Jazz Poems
FOUR BONGOS: TAKE THE A TRAIN for Vinnie
The drummer wears suspenders to look like an old-timer, and plays a salsa “Caravan,” bad boy from the panyard with an evil, evil beat. The conga man chants Yoruba and shakes his sweat loose on a girl up front. His hand worries the drum like a live fish trashing. Call the bassist “Pops,” with his grizzly goatee, his Banshee yelp, his rhumba step. The hall is fluorescent. “Take a Train,” Lawrence Welk called that tune, and played. Ellington hovers above this group like changeable weather, in gabardine. ELIZABETH ALEXANDERfrom Jazz Poems ~ Selected and Edited by Kevin Young
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Graeme Emerson Bell was born on September 7, 1914 in Richmond, Victoria, Australia. His father performed musical comedy and music hall on the early Australian Broadcasting Commission radio, and his mother was a contralto recitalist in Dame Nellie Melba’s company.
From the age of 12, Bell had weekly piano lessons in classical music by Jesse Stewart Young, a contemporary of his mother. He attended Scotch College in 1929 and 1930, leaving school at sixteen during the Great Depression and worked for T & G Insurance as a clerk for over nine years, and had a stint as a farm hand. He paid for his own piano lessons for two further years, and in later years he supplemented his income by teaching.
Graeme was converted to jazz by Roger, a drummer, who later became a singer and trumpete. Roger would play 78s on the family’s record player, including Fats Waller’s Handful of Keys. It was in 1935 that he started playing jazz with Roger at Melbourne dances and clubs. By 1941 he fronted his own Graeme Bell Jazz Gang. Unfit for active duty during World War II, he entertained Australian troops, including travelling to Mackay, Queensland in early 1943. After his return to Melbourne, Bell became a full-time professional with the Dixieland Jazz Band.
His first recordings were for William Miller’s Ampersand label in 1943, after which he became leader of the house band for the Eureka Youth League and established a cabaret, the Uptown Club, in 1946. After playing at the inaugural Australian Jazz Convention, Bell’s band was renamed Australian Jazz Band and became the first such band to tour Europe.
The Australian Jazz Band travelled to the United Kingdom in early 1948 and Graeme started the Leicester Square Jazz Club, playing music specifically for dancing, which continued into the 1950s. Many future and contemporary bands were to be influenced by his music. During the early 1950s he periodically returned to UK and Europe to perform, and in 1951 they appeared at Oxford Town Hall with the performance ultimately released as Big Bill Broonzy in Concert with Graeme Bell & his Australian Jazz Band.
Upon returning to Australia he settled in Sydney and became one of the leading promoters of jazz in the country, bringing American performers such as trumpeter Rex Stewart. He played commercial music and taught piano to supplement his income.
Pianist Graeme Bell, wrote Graeme Bell, Australian Jazzman, was inducted into the Australian Recording Industry Association Hall of Fame in 1997 and made over 1,500 recordings, died on June 13, 2012 after suffering from a stroke at 97.
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Charlie Galbraith was born August 13, 1920 in Lambeth, London, England. In the late 1940s he worked with the John Haim Jelly Roll Kings, Cy Laurie, Reg Rigden and Mike Daniels.
From 1949 to 1954 Charlie led his own group, Jazzmen and in late 1954 with Eric Silk, Bobby Mickleburg the following year, George Webb, Joe Daniels and Kenny Ball for two years beginning in 1957.
1960 saw Galbraith leading his own All Stars Jazz Band and in 1963 co-led with trumpeter Brian Jones. He later worked with Monty Sunshine and Joe Daniels through the end of the decade.
During the 1970s and Eighties he led his own band. Trombonist and singer Charlie Galbraith died January 16, 1997 in London, England.
Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Emmett Berry was born on July 23, 1915 in Macon, Georgia and began to study classical trumpet, but by 18 had switched to jazz and moved to New York City. Becoming a member of Fletcher Henderson’s band he later replaced Roy Eldridge as soloist.
In the 1940s he worked in Eldridge’s Little Jazz Trumpet Ensemble. He also played in Count Basie’s band. He is known as an accompanist for Billie Holiday, was in the photograph known as A Great Day in Harlem, and the special The Sound of Jazz.
He recorded 39 albums as a sideman with Buck Clayton, Johnny Hodges, Sammy Price, Jimmy Rushing, Cannonball Adderley, Count Basie, Sidney Bechet, Ruby Braff, Bobby Donaldson, Dizzy Gillespie, Edmond Hall, Coleman Hawkins, Fletcher Henderson, Claude Hopkins, Jo Jones, Red Prysock, Buddy Rich, Pee Wee Russell, Maxim Saury, Buddy Tate, Joe Williams, and Jimmy Witherspoon.
Trumpeter Emmett Berry, who also played flute, piano, vibraphone, congas, and drums, died in Cleveland, Ohio on June 22, 1993.
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Erik Parker was born July 13, 1918 in Århus, Denmark. By 1938 he became a member of the Svend Asmussen Orchestra and from 1939 to 1945 was involved in Leo Mathisen’s Orchestra, where he performed both as an instrumentalist and a vocalist.
He worked as a club manager, and from 1945-1951 he was an actor. In 1953 he emigrated to the United States, where he settled in Los Angeles, California where he became a restaurateur and trumpet teacher.
Throughout his career he was a member of the All Danish Starband, Henry Hagemann & His Full Brass, Henry Hagemann’s Sextet, Kai Ewans And His Swinging 16, Leo Mathisens Band, Leo Mathisens Orkester, Leo Mathisens Ønskeorkester, and Roger Henrichsen Trio.
Trumpeter and vocalist Erik Parker, who is considered one of the most significant Danish jazz musicians and a distinguished representative of golden age jazz, died in 2003.