunken woman spilled beer in his lap he announced he was quitting the music business and retired from public performances. He worked as a salesman, warehouseman, postman, and for Max Factor cosmetics before being rediscovered. He played for Nelson Riddle on the soundtrack of The Great Gatsby in 1974, was invited to play at the Newport Jazz Festival in New York and was asked to record twice for Chiaroscuro, in 1974 and 1977, Stacy Still Swings.
After his brief revival in the 1970s, he again retired from music and lived with his third wife, Patricia Peck Stacy, for forty-five years. Pianist Jess Stacy ,who won the DownBeat magazine piano poll in 1940 and was inducted posthumously into the Big Band and Jazz Hall of Fame in 1996, transitioned from congestive heart failure in Los Angeles on January 1, 1995.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Dan “Slamfoot” Minor was born August 10, 1909 in Dallas, Texas, and played trombone for a local church orchestra in his teens before joining local band the Blue Moon Chasers. In 1927, his first major professional engagement was as a member of Walter Page’s Blue Devils.
In 1929 Minor joined the Blues Syncopaters led by Ben Smith, and during this period he also worked in bands led by Earl Dykes, Gene Coy, Lloyd Hunter and Alphonse Trent. By 1931 he joined the Bennie Moten band, remaining after Moten’s death in 1935, when its leadership was taken over by Count Basie, and stayed with the Basie orchestra until 1941. During that period he performed at the From Spirituals to Swing concerts in New York City in 1938 and 1939.
However, Dan tended to be overshadowed by other trombonists such as Benny Morton and Vic Dickenson, and rarely took solos. He joined the Buddy Johnson band in 1942, and also played around that time with Cab Calloway. He worked with Mercer Ellington in 1945, and also recorded and played with Lucky Millinder and Willie Bryant.
After the 1940s, through to the 1960s, he continued to perform occasionally on a freelance basis. Trombonist Dan Minor transitioned in New York City on April 11, 1982 at the age of 72.
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Three Wishes
While hanging out at the Cathouse one evening Pannonica inquired of Rudy Powell as to his three wishes if they could come true and he told her:
- “I’d like to be equipped to further jazz.”
- “Through that I’d be able to promote a spotlight for musicians who’ve never had a chance and deserve some.”
- “I would try to effectuate a way to alleviate the cliques that have been developing through the years, and which have hindered some fine players from exploring their talents.”
*Excerpt from Three Wishes: An Intimate Look at Jazz Greats ~ Compiled and Photographed by Pannonica de Koenigswarter
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Three Wishes
When the Baroness asked Pee Wee Russell if he had the opportunity to get three wishes granted what would they be he responded with:
- “To make Monk happy on the stage at Newport.”
- “I’d like to become a better musician ~ providing I’m one now.”
- “To make enough to give my wife everything she desires.”
*Excerpt from Three Wishes: An Intimate Look at Jazz Greats ~ Compiled and Photographed by Pannonica de Koenigswarter
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