Daily Dose Of Jazz…

Eugene Porter was born in Pocahontas, Mississippi on June 7, 1910 and began on cornet, but when his instrument was stolen he picked up saxophone and clarinet, studying the latter under Omer Simeon. His family moved to Chicago while still in high school, but left school early to start a career in music

Moving to New Orleans, Louisiana in the Thirties he worked in and around town as well as on riverboats, with Papa Celestin, Joe Robichaux, and Sidney Desvigne. He was with the Jeter-Pillars Orchestra from 1935 to 1937, then played with Don Redman briefly before returning to Jeter-Pillars until 1942. Following this Gene worked with Jimmie Lunceford and then with Benny Carter until 1944, working as assistant bandleader under him. He appeared in several films, including with Fats Waller.

Porterer was in the Army in 1944-45 as a member of an Army band, then played with Carter again and recorded with Dinah Washington during this period. For the next two years he performed with Charles Mingus and Lloyd Glenn.

After moving to San Diego, California in 1948 he played with Walter Fuller until 1960. Gene led his own ensemble at the Bronze Room in La Mesa, California beginning in 1967.

Saxophonist and clarinetist Gene Porter, who was named a member of the St. Louis Jazz Hall of Fame in the 1980s, died in San Diego County, California, on February 24, 1993.

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Daily Dose Of Jazz…

Arthur Herbert was born May 28, 1907 in Brooklyn, New York to Trinidadian parents. As a young man he worked in a silver and gold refinery while playing local gigs in New York nightclubs and hotels in his spare time. In 1935 he joined Eddie Williams’s band, and soon after started his own, the Rhythm Masters.

In the 1930s and 1940s he worked as a sideman with musicians such as Pete Brown, Coleman Hawkins, Hot Lips Page and Sidney Bechet. The 1950s saw Herbert in semi-retirement as a musician and started up his own pest extermination business. He played in various swing jazz revival ensembles, and toured with Lem Johnson in Poland in the 1960s.

Herbert taught his nephew, drummer Herb Lovelle, to read sheet music, something black musicians were then not held to know. He got his nephew his first gig with Hot Lips Page. He also taught drummer Shelly Manne, according to Herb Lovelle.

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Daily Dose Of Jazz…

Artie Shaw was born Arthur Jacob Arshawsky on May 23, 1910 in New York City to Austrian and Russian Jewish parents Sarah and Harold Arshawsky, a dressmaker and photographer. He grew up in New Haven, Connecticut, where his natural introversion was deepened by local antisemitism. Buying a saxophone by working in a grocery store and began learning the saxophone at 13. At 16, he switched to the clarinet and left home to tour with a band.

From 1925 to 1936 Shaw performed with many bands and orchestras, working in Cleveland, Ohio and establishing a lasting reputation as music director and arranger for an orchestra led by violinist Austin Wylie. Exposed to symphonic music while playing with Irving Aaronson’s Commanders, which he later incorporated in his arrangements. In 1932 he joined the Roger Wolfe Kahn Orchestra and made several recordings. Three years later he gained attention with his “Interlude in B-flat” at a swing concert at the Imperial Theater in New York. During the swing era, his big bands had numerous popular hits with Begin the Beguine, Stardust and others.

In addition to hiring Buddy Rich, he signed Billie Holiday as his band’s vocalist in 1938, becoming the first white band leader to hire a full-time black female singer to tour the segregated South. However, after recording Any Old Time, Holiday left the band due to hostility from Southern audiences, as well as from music company executives who wanted a more mainstream singer.

He fashioned a smaller band within the orchestra in 1940, naming it Artie Shaw and the Gramercy Five after his home telephone exchange. Over time members of the band were pianist Johnny Guarnieri, electric guitarist Al Hendrickson, trumpeter Roy Eldridge succeeded Billy Butterfield, Oran “Hot Lips” Page, Max Kaminsky, Georgie Auld, Dave Tough, Jack Jenney, and Ray Conniff. In 1940, the original Gramercy Five cut eight sides, then Shaw dissolved the band in early 1941.

The long series of musical groups Shaw subsequently formed included Lena Horne, Helen Forrest, Mel Tormé, Buddy Rich, Dave Tough, Barney Kessel, Jimmy Raney, Tal Farlow, Dodo Marmarosa, and Ray Conniff.

Throughout his career, Shaw formed big bands for his radio broadcasts, made several musical shorts for Vitaphone and Paramount Pictures, and played with Navy personnel during World War II. Active until 1954, his music was used in several films, he had numerous talk show appearances, came out of retirement in 1983 and put together one last band.

Clarinetist Artie Shaw, who received a Lifetime Grammy Award in 2004, died on December 30, 2004, aged 94.

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Daily Dose Of Jazz…

Jacques Butler was born on April 29, 1909 in Washington, D.C. but didn’t pick up the trumpet until his late teens. He began playing professionally with Cliff Jackson and Horace Henderson in New York City, then joined Marion Hardy’s Alabamians in 1931 for a year.

Leading his own ensemble in New York and touring from 1934-1935, Jacques also made recordings with Willie Bryant before relocating to Europe in 1936, where the two performed together until 1939. During that period he played with Frank “Big Boy” Goudie as well as with his own bands. He would tour Scandinavia before WWII and in 1940 he became well known in the Norwegian jazz community, and while visiting Oslo he recorded one 78 rpm. Returning to New York City that same year he played and recorded with Mercer Ellington, Art Hodes, Mezz Mezzrow, and Bingie Madison.

After a brief stay in Toronto he moved back to Europe in 1950, remaining there until 1968 as a regular at the La Cigale club in Paris, France. He appeared in the 1961 Paul Newman/Sidney Poitier film Paris Blues. In the 1970s he came home to the States and was seen working often in New York City, as a sideman with Clyde Bernhardt among others, and in the studio.

Trumpeter and vocalist Jacques Butler, who was sometimes listed as Jack, died in 2003. The date of his death is unknown.

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Daily Dose Of Jazz…

Avery “Kid“ Howard was born on April 22, 1908 in New Orleans, Louisiana and began on drums at about age fourteen, but switched to cornet and then trumpet after playing with Chris Kelly.

In 1920s New Orleans, Howard played with the Eureka Brass Band, Allen’s Brass Band, and the Tuxedo Brass Band. He led his own bands late in the 1920s and early in the 1930s and it was his band which played at the jazz funeral for Buddy Petit. He played in the Palace Theatre pit orchestra from 1938 to 1943.

In 1943, he recorded with George Lewis, considered to be among his best recordings. In 1946, he led the Original Zenith Brass Band, but played only locally for the next few years. 1952 saw the trumpeter returning to playing with Lewis, where he would remain until 1961. Kid’s later recordings with Lewis are uneven because of his battle with alcoholism, which interfered with his abilities as a soloist.

Howard fell ill in 1961 and left Lewis’s band, and upon his recovery he led his own band from 1961 to 1965, and recorded sessions, several of them highly praised.

Trumpeter and bandleader Kid Howard, who was a mainstay on the New Orleans jazz scene, continued to play in New Orleans at Preservation Hall and other venues up until his death of a brain hemorrhage on March 28, 1966 in his hometown.

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