Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Cag Cagnolatti was born Ernie Joseph Cagnolatti on April 2, 1911 in Madisonville, Louisiana. He was one of six children sharing Italian and African American parentage and raised Catholic.
Cagnolatti began on trumpet around 1929 and played with Herbert Leary from 1933 to 1942, as well as off and on with Sidney Desvigne and Papa Celestin. He was a recurring member of many of the major New Orleans brass bands; he worked in the bands of George Williams in the 1940s and 1950s, and with Alphonse Picou in the early 1950s.
He recorded with Paul Barbarin repeatedly over the course of the 1950s and 1960s. He and Jim Robinson collaborated in the early 1960s, and he also recorded with Harold Dejan in 1962 and with the Onward Brass Band in 1968. From 1974 to 1980 Cagnolatti was a mainstay at Preservation Hall.
He suffered a stroke in 1980 and did not play afterwards. Trumpeter Cag Cagnolatti, affectionately known as Little Cag, died in New Orleans, Louisiana on April 7, 1983.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Carl-Henrik Norin was born on March 27, 1920 in Västerås, Sweden. He first began playing professionally in the early 1940s with Gösta Tönne and Thore Ehrling. As a member of Ehrling’s ensemble, he composed the piece Mississippi Mood.
He led a sextet in Stockholm, Sweden in the 1950s and early 1960s, which played jazz as well as accompanying popular singers such as Bibi Johns. Among his sidemen were Jan Allan and Rolf Billberg.
He played with Harry Arnold, Roy Eldridge, Lars Gullin, Peanuts Holland, and Bjarne Nerem. Saxophonist Carl-Henrik Norin died on May 23, 1967, Stockholm, Sweden.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Sonny Burke was born Joseph Francis Burke on March 22, 1914 in Scranton, Pennsylvania and grew up in Detroit, Michigan. He attended St. Ambrose High School, where he was All-State fullback. After one year at the University of Detroit, he transferred to Duke University, where he formed and led the jazz big band known as the Duke Ambassadors.
During the Thirties Burke was a big band arranger in New York City, worked with Sam Donahue’s band, and in the 1940s and 1950s worked as an arranger for the Charlie Spivak and Jimmy Dorsey bands, among others. In 1955 he wrote, along with Peggy Lee, the songs to Disney’s Lady and the Tramp, and with John Elliot for Disney’s Toot, Whistle, Plunk and Boom, which won the 1953 Oscar for Best Short Subject – Cartoons.
He wrote the music for a number of popular songs, including Black Coffee and Midnight Sun, co-written with jazz vibraphonist Lionel Hampton. The song’s lyrics were added later by Johnny Mercer. He was an active arranger, conductor and A&R man at major Hollywood record labels, especially Decca Records where he worked with Charles “Bud” Dant.
Sonny would go on to become musical director of Warner Bros. Records / Reprise Records, and was responsible for many of Frank Sinatra’s albums, producing Sinatra’s My Way, Petula Clark’s This Is My Song, written by Charles Chaplin for his movie, A Countess From Hong Kong.
Burke was the bandleader for recordings of leading singers that included Dinah Shore, Bing Crosby, The Andrews Sisters, The Mills Brothers, Ella Fitzgerald, Mel Tormé and Billy Eckstine.
Arranger, composer, big band leader and producer Sonny Burke died from cancer on May 31, 1980, in Santa Monica, California, aged 66.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Harry Haag James was born on March 15, 1916 in Albany, Georgia the son of a bandleader in a traveling circus, the Mighty Haag Circus, and Myrtle Maybelle Stewart, an acrobat and horseback rider. He started performing with the circus at an early age, first as a contortionist at the age of four, then playing the snare drum in the band from about the age of six.
James started taking trumpet lessons from his father at age eight, and by age twelve he was leading the second band in the Christy Brothers Circus, for which his family was then working. James’s father placed him on a strict daily practice schedule. In 1924, his family settled in Beaumont, Texas and in the early 1930s he began playing in local dance bands when he was 15. While still a student at Dick Dowling Junior High School, he was a regular member of Beaumont High School’s Royal Purple Band, and in May 1931 he took first place as trumpet soloist at the Texas Band Teacher’s Association’s Annual Eastern Division contest held in Temple, Texas.
His first job was playing at the Peabody Hotel in Memphis, Tennessee and played regularly with Herman Waldman’s band, where he was noticed by Ben Pollack. In 1935 he joined Pollack’s band, but left two years later and joined Benny Goodman’s orchestra through 1938. He was nicknamed “The Hawk” early in his career for his ability to sight-read. With financial backing from Goodma, Harry debuted his own big band in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, in 1939, but it didn’t click until adding a string section in 1941. Subsequently, known as Harry James and His Music Makers, he went on to produce hits, appeared in four Hollywood films, and toured with the band into the 1980s.
Trumpeter and big band leader Harry James was a heavy smoker, drinker, and gambler, in 1983 he was diagnosed with lymphatic cancer. He played his last professional job, with the Harry James Orchestra, on June 26, 1983, in Los Angeles, California dying just nine days later in Las Vegas, Nevada on July 5, 1983, at age 67. Frank Sinatra gave the eulogy at his funeral, held in Las Vegas.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
John “Bugs” Hamilton was born on March 8, 1911 in St. Louis, Missouri.
Leaving home for New York City in 1930 he was a member of trombonist Billy Kato band and played with Chick Webb around the same time for about a year.. Toward the middle of the decade he played with Kaiser Marshall, then joined Fats Waller’s ensemble in 1938. Bugs remained with Waller until 1942, touring, recording and often appearing in several films as a member of Waller’s group.
During World War II he played with Eddie South and Roy Eldridge. Shortly after the end of the war, trumpeter John Hamilton contracted tuberculosis, resulting in his death at age 36 on August 15, 1947 in St. Louis.
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