Daily Dose Of Jazz…

Shep Shepherd was born Berisford Shepherd on January 19, 1917 in Honduras while his mother was enroute from the West Indies to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Arriving in the city she first settled and raised him in a Jewish neighborhood before moving to a Black neighborhood.

An early fascination with marching bands he drummed on tables and chairs until his mother bought him a toy drum to save wear and tear on the furniture. He attended the Jules E. Mastbaum Area Conservatory and Vocational School where he trained as a percussionist on timpani, vibraphone, xylophone, snare and bass drums. Students were required to have a secondary instrument, and he chose the trombone.

Initially hoping for a career in the Philadelphia Orchestra, he shifted his interest to jazz. He formed a friendship with drummer Jimmy Crawford, who was able to help his career in New York City. During the Thirties performed with Jimmy Gorham’s band in Philadelphia. In 1941, Benny Carter contacted Shep and he moved to New York City, where he also worked with Artie Shaw the same year. He became heavily in demand and the phrase “Get Shep!” became a phrase among area musicians.

Four years in the Army saw him serving in the entertainment corps, and working there he played trombone and improved his skills as a composer and arranger. He met Billy Butlet and in 1952 after his discharge he began working with Butler as part of Bill Doggett’s group. In 1956, Shepherd helped write Doggett’s signature song, Honky Tonk. He left Doggett’s group in 1959 and returned to New York City where he worked in pit orchestras for Broadway shows, and as a music copyist and arranger.

When the nationwide tour of the Broadway show Here’s Love ended, Shepherd found himself in San Francisco, California and he became a freelance musician there. He continued to play drums through the Sixties and Seventies working with Patti Page, Lionel Hampton, Lena Horne, The Ward Singers, Earl Bostic, Buck Clayton, Odetta, Cab Calloway, Sy Oliver, Big Maybelle, and Erskine Hawkins. At 80 years old, he switched his primary focus from drums to trombone, and with organist Art Harris and drummer Robert Labbe formed the group Blues Fuse.

Drummer, trombonist, vocalist and composer Shep Shepherd, who is listed in The Biographical Encyclopedia of Jazz and Who’s Who Among Black Americans, transitioned on November 25, 2018 at the age of 101.

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Daily Dose Of Jazz…

Larry Sonn was born in Woodmere on Long Island, New York on January 17, 1919. GraduatING from the Juilliard School of Music in New York City, he began his career with the Southern Symphony Orchestra in Columbia, South Carolina, as first trumpet, but later turned to the popular idioms of jazz and the big band sound.

He soon was playing trumpet and arranging for the top orchestras in the United States which included Glenn Miller, Teddy Powell, Bobby Byrne, Charlie Barnett, Hal McIntyre and Vincent Lopez.

A series of engagements in the early 1940’s took him to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania and San Antonio, Texas.  An executive from the new Hotel Reforma in Mexico City heard him play and, impressed by his virtuosity, offered Larry an appearance at the hotel’s Ciro’s Night Club. The short-term contract lasted nine years and falling in love with Mexico, the country reciprocated.

Sonn returned to the States in the late-50’s and put together a new orchestra to play jazz and dance music. He gained national exposure on NBC’s Monitor with Al Jazzbo Collins commentating. When Mexico called again he went back and formed one of the foremost big bands in the country. He toured, did radio shows for XEW, Mexico’s largest station, and recorded for RCA Victor, CBS, Cisne, Peerless, Sonart and other labels.

Retiring from music in 1972 he relocated 40 miles south of Mexico City and opened a popular book store specializing in US editions for English-speaking residents and tourists. After several years he retired completely.

Trumpeter, arranger, composer, and bandleader Larry Sonn transitioned in 2015 at 95 in Cuernavaca, Morelos, Mexico.

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Daily Dose Of Jazz…

Bob Zurke came into the world as Boguslaw Albert Zukowski on January 7, 1912 in Hamtramck, Michigan. By the age of 16 he was already using the name Bob Zurke professionally when he first recorded with a group led by pioneering female jazz bassist Thelma Terry. At that time, Zurke also began to work as a copyist for the Detroit-based booking agency run by Jean Goldkette.

Through the end of 1936, he worked in various Detroit, Michigan clubs, mostly as a band pianist, but he occasionally went on tour with other groups. During this period he developed a long friendship with pianist Marvin Ash, who would later go on to record some of Zurke’s compositions.

1937 saw Bob was hired by bandleader Bob Crosby to fill in for Joe Sullivan, then ailing with tuberculosis and it was here that he gained notice, contributing arrangements to the band’s book and as a featured soloist.

As an arranger his arrangement of Meade Lux Lewis’ Honky Tonk Train Blues, became a hit. In 1938 he was named the winner in the piano category in the  DownBeat Reader’s Poll. By 1939 Sullivan was back with the Bob Crosby Orchestra and Zurke subsequently worked with the William Morris Agency to form his own band. They debuted at an RCA Victor recording session that same year as Bob Zurke and his Delta Rhythm Orchestra. His alcohol dependency, alleged drug use and unreliability and volatility led to the group disbanding.

After a period of wandering from job to job Zurke settled in Los Angeles, California in mid-1942 and began an engagement at the Hangover Club in Los Angeles that he held until the end of his days. In 1943, he made one final recording, synchronizing an original piano part to the Walter Lantz cartoon Jungle Jive (in the Swing Symphony series), one of his most difficult and challenging solos.

He published two folios of jazz piano solos and several sheet music editions of single pieces; in addition to that, 14 original compositions from Zurke are known to exist.

Pianist, arranger, composer and bandleader Bob Zurke, who was considered one of the finest boogie~woogie pianists of the time, collapsed at the Hangover Club and was taken to the hospital where he transitioned on February 16, 1944 from complications of pneumonia, aggravated by acute alcohol poisoning. He was 32.

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Three Wishes

Mercer Ellington was queried as to his three wishes by Pannonica and he replied:

  1. “Time.”
  2. “Love.”
  3. “And satisfaction in my work.”
*Excerpt from Three Wishes: An Intimate Look at Jazz Greats ~ Compiled and Photographed by Pannonica de Koenigswarter

SUITE TABU 200

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Daily Dose Of Jazz…

Cutty Cutshall was born Robert Dewees Cutshall on December 29, 1911 in Huntingdon County, Pennsylvania. Early in his career he played in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, making his first major tour in 1934 with Charley Dornberger. He joined Jan Savitt’s orchestra in 1938, then played with Benny Goodman in the early 1940s.

Later in the decade he worked frequently with Billy Butterfield and did some freelance work in New York City. He started working with Eddie Condon in 1949, an association which lasted over a decade. Cutshall’s credits include work with Peanuts Hucko, Bob Crosby, Ella Fitzgerald, and Louis Armstrong.

While touring with Condon in Toronto, trombonist Cutty Cutshall suffered a heart attack in his hotel room and transitioned on August 16, 1968.

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