Daily Dose Of Jazz…

Don Lamond was born on August 18, 1920 in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma and attended the Peabody Conservatory in Philadelphia in the early ‘40s. He played with Sonny Durham and Boyd Raeburn at the outset of his career, and then took over Dave Tough’s spot in Woody Herman’s big band “First Herd” in 1945, remaining until the group disbanded at the end of 1946.

By 1947 he briefly freelanced with musicians including Charlie Parker, and then returned to duty under Herman in his Second Herd, where he remained until its 1949 dissolution. In the 1950s and 1960s Don found work as a session musician, recording in a wide variety of styles.

He performed and recorded with such jazz luminaries as Stan Getz, Zoot Sims, Johnny Smith, Benny Goodman, Ruby Braff, the Sauter-Finegan Orchestra, Sonny Stitt, Johnny Guarnieri, Jack Teagarden, Quincy Jones, George Russell and Bob Crosby among others.

Lamond recorded as a bandleader in 1962 with a tentet that included Doc Severinsen, played with George Wein’s Newport Festival band in the late ‘60s, and worked with Red Norvo, Maxine Sullivan and Bucky Pizzarelli in the Seventies. He put together his own swing group that recorded in 1977 and 1982, and recorded a quartet album with his wife Terry singing in 1981. Don Lamond, drummer, bandleader and sideman died on December 23, 2003 in Orlando, Florida at age 83.

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Daily Dose Of Jazz…

Arnett Cobb was born on August 10, 1918 in Houston, Texas. Taught to play piano by his grandmother, he went on to study violin before taking up the saxophone in high school. At fifteen he joined Louisiana bandleader Frank Davis, performing around Houston and throughout Louisiana during the summers. He continued his career in the mid-Thirties with the local bands of Chester Boone and Milt Larkin; the latter home to Illinois Jacquet, Wild Bill Davis and Eddie “Cleanhead” Vinson.

Arnett went on to replace Illinois in Lionel Hampton’s band in 1942 and is credited with the words and the music to “Smooth Sailing” which became a jazz standard in 1951, and sung by Ella Fitzgerald on her Lullabies of Birdland. After departing from Hampton’s band, Cobb formed his own seven-piece band, but suffering a serious illness in 1950, which necessitated spinal surgery, the group was disbanded.

Reforming the band upon recovery, in 1956 its success was again interrupted, this time by a car crash. This accident had long-term effects on his health, involving long hospital stays and making him permanently reliant on crutches. Nevertheless, Cobb worked as a soloist through the 1970s and 1980s in the U.S. and abroad, working with Jimmy Heath and Joe Henderson in Europe during the late Eighties.

Arnett Cobb, tenor saxophonist, passed away in his hometown in March 24, 1989 at the age of 70.

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Daily Dose Of Jazz…

Jimmy Witherspoon was born on August 8, 1920 in Gurdon, Arkansas. He first attracted attention singing with Teddy Weatherford’s band in Calcutta, India, which made regular radio broadcasts over the U. S. Armed Forces Radio Service during World War II. Witherspoon made his first recordings with Jay McShann’s band in 1945.

By 1949 Jimmy was recording under his own name with the McShann band and had his first hit and signature tune with “Ain’t Nobody’s Business”. In 1950 he had several more with “No Rollin’ Blues” and “Big Fine Girl”, as well as “Failing By Degrees” and “New Orleans Woman” recorded with the Gene Gilbeaux Orchestra. These Gilbeaux recordings are from a live performance on May 10, 1949 at a “Just Jazz” concert in Pasadena, CA sponsored by Gene Norman.

Witherspoon’s style of the “blues shouter” became unfashionable in the mid-1950s, but he returned to popularity with his 1959 album, “Jimmy Witherspoon at the Monterey Jazz Festival” featuring Roy Eldridge, Woody Herman, Ben Webster, Coleman Hawkins, Earl Hines and Mel Lewis among others.

The early 60s saw Witherspoon touring Europe with Buck Clayton, recording in the UK, the 70s recording with Brother Jack McDuff in London, with Eric Burdon, toured with his own band with a host of players such as Joe Sample, Cornell Dupree, Thad Jones and others.  He continued to record and perform well into the Nineties with Gerry Mulligan, Leroy Vinnegar, Teddy Wilson, Pepper Adams, Junior Mance and the list jazz luminaries goes on and on.

Vocalist Jimmy Witherspoon died of throat cancer in Los Angeles, California on September 18, 1997.

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Daily Dose Of Jazz…

Eddie Jefferson was born on August 3, 1918 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania and started his career in show business as a tap dancer. By the late Forties, he was singing and writing lyrics to tunes like “Parker’s Mood” and “I Cover The Waterfront”. He is credited with pioneering vocalese, a musical style in which lyrics are set to an instrumental composition or solo. Perhaps his best-known song is “Moody’s Mood for Love”, though first recorded by King Pleasure, who cited Jefferson as an influence.

One of Jefferson’s most notable recordings “So What” combined the lyrics of artist Christopher Acemandese Hall with the music of Miles Davis to create a masterwork that highlighted his prolific skills, and ability to majestically turn a phrase, into his jazz vocalese.

Jefferson’s last recorded performance was at the Joe Segal’s Jazz Showcase in Chicago and released on video by Rhapsody Films. He shared the stand with fellow bandleader and alto saxophonist Richie Cole. The performance was part of a tour that Jefferson and Cole led together that took them to their opening night in Detroit at the legendary Baker’s Keyboard Lounge, a jazz club built in the 1930’s whose stage graced musicians from the genre as diverse as Dexter Gordon and Sonny Stitt.

Vocalist Eddie Jefferson was shot and killed while leaving Baker’s on May 8, 1979 by a suspected disgruntled dancer who had been fired by Jefferson. She was later acquitted of the murder charge. He was 60. A previously unreleased 1976 live album, Eddie Jefferson at Ali’s Alley, with drummer Rashied Ali, was finally posthumously released in 2009.

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Daily Dose Of Jazz…

Paul Gonsalves was born July 12, 1920 in Brockton, Massachusetts to Cape Verdean parents.  His first instrument was the guitar, and as a child he was regularly asked to play Portuguese folk songs for his family. Growing up in New Bedford, Massachusetts he was a member of the Sabby Lewis Orchestra.

His first professional engagement in Boston was with the same group on tenor saxophone, that he had learned to play prior to and during World War II military service. After the war he played in Count Basie and Dizzy Gillespie’s big bands before joining the Duke Ellington Orchestra in 1950.

At the 1956 Newport Jazz Festival, Gonsalves’ solo in Ellington’s song “Diminuendo and Crescendo in Blue” contained 27 choruses and the publicity from which is credited with reviving Ellington’s career. This performance is captured on the album Ellington at Newport. He was a featured soloist in numerous Ellingtonian settings and received the nickname “The Strolling Violins” from Ellington for playing solos while walking through the crowd.

Tenor saxophonist Paul Gonsalves died on May 15, 1974 in London just a few days before Duke Ellington’s death. Gonsalves and Ellington, along with trombonist Tyree Glenn, lay side-by-side in the same New York funeral home for a period of time.

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