Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Robert Martin Enevoldsen was born on September 11, 1920 in Billings, Montana. He recorded sessions with Art Pepper and Shorty Rogers, and later extensively played with Shelly Manne.
Enevoldsen did most of the arranging for Steve Allen’s Westinghouse show in the early-1960s. During the 1970s, he performed with Gerry Mulligan. In the mid-1970s Bob taught arranging and directed the jazz band at Los Angeles Pierce College in Woodland Hills.
Tenor saxophonist and valve trombonist Bob Enevoldsen, who mainly played in the West Coast genre and was known for his work with Marty Paich, passed away on November 19, 2005 in Woodland Hills, Los Angeles, California.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Cliff Leeman was born in Portland, Maine on September 10, 1913. At age 13 he played percussion with the Portland Symphony Orchestra and toured as a xylophonist on the vaudeville circuit late in the 1920s. He first made his name in the jazz world during the Thirties and Forties working in the swing bands of Artie Shaw, Glenn Miller, Tommy Dorsey, Charlie Barnet, Johnny Long, and Woody Herman.
After a stint in the Army in 1944, he worked with Don Byas, John Kirby, Raymond Scott, Jimmy Dorsey, and Ben Webster. He briefly left the music industry before joining the Casa Loma Orchestra in 1947, later moving on to the Charlie Barnet Orchestra and closing out the decade in Bob Chester’s big band ensemble.
He played on radio and television in the 1950s, in addition to playing live often with Eddie Condon and Bobby Hackett. His later associations include Pee Wee Erwin, Yank Lawson/Bob Haggart, Ralph Sutton, Billy Butterfield. During the 1960s he performed with Bob Crosby, Wild Bill Davison, Dukes of Dixieland, Peanuts Hucko and Joe Venuti. The Seventies saw Cliff with The Kings of Jazz, Bud Freeman, Don Ewell, the World’s Greatest Jazz Band, and Jimmy McPartland.
He recorded several albums for Fat Cat Jazz in the 1970s. Drummer Cliff Leeman, whose nickname is Mr. Time, passed away on April 26, 1986.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
David Walter Bowman was born September 8, 1914 in Buffalo, New York but was raised in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada, where he learned to play piano as a four year old.
He moved to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania and played there for a time, then went to London, England working with Jack Hylton in the mid-1930s. After returning to the States he settled in New York and played with Bobby Hackett, Sharkey Bonano, Sidney Bechet, and Bud Freeman late in the decade.
In the early 1940s, he worked with Jack Teagarden, Joe Marsala, Muggsy Spanier, Lee Wiley, and Eddie Condon. He took positions with ABC and NBC in the late 1940s including Perry Como and worked as a studio musician on recordings.
In the 1950s, he once again worked with Bud Freeman and with Phil Napoleon shortly before his own death. Pianist Dave Bowman passed away from an automobile accident on December 28, 1964 in Miami, Florida.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Alvin Elmore Alcorn was born in New Orleans, Louisiana on September 7, 1912. Learning music theory from his brother, in the early 1930s he was a member of the Sunny South Syncopators led by Armand J. Piron.
He worked in Texas as a member of Don Albert’s swing band, but he spent most of his career in New Orleans in the dixieland bands of Paul Barbarin, Sidney Desvigne, Oscar Celestin, and Octave Crosby.
During the 1950s, he moved to Los Angeles, California and joined Kid Ory’s band, then a couple years later returned home to New Orleans. After going on tour in Europe with Chris Barber in the late 1970s, he continued to perform into the 1980s.
Trumpeter Alvin Alcorn passed away on July 10, 2003.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Johnny Letman was born September 6, 1917 in McCormick, South Carolina and early in his career played in midwest bands, including those of Jerry Valentine, Scatman Crothers, and Jimmy Raschelle. Moving to Chicago in the middle of the 1930s, he worked with Delbert Bright, Bob Tinsley, Johnny Lang, Nat King Cole, Horace Henderson, and Red Saunders in the late Thirties to early 1940s.
After spending a year or so in Detroit playing with Teddy Buckner and John Kirby, he moved to New York City in 1944. There he performed with Phil Moore, Lucky Millinder, Cab Calloway, Milt Buckner, and Count Basie.
Working extensively as a studio musician and in Broadway shows throughout the 1950s and 1960s worked both in and outside of jazz music, and his associations in these decades included Joe Thomas, Stuff Smith, Chubby Jackson, Panama Francis, Dick Wellstood, Hal Singer, Sam Taylor, Eddie Condon, Wilbur De Paris, and Claude Hopkins.
By 1968 he was playing with Milt Buckner and Tiny Grimes in Paris, France. In the 1970s, he played with Lionel Hampton, Cozy Cole, and Earl Hines. In the mid-Eighties he led the New Orleans Blues Serenaders, and toured Europe. Trumpeter Johnny Letman passed away on July 17, 1992.
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