Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Herbie Nichols was born in San Juan Hill, Manhattan, New York City on January 3, 1919. His first known work was with the Royal Barons in 1937, a few years later performing at Minton’s Playhouse but he did not find a very happy experience due to a competitive atmosphere that did not suit his personality.
Nichols was drafted into the Infantry in 1941. After the war he worked in various setting, beginning to achieve some recognition when Mary Lou Williams recorded some of his songs in 1952. He befriended Thelonious Monk and from about 1947 persisted in trying to persuade Alfred Lion at Blue Note to sign him. Lion finally acquiesced and between 1955 and 1956 Herbie recorded less than half his 170 compositions that produced three albums, with other tracks from these sessions not being issued until the 1980s.
As a player he was capable not only of dark lyricism but also of writing melodies so harmonically adventurous that placed his music in a rhythmic league of its own. Nichols was indeed fortunate in the drummers with whom he worked Art Blakey and Max Roach. As a composer he penned such notable standards as “Serenade” that had lyrics added as well as “Lady Sings The Blues” that became synonymous with Billie Holiday, to which she set lyrics and adopted the title for her autobiography.
Jazz pianist and composer Herbie Nichols died from leukemia at the age of 44 on April 12, 1963 in New York City. Although he lived most of his life in relative obscurity, he is now highly regarded by many musicians and critics.
Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Al McKibbon was born January 1, 1919 in Chicago, Illinois but grew up in Detroit, Michigan from the age of two. Attending Cass Tech, the high school that gave the world jazz greats Gerald Wilson, J.C. Heard, Wardell Grey and other, Al focused his training on the bass, which at the time, the bass was coming into its own as a jazz instrument and replacing the tuba.
In 1947, after working with Lucky Millinder, Tab Smith, J.C. Heard, Coleman Hawkins, and as a singer with the Ted Bruckners band, replaced Ray Brown in Dizzy Gillespie’s band. He joined Miles Davis’ nonet in the Fifties recording with him as well as Earl Hines, Count Basie, Johnny Hodges, Thelonious Monk, George Shearing, and Cal Tjader, with whom McKibbon is credited with interesting Cal in Latin music while a member of Tjader’s group.
McKibbon, always highly regarded among his peers, was the chosen bassist for the “Giants of Jazz”, and continued to perform until 2004. In 1999, at age 80, he recorded his first album as a leader “Tumbao Para Los Congueros Di Mi Vida” and garnered a Grammy nomination for Best Latin Jazz Performance.
Al McKibbon, double bassist, singer and self taught dancer, who played a Jacob Steiner bass made in 1650, best known for his work in bop, hard bop, and Latin jazz, passed away on July 29, 2005.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Jonah Jones was born Robert Elliott Jones in Louisville, Kentucky on December 31, 1909. He started playing alto sax at the age of 12 in the Booker T. Washington Community Center band in Louisville before quickly transitioning to trumpet where he excelled immediately. Jones began his career in the 1920s playing on a riverboat named “Island Queen” which plied between Kentucky and Ohio.
By 1928 he joined with Horace Henderson, later worked with Jimmie Lunceford, had an early and successful collaboration with Stuff Smith from 1932-1936, and by the Forties he was working in big bands like Benny Carter’s and Fletcher Henderson. He would spend most of the decade with Cab Calloway’s band that later became a combo.
Starting in the 1950s he had his own quartet and began concentrating on a formula that gained him wider appeal for a decade. The quartet consisted of George “River Rider” Rhodes on piano, John “Broken Down” Browne on bass and “Hard Nuts “Harold Austin on drums. The most mentioned accomplishment of this style is perhaps their version of “On The Street Where You Live”. This effort succeeded and he began to be known to a wider audience. This led to his quartet performing on “An Evening With Fred Astaire” in 1958 and winning a Grammy Award for Best Jazz Performance by a group in 1960.
Jonah went on to become a sensation in France, returned to more “core” jazz work with Earl Hines, played in the pit orchestra for the stage play Porgy and Bess starring Cab Calloway, was inducted into the Big Band and Jazz Hall of Fame in 1999. Trumpeter Jonah Jones passed away on April 29, 2000.
Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Snub Mosley was born Lawrence Leo Mosley on December 29, 1905 in Little Rock, Arkansas. Playing trombone in high school after graduation he joined Alphonse Trent’s territory band from 1926 to 1933. Following this he played with the Jeter-Pillars Orchestra in 1934, Claude Hopkins from 1934-35, was band mates with Fats Waller and Louis Armstrong with the Luis Russell Orchestra 1936-37. In addition, he led his own groups before settling in New York City.
Though Mosley spent most of his career on trombone, he also invented an instrument called the slide saxophone, which had both the slide portion of a trombone and a saxophone mouthpiece. The instrument is prominently featured in his 1940 recording The Man With The Funny Little Horn. From 1940 to 1978 he recorded for Decca, Sonora, Penguin, Columbia and Pizza record labels.
Trombonist Snub Mosley passed away quietly on July 21, 1981 at his home at 555 Edgecombe Avenue in Harlem, New York City.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Raymond Stanley Noble was born on December 17, 1903 in Brighton, England and studied music at the Royal Academy. He became the leader of the HMV Records studio band, known as the New Mayfair Dance Orchestra that featured popular vocalist Al Bowlly and many musicians of the top hotel bands.
The Bowlly/Noble recordings achieved popularity in the United States, however, union bans prevented Noble from bringing British musicians to America so he arranged for Glenn Miller to recruit American musicians. Bowlly returned to England but Noble continued to lead bands in America, moving into an acting career portraying a stereotypical upper-class English idiot in films like Top Hat and Slumming On Park Avenue. He also played the “dense” character in love with Gracie Allen, or with his orchestra in an Edgar Bergen vehicle. Noble also provided music for many radio shows of the times like The Charlie McCarthy Show. His last major success as a bandleader came with Buddy Clark in the late 1940s.
Ray Noble arranged hits in the 1930s such as “Easy to Love”, “Mad About the Boy”, “Paris in the Spring”, wrote both lyrics and music for now jazz standards “Love Is The Sweetest Thing”, “Cherokee”, “The Touch of Your Lips”, “I Hadn’t Anyone Till You” and “The Very Thought Of You” and co-wrote “Goodnight, Sweetheart” and “You’re So Desirable”, recorded by Billie Holiday, Teddy Wilson and in 1990 by Robert Palmer.
Ray Noble, bandleader, composer, arranger, pianist, singer and actor passed away on April 3, 1978 at the age of 74.
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