Daily Dose Of Jazz…

Johnny McClanian Best, Jr. was born in Shelby, North Carolina on October 20, 1913. He played piano as a child and learned trumpet from age 13. In the 1930s he worked with Les Brown, Charlie Barnet, and Artie Shaw from 1937 to 1939, then joined Glenn Miller’s orchestra for three years in 1939.

Before serving in the Navy during World War II as a lifeguard he spent a short time with Bob Crosby. During his service he played in Shaw’s military band and Sam Donahue’s band. Following a stint with Benny Goodman after the war, then he relocated to Hollywood, California where he worked with Crosby again on radio and played in numerous studio big bands in the 1940s and 1950s.

Touring with Billy May in 1953, later in the decade he led his own group locally. His trumpet can be heard along with Ella Fitzgerald on her album Get Happy. In 1964 he toured Japan with Crosby, and joined Ray Conniff for worldwide tours in the 1970s.

In 1982, he broke his back while working in his avocado orchard and used a wheelchair late in life, but was active into the 1980s. He played the trumpet solo on the Glenn Miller recording At Last, which was featured in the film Orchestra Wives.

Trumpeter Johnny Best,  who played on Begin the Beguine which put Artie Shaw in business, transitioned on September 19, 2003.

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Daily Dose Of Jazz…

Paul Tanner was born on October 15, 1917 in Skunk Hollow, Campbell County, Kentucky. One of six brothers, each could play an instrument and he learned to play the trombone at a reform school where his father was employed as superintendent. The brothers were playing in what he described as a strip joint when Glenn Miller heard him and offered him a position in his band.

He gained fame as a trombonist, playing with Glenn Miller and His Orchestra from 1938 to 1942, the group’s entire duration. When it disbanded, Paul joined the U.S. Army Air Force, becoming a part of the 378th Army Service Forces Band at Ft Slocum, New York. He later worked as a studio musician in Hollywood.

Tanner earned bachelor, master and doctorate degrees at the University of California, Los Angeles between 1958 and 1975. He was influential in launching UCLA’s highly regarded jazz education program in 1958. He became a professor at UCLA and authored or co-authored several academic and popular histories related to jazz.

He developed and played the Electro-Theremin, an electronic musical instrument that mimics the sound of the theremin. He can be heard performing on the opening title theme music of My Favorite Martian, on several 1966-1967 Beach Boys recordings, Good Vibrations, Wild Honey, I Just Wasn’t Made For These Times, and Tune L.

Trombonist, educator and inventor Paul Tanner transitioned from pneumonia on February 5, 2013 at the age of 95. Of all the members of the Glenn Miller Orchestra, only trumpeter Ray Anthony is still living.

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Daily Dose Of Jazz…

Jack Patrick Fallon was born on October 13, 1915 in London, Ontario, Canada and played violin and studied with London Symphony Orchestra founder Bruce Sharpe. In 1935 when he was 20 years old he made double bass his primary instrument.

During World War II he played in a dance band in the Royal Canadian Air Force, and settled in Britain after his discharge. Fallon joined Ted Heath’s band in 1946, and played bebop in London, England clubs in his spare time. In 1947 he played with Ronnie Scott and Tommy Whittle at the Melody Maker/Columbia Jazz Rally. Following this through the late Forties he worked with Jack Jackson, George Shearing, Duke Ellington, and Django Reinhardt.

He went on to play in a Count Basie ensemble which also included Malcolm Mitchell and Tony Crombie. Jack played with both of them after leaving Basie, working together with Hoagy Carmichael and Maxine Sullivan and touring in Sweden together with Reinhardt and Stéphane Grappelli.

Fallon worked in the 1950s as an accompanist to Mary Lou Williams, Sarah Vaughan, and Lena Horne. He served as a sideman in the ensembles of Humphrey Lyttelton, Kenny Baker, and Ralph Sharon and was the house bassist at Lansdowne Studios.

Outside of jazz he worked with blues musicians such as Big Bill Broonzy, Josh White and played with Johnny Duncan’s Blue Grass Boys. As the bass guitar became more popular, Jack became a champion of its use, and played both instruments in the latter part of his career.

Fallon was also involved in the industry as a booker/promoter, having established the booking agency Cana Variety in 1952. He booked primarily jazz artists in its early stages but expanded to rock acts in the 1960s, including The Beatles and The Rolling Stones. Because of this connection, Fallon was asked by the Beatles to play violin fiddle style on the song Don’t Pass Me By in 1968.

He continued to play jazz locally in London and in the studios into the 1990s but retired from performing in 1998 due to ill health. In 2002, he was awarded the Freedom of the City of London and published a memoir titled From the Top in 2005.

Double bassist Jack Fallon transitioned on May 22, 2006 at age 90. He was posthumously inducted into the London Music Hall of Fame in his hometown.

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Daily Dose O fJazz…

Bill Stegmeyer was born October 8, 1916 in Detroit, Michigan. He attended Transylvania College in Lexington, Kentucky from 1934 to 1936, and following his studies he played through the rest of the decade with Austin Wylie, Glenn Miller, and Bob Crosby.

In the 1940s, he did arrangement work and played clarinet and occasionally, saxophone with Billy Butterfield, Yank Lawson, Bobby Hackett, Will Bradley, and Billie Holiday from 1945 to 1947. He arranged for WXYZ, a Detroit radio station, for two years starting in 1948, then followed this with arranging Your Hit Parade for eight years.

In the 1950s he also continued to play jazz with Lawson, Butterfield, Bob Haggart, Jimmy McPartland, and Ruby Braff.  He went to work for CBS in the early 1960s.

Clarinetist and arranger Bill Stegmeyer, whose only recordings as a leader were five tunes for Signature Records in 1945 and some V-Discs, transitioned from cancer in Long Island, New York on August 19, 1968 at the age of 51.

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Daily Dose Of Jazz…

William Luther Johnson was born on September 30, 1912 in Jacksonville, Florida and studied piano as a child and began playing the alto saxophone at the age of 16. After working with lesser-known bands he studied in conservatories in Wisconsin and Illinois before attending Marquette University.

While in Milwaukee, Wisconsin he played with Jabbo Smith and others. He worked with Baron Lee and Tiny Bradshaw, and in 1936 joined Erskine Hawkins, with whom he performed into the early 1940s, recording with him from 1939 to 1942. He composed Tuxedo Junction with Hawkins and appeared with the band in the short film Deviled Hams in 1937.

Around mid-1946 he recorded under Bill Johnson and Orchestra, with several of the members becoming the Musical Notes. Bill Johnson and the Musical Notes recorded for Harlem, RCA, King, Regal, Tru-Blue.He recorded for Ronnex as the Bill Johnson Quartet, and the Bill Johnson Quintet for Baton. Over the years, there were many personnel changes, but Bill and Gus Gordon were on all the recordings.

In the Fifties failing health caused the breakup of the group, although he re-formed it on a couple of occasions. Alto saxophonist, clarinetist, and arranger Bill Johnson, who was diagnosed with lung cancer in 1957, transitioned on July 5, 1960 at 47 years old in New York City.

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