Daily Dose Of Jazz…

Alfred Viola was born on June 16, 1919 in Brooklyn, New York and grew up in an Italian family. He learned to play the guitar and mandolin as a teenager. Enlisting in the Army during World War II and played in an Army jazz band from 1942 to 1945.

He started a trio with pianist Page Cavanaugh and bassist Lloyd Pratt. The band appeared in several films, including Romance on the High Seas with Doris Day, and played a few dates in 1946 and 1947 with Frank Sinatra. Viola continued to work with Sinatra regularly, accompanying him on several hundred studio recordings and concert dates between 1956 and 1980.

Viola was a session musician in Los Angeles, California performing in films and television. His mandolin playing can be heard on the soundtrack of The Godfather. Other credits include West Side Story and Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? He continued playing jazz as well, with Bobby Troup, Ray Anthony, Harry James, Buddy Collette, Stan Kenton, Gerald Wilson and Terry Gibbs.

He worked as a session musician on over 500 albums, including releases by Natalie Cole, Neil Diamond, Marvin Gaye, Julie London, Steve Lawrence, Linda Ronstadt, Jimmy Witherspoon, Helen Humes, June Christy, Ella Fitzgerald, Anita O’Day, Nelson Riddle, and Joe Williams.

Viola and Cavanaugh reunited in the 1980s with Phil Mallory and continued to play regularly in Los Angeles until the late 1990s.

Guitarist Al Viola, recorded ten albums as a leader, died of cancer on February 21, 2007 at the age of 87 in Los Angeles.

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Daily Dose Of Jazz…

Philip L. Bodner was born in Waterbury, Connecticut on June 13, 1917 and worked as a studio musician in the 1940s and 1950s in New York City. He recorded with Benny Goodman and with Miles Davis and Gil Evans in 1958. The 1960s saw him playing with Oliver Nelson and J.J. Johnson.

During the Sixties he organized The Brass Ring, a group modeled after Herb Alpert and the Tijuana Brass. The group released nine albums between 1966 and 1972 and associations in the 1970s included Oscar Peterson, Yusef Lateef, Peanuts Hucko, Wild Bill Davison, and Ralph Sutton.

Bodner played the signature piccolo part on Van McCoy’s disco hit song The Hustle. During that period he also played with Ralph Sutton and Johnny Varro, worked with Mingus Epitaph, and arranged Louie Bellson’s tribute to Duke Ellington’s Black, Brown and Beige.

He worked in a swing style with Marty Napoleon, Mel Lewis, and George Duvivier in the 1980s and played with Maxine Sullivan and Barbara Carroll. Over the course of his career he recorded five albums as a leader, and eleven as a sideman with Coleman Hawkins, Cootie Williams, Miles Davis, Joe Wilder, Paul Desmond, Wes Montgomery, Cal Tjader, Mel Davis, George Benson, Freddie Hubbard, and Joey DeFrancesco.

Clarinetist and studio musician Phil Bodner, who also played flute, oboe, saxophone, and English horn, died in New York City on February 24, 2008, at age 90.

Daily Dose Of Jazz…

Britt Woodman was born on June 4, 1920 in Los Angeles, California. A childhood friend of Charles Mingus, he first worked with Phil Moore and Les Hite. After serving in World War II he played with Boyd Raeburn before joining with Lionel Hampton in 1946.

During the 1950s he worked with Duke Ellington. As a member of Ellington’s band he can be heard on twenty-five recorings such as 1957’s Such Sweet Thunder, Ella Fitzgerald Sings the Duke Ellington Song Book, and 1958’s Black, Brown, and Beige and Ellington Indigos.

1960 saw Britt departing from Ellington to work in a pit orchestra. He went on to later work with Mingus and can be heard on the album Mingus Mingus Mingus Mingus Mingus released in 1963. In the 1970s he led his own octet and recorded with pianist Toshiko Akiyoshi. In 1989, he was part of the personnel for the album Epitaph dedicated to the previously unrecorded music of Charles Mingus.

