Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Jimmy Lytell was born on December 1, 1904 in New York, NY. His first professional experience came at age twelve, and by the beginning of the 1920s he was recording with early jazz ensembles. Jimmy played in the Original Indiana Five in 1921 and the Original Memphis Five from 1922 – 1925, and also played in the Original Dixieland Jazz Band for two years beginning in1922.
After the 1920s Lytell rarely performed in jazz settings, spending more time as a studio and orchestra musician. He worked as a staff musician for NBC during this time. From 1949 into the late 1950s he appeared in the New Original Memphis Five revival band, and recorded with Connee Boswell late in the 1950s.
As a leader, he recorded 18 titles during the Roaring Twenties and six more for London Records in 1950. Clarinetist Jimmy Lytell, player of Dixieland and early jazz continued to perform up until a year before his death on November 28, 1972 in Kings Point, New York.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Horace W. Henderson, the younger brother of Fletcher Henderson, was born on November 22, 1904 in Cuthbert, Georgia. He attended Wilberforce University and played in the “Collegians” band that included Benny Carter and Rex Stewart. This band would later be known as the Horace Henderson Orchestra and then as the Dixie Stompers.
Henderson left the band to work with Sammy Stewart, then in 1928 organized a new band called the Collegians and in 1931 Don Redman took over this band. Henderson continued to work as the band’s pianist and arranger before leaving to work for his brother.
He arranged for many of the most important jazz musicians of the era, such as Charlie Barnet, the Casa Loma Orchestra, Tommy Dorsey, Benny Goodman, Earl Hines, Jimmie Lunceford and also for his brother. Although Horace worked continually, led bands, arranged, recorded, and composed into the 1980s without the popularity of his older sibling, he is considered by many the more talented and skillful of the Henderson brothers.
His best-known arrangements are of his own “Hot and Anxious” which later became “In The Mood”, “Christopher Columbus” and “Big John Special”. At different times in his career, Horace was pianist and musical director for both Lena Horne and Billie Holiday.
Jazz pianist, organist, arranger and bandleader Horace Henderson passed away on August 29, 1988 at the age of 83.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Don Ewell was born November 14, 1916 in Baltimore, Maryland. Playing stride piano, from 1956 to 1962, Ewell was a leading member of the Jack Teagarden band. Following Teagarden’s death Ewell did several European tours before moving back to New Orleans, playing clubs and hotels.
Ewell played with such musicians as Sidney Bechet, Kid Ory, George Lewis, George Brunis, Muggsy Spanier, Barbara Dane and Bunk Johnson among others.
He recorded a couple of albums as a leader for the Pumkin and Good Time Jazz labels and as a sideman with Willie “The Lion” Smith, Barbara Dane and Doc Evans. Pianist Don Ewell suffered two strokes before passing away on August 9, 1983.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Buck Clayton was born Wilbur Dorsey Clayton in Parsons, Kansas on November 12, 1911 and played piano when he was six years old, switching to trumpet from the age of seventeen, being trained by Bob Russell of George E. Lee’s band and Mutt Carey, who would later emerged as a prominent west-coast revivalist in the 1940s.
In his early twenties Buck was based in Los Angeles, California, was briefly a member of Duke Ellington’s Orchestra and worked with other leaders. He later formed a band named “14 Gentlemen from Harlem” in which he was the leader of the 14-member orchestra.
From 1934 he was a leader of the “Harlem Gentlemen” in Shanghai and was treated as an elite personage. However, his experience was not always pleasant as he faced the racism he hoped to escape America by being discriminated against and attacked by American marines stationed there.
Returning to the States, Clayton joined Count Basie in Kansas City and from 1937 was in New York playing first trumpet with the band and freelancing recordings sessions with Billie Holiday, Lester Young and Sy Oliver. Following WWII he prepared arrangements for Count Basie, Benny Goodman and Harry James, and became a member of Norman Granz’s Jazz at The Philharmonic, performing with Coleman Hawkins and Charlie Parker.
Buck would spent time in Paris leading his own band, perform with Jimmy Rushing, Frank Sinatra, Mezz Mezzrow, Earl Hines, return to the States and embarked on a series of jam sessions with artists such as Kai Winding, J. J. Johnson and Frankie Laine and under his own name at Vanguard with Ruby Braff, Mel Powell and Sir Charles Thompson. He would go on to appear in The Benny Goodman Story, perform with Sidney Bechet, tour Europe, and record for Swingsville and tour with Eddie Condon.
Clayton underwent lip surgery and gave up playing the trumpet from 1972 to 1977, but quit again in 1979, working as an arranger and teaching at Hunter College. His semi-autobiography Buck Clayton’s Jazz World, co-authored by Nancy Miller Elliott, first appeared in 1986. In the same year, his new Big Band debuted at the Brooklyn Museum, touring internationally and contributing 100 compositions to the band book. Trumpeter Buck Clayton passed away quietly in his sleep in New York City on December 8, 1991.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Ivy Benson was born on November 11, 1913 in Holbeck, Leeds, England. Her father Digger Benson, a musician who played with ensembles, began teaching her to play piano at the age of five. She played at working men’s clubs from the age of eight, billed as Baby Benson, and performed on BBC Radio’s Children’s Hour at nine years.
Ivy’s father had ambitions for her to become a concert pianist, but she was inspired to become a jazz musician after hearing a Benny Goodman record and learned to play clarinet and alto saxophone. Leaving school at 14, she took a job at the Montague Burton factory in Leeds, putting aside half a crown from her wages each week to save up for her first saxophone, supplementing her income by playing evenings in dance bands.
Benson joined a sextet, Edna Croudson’s Rhythm Girls in 1929, touring with them until 1935, followed by Teddy Joyce and the Girlfriends where she became a featured soloist. Moving to London in the late 1930s, she formed her own band and her first significant engagement was performing with the all-female revue Meet the Girls, starring Hylda Baker.
During World War II opportunities opened up and Ivy’s band became the BBC’s resident dance band in 1943 and was top of the bill at the London Palladium for six months in 1944. By wars end she was playing the VE Day celebration in Berlin, touring Europe and the Middle East performing for Allied troops, headlining variety theatres and performing at the 1948 Summer Olympics. Over the next thirty years the band experience much success with television appearances, a tribute on This Is Your Life, and a speaking role in the film The Dummy Talks.
The group disbanded in 1982 but she was honored as a fellow of Leeds Polytechnic, a plaque at her childhood home and a play, The Silver Lady, was based on her life. Retiring to Clacton-on-Sea, Essex, multi-instrumentalist Ivy Benson passed away on May 6, 1993 at age 79.
