Daily Dose Of Jazz…

J. C. (Jack) Higginbotham was born on May 11, 1906 in Social Circle, Georgia and learned to play trombone in his youth. He made his start in jazz playing with territory bands in the Midwest and was heard at his best while a member of the Luis Russell Orchestra from 1928 to ’31. He would go on to play with Benny Carter’s, Red Allen’s and Fletcher Henderson’s big band during the swing era.

J. C. played with Louis Armstrong in the late Thirties to the end of the decade, played for a long period in the forties with his ideal partner Red Allen, and then disappeared from the scene for several years. By 1947 he was leading his own groups.

Higginbotham led several bands in the Fifties in Boston and Cleveland, appeared regularly at the Metropole in New York between 1956 and 1959, and led his own Dixieland band there in the Sixties. He went on his first European tour with Sammy Price, appearing in Scandinavia, and worked again briefly in 1964 with Louis Armstrong.

A robust and swinging trombonist he recorded extensively both as a sideman and as a leader. He is considered to be a vital player of the swing trombone and his strong, raucous sound and wild outbreaks are legendary. J. C. Higginbotham, who contributed to the acceptance of the trombone as a melodically capable jazz instrument, died on May 26, 1973 in New York.

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Daily Dose Of Jazz…

Hayes Pillars was born on April 30, 1906 in North Little Rock, Arkansas and began playing tenor saxophone as a teenager. Playing locally around Little Rock and Jackson, Tennessee initially, Hayes joined the territory band of Alphonse Trent in 1927. A year later he was back freelancing until he united with his boyhood friend James Jeter and organized the Jeter-Pillars Orchestra in Cleveland, Ohio.

Pillars secured a six-week engagement in 1934 at the Club Plantation in St. Louis, becoming so popular that they stayed for eleven years. The band was so influential that some of its players who held tenure were Walter Page, Sid Catlett, Jo Jones, Kenny Clarke, Jimmy Forrest, Charlie Christian, Jimmy Blanton and an 18 year old Harry “Sweets” Edison, who all went on to make names for themselves.

The orchestra would play New York and Chicago prior to Pillars leaving the orchestra. He then became a mainstay on the St. Louis scene for nearly three decades from the 1950s till his retirement in the Eighties. He was honored for his contributions to jazz by the Institute for Jazz Studies at Rutgers University and the Smithsonian Institute in 1981.

Tenor saxophonist and bandleader Hayes Pillars passed away on August 11, 1992 in Richmond Heights, Missouri.

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Daily Dose Of Jazz…

George Dixon was born on April 8, 1909 in New Orleans, Louisiana but grew up throughout the South traveling with his father as he ministered. He began playing trumpet as a child, then while living in Natchez, Mississippi at age thirteen he began playing the violin. He would go on to study the instrument at Arkansas State College, where he picked up the alto saxophone.

Dixon’s move to Chicago in 1926 would have him playing with Sammy Stewart from 1928, including a tour of New York City in 1930. His longest and most important residency was with Earl Hines and for nearly twelve years he would play trumpet, saxophone and arrange for the band.

During World War II George led a Navy band in Memphis, Tennessee, then returned to Chicago playing with Floyd Campbell, Ted Eggleston and others. During the Forties into the next decade he led his own band at the Circle Inn. Never recording as a leader, from about the mid-1950s trumpeter and multi-instrumentalist George Dixon stopped playing full-time, though he continued to play occasionally up until his death on August 1, 1994.

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Daily Dose Of Jazz…

Ramón “Mongo” Santamaría Rodríguez was born on April 7, 1917 in Havana, Cuba and learned rumba as a kid in the streets of the barrio. Mentored on bongos and rumba quinto by Clemente “Chicho” Piquero, Mongo recorded some of the very first recorded folkloric rumbas.

Santamaría began playing bongos with Septeto Beloña in 1937. In the 1940s he worked in the house band of the prestigious Tropicana nightclub. When Chicho could not join a late Forties Mexico tour, Mongo stepped in and opened a wider audience. Then a move to New York proved fortuitous as he joined Tito Puente followed by Cal Tjader’s Latin jazz combo.

In 1959 he composed and recorded Afro Blue that has since become a jazz standard. In 1963 when Chick Corea left the band, Santamaria hired Herbie Hancock and a subsequent backstage conversation between Mongo and Donald Byrd who recommended Herbie play Watermelon Man, led to Santamaria recording the tune that soared to the top of the charts.

He recorded over thirty-six albums as a leader and sideman, established a niche of blending Afro-Cuban and African American music. He was an integral figure in the fusion of Afro-Cuban rhythms with R&B and soul, paving the way for the boogaloo era of the late 1960s such as the Temptations 1969 hit “Cloud Nine”, on which he played congas.

Mongo Santamaria, rumba quinto master, conguero and percussionist, whose rendition of Watermelon Man has been inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame, and whose name has been punned in the classic Mel Brooks/Richard Pryor comedy screenplay Blazing Saddles as “Mongo! Santa Maria!” passed away on February 1, 2003 in Miami, Florida.

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Daily Dose Of Jazz…

Freddie Green was born Frederick William Green on March 31, 1911 in Charleston, South Carolina. Exposed to music early he learned to play banjo before taking up the guitar and learning to read music. He got his first gig playing with a local group alongside trumpeter William “Cat Anderson who would end up in Ellington’s band.

Following his parent’s death while in his teens, Freddie moved to New York to live with his aunt and finish school. He began playing the club circuit, earning both money and a reputation. Noticed by the legendary talent scout John H. Hammond, Green was introduced to Count Basie and in 1937 became part of the outfit. He would remain a pivotal fixture of the Count Basie Band for the next fifty years.

Freddie recorded extensively with Count Basie but also produced several albums as a leader and in addition as a sideman working with such artists as Joe Newman, Al Grey, Zoot Sims, Herb Ellis, Paul Quinichette and Al Cohn to name a few to his credit.

Guitarist Freddie Green, who made a name for himself during the Swing era, who was part of the All-American Rhythm Section alongside pianist Count Basie, drummer Jo Jones and bassist Walter Page and whose technique was to play only certain important notes of each chord limiting unnecessary harmonic presence, passed away at age 75 on March 1, 1987.

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