Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Booty Wood was born Mitchell W. Wood on December 27, 1919 in Dayton, Ohio. He began playing professionally on trombone in the late 1930s. The following decade he worked with Tiny Bradshaw and Lionel Hampton before joining the Navy during World War II. While there he played in a band with Clark Terry, Willie Smith, and Gerald Wilson.
After his service ended he returned to play with Hampton, then worked with Arnett Cobb, Erskine Hawkins and Count Basie. After spending a few years outside music, Booty returned to play with Duke Ellington in 1959-60 and again in 1963. He returned once more early in the 1970s.
Wood once again played with the Count Basie Orchestra from 1979 into the middle of the following decade. Trombonist Booty Wood transitioned on June 10, 1987 in Dayton.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Ralph Marterie was born in Acerra near Naples, Italy on December 24 1914 and first played professionally at age 14 in Chicago, Illinois. In the 1940s, he played trumpet for various bands. During World War II he got his first job as a bandleader courtesy of the US Navy. He was then hired by the ABC Radio network and the reputation built from these broadcasts led to a recording contract in 1949 with Mercury Records.
In 1953 Ralph recorded a version of Bill Haley’s Crazy, Man, Crazy, which reached No. 13 on the Billboard jockey chart and No. 11 on Cashbox that year. His recordings of Pretend and Caravan made the Top 10 and the latter sold over one million copies and was awarded a gold disc. His highest success in the U.S. charts was a cover of Skokiaan in 1954. He had other hits with Tricky, Shish-Kebab, Dancing Trumpet, Dry Marterie, and Carla.
Trumpeter and big band leader Ralph Marterie transitioned on October 10, 1978 in Dayton, Ohio.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Panama Francis was born David Albert Francis on December 21, 1918 in Miami, Florida to a Haitian father and an English property-owning mother in the Bahamas. He began playing the drums even before attending school and initially played in marching bands and local drum and bugle corps.
His first professional playing was in the 1930s as part of George Kelly’s band from 1934 to 1938. He then became a member of the Florida Collegians in 1938. After his move to New York City that year, he worked with Tab Smith, Billy Hicks, and Roy Eldridge before the 1940s. Francis acquired his nickname from Eldridge at a moment when he was wearing a panama hat and Eldridge could not remember his new drummer’s name.
Joining Lucky Millinder’s big band in 1940, he often played at the Savoy Ballroom. After leaving Millinder he was with Willie Bryant’s band in 1946 and then Cab Calloway from 1947 to 1952. He performed in three short films alongside the latter. For much of the 1950s, Panama was a studio musician in New York, accompanying the likes of Bobby Darin, the Four Seasons, the Platters, Dion DiMucci, Neil Sedaka, and Jackie Wilson.
He went on to tour with Dinah Shore, then moved to California where he struggled to find work. The early Seventies saw him touring Japan with Sam “The Man” Taylor, then appeared on film in 1972, in Lady Sings the Blues. Back in New York in 1973, Francis was part of Sy Oliver’s nonet for two years and during this period he played jazz festivals and toured internationally with other bands.
He revived the Savoy Sultans jazz and dance band in 1979, and he appeared regularly at the Rainbow Room in New York City for eight years from 1980. Panama became drummer in the Benny Goodman Quartet for concerts in 1982. He appeared in the 1994 film The Statesmen of Jazz as a member of the Statesmen of Jazz.
Over his career he recorded with Ray Bryant, Eddie Barefield, Arnett Cobb, Earl Hines, Ray Conniff, Eubie Blake, Oscar Brown Jr., Dorothy Donegan, Roy Eldridge, Dizzy Gillespie and numerous others.Drummer Panama Francis, who mainly played swing jazz, transitioned in Orlando, Florida on November 13, 2001 following a stroke at age 82.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Theodore Guy Buckner was born on December 14, 1913 in St. Louis, Missouri but was raised in Detroit, Michigan where he played very early in his career before joining McKinney’s Cotton Pickers.
He became a member of the Jimmie Lunceford Orchestra, remaining from 1937 to 1943. After working with Lunceford, Buckner primarily played locally in Detroit, where he worked well into the 1970s. He played in small jazz combos, worked in the Motown studios, and co-led a big band with Jimmy Wilkins, Ernie Wilkins’s brother.
He toured Europe in 1975, and also appeared in the New McKinney’s Cotton Pickers that decade. Saxophonist Ted Buckner, who was the older brother of pianist Milt Buckner, transitioned on April 12, 1976 in Detroit.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Kansas Fields was born Carl Donnell Fields on December 5, 1915 in Chapman, Kansas and first played in Chicago, Illinois from the late Twenties and worked with King Kolax and Jimmie Noone in the 1930s. In 1940 he joined Roy Eldridge’s group for a year and returned to play with Eldridge again later in the decade.
He briefly led his own ensemble and played with Ella Fitzgerald and Benny Carter before joining the Marines during World War II. After the war, Kansas played with Cab Calloway, Claude Hopkins, Sidney Bechet, Dizzy Gillespie, and Eldridge again before the close of the decade.
Forming another group early in the 1950s, he then played with Mezz Mezzrow in Europe in 1953. Fields stayed in Europe for more than a decade, relocating to France where he worked as a sideman. In 1965, he returned to Chicago, working once more with Gillespie and doing studio work.
Drummer and bandleader Kansas Fields transitioned on March 7, 1995 in Chicago.
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