He recorded Playing For Keeps and In L.A. as a leader, and leaves a sideman recording catalogue of ninety-three albums with Toshiko Akiyoshi – Lew Tabackin Big Band, Bill Berry, Ella Fitzgerald, Lionel Hampton, Johnny Hodges, Jimmy Smith, Gene Ammons, Ray Brown, Ruth Brown, Frank Capp, Nat Pierce, Benny Carter, Rosemary Clooney, John Coltrane, Randy Crawford, Tadd Dameron, Miles Davis, Booker Ervin, John Fahey, Dizzy Gillespie, Benny Golson, Chico Hamilton, Jimmy Hamilton, Hank Jones, Oliver Nelson, Philly Joe Jones, Jon Lucien, Galt MacDermot, Teo Macero, Junior Mance, The Manhattan Transfer, Wade Marcus, Blue Mitchell, Grover Mitchell, James Moody, Maria Muldaur, Oliver Nelson, Oscar Peterson, Zoot Sims, Billy Taylor, Clark Terry, Teri Thornton, Jimmy Woode

Trombonisit Britt Woodman died in Hawthorne, California at the age of 80, having suffered severe respiratory problems on October 13, 2000.

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Daily Dose Of Jazz…

Ziggy Elman was born Harry Aaron Finkelman on May 26, 1914 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. but his family settled in Atlantic City, New Jersey when he was four. His father was a violinist who had hoped he would play violin and although he did learn to play violin, he preferred brass instruments. He began playing for Jewish weddings and nightclubs at age 15.

In 1932, made his first recording, playing the trombone. In 1936, he joined the Benny Goodman orchestra as a trumpeter, after playing briefly with a band led by Alex Bartha at Steel Pier in Atlantic City, where Goodman heard him. In 1938, while with Goodman, he got a contract with Bluebird, RCA’s cheaper label, to record 20 sides as Ziggy Elman and his Orchestra, although all the members were in Goodman’s band. 

One original tune was Frailach in Swing, based on a 1918 recording of Der Shtiller Bulgar (The Quiet Bulgar) by Abe Schwartz. During the first half of 1939, Benny Goodman and His Orchestra was featured on the Camel Caravan radio show, with singer and songwriter Johnny Mercer as singer, writer of speciality numbers, and announcer. After leaving Goodman in 1940, Elman joined Tommy Dorsey and stayed until he was drafted in 1943. After he was discharged in 1946, he re-joined Dorsey for another year.

In 1956, he was asked to recreate a klezmer solo with the vocalist Martha Tilton for the movie, The Benny Goodman Story, but was unable to, his technique having since withered away. Elman appeared performing it in the film, but another trumpeter, Mannie Klein, played the solo on the soundtrack.

By the 1950s, the music had changed. Big bands had declined and for a time he switched to entertainment work. In this decade he appeared in films mostly as himself. In 1956 he had a heart attack, curtailing his music career. By the end of the 1950s he was financially ruined, and had to work for a car dealership. In 1961, it was revealed at an alimony hearing that he was virtually bankrupt. He later worked in a music store and gave trumpet lessons. 

Trumpeter Ziggy Elman died of liver failure on June 26, 1968 at the age of 54 and was buried at Mount Sinai Memorial Park Cemetery in Los Angeles, California.

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Daily Dose Of Jazz…

Maurice “Moe” Purtill was born May 4, 1916 in Huntington, New York and^] dropped out of high school to start his career as a freelance drummer in New York Studios. At the age of 20 at the outset of  1936 he became a member of the Red Norvo band.

Later he joined Mildred Bailey, played briefly with Glenn Miller in 1937, then worked with Tommy Dorsey in 1938 for a year before picking up with Miller again from 1939 to 1942, when Miller had the bulk of his hits. After Miller’s band broke up in 1942, Moe played with Kay Kyser until 1944, then joined the U.S. Navy. After his discharge, he played briefly in 1946 with the reformed Glenn Miller Orchestra directed by Tex Beneke.

Purtill went on to record in the studio on various projects and participated in a few Miller reunions. He was good friends with Buddy Rich, Trigger Alpert and saxophonist Jack Palmer. He lived in New York City until the early 1970s, retired in 1978 and moved to Sarasota, Florida.

Drummer Moe Purtill died at Valley Hospital in Ridgewood, New Jersey on March 9, 1994.

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