Daily Dose Of Jazz…
John Parker was born on June 24, 1928 in Queens, New York and began playing jazz trumpet at the age of 16 while attending Flushing High School. Encouraged by the bassist George Duvivier in the late Forties, he began playing in the jazz clubs on Manhattan’s W. 52nd Street where Dixieland, swing and bebop combos held court. It was on 52nd St. that drummer Zooty Singleton nicknamed him Tasty because of his tasty solos.
During the early 1950s, John, who was no relation to the Charlie Parker, began traveling with the Rhythm & Blues band of Roosevelt Sykes. He also played with trumpeter and composer Sy Oliver and vocalist Etta Jones. He also stepped in for trumpeter Cat Anderson in the Duke Ellington band. He would go on to play with Sonny Rollins and Thelonious Monk.
The 1970s saw Parker playing with pianist Brooks Kerr and drummer Sonny Greer in Manhattan venues including the Algonquin Hotel. Over the last 20 years, when Parker was living at Westbeth Artists Community with his wife, the late writer Leslie Gourse, he became a regular at Arthur’s Tavern and played New York City clubs in Little Italy and Chelsea.
Trumpeter John “Tasty” Parker, who never recorded as a leader and had been suffering from emphysema, passed away on Tuesday, March 21, 2006 in his Manhattan apartment at the age of 78.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Jamil Nasser was born George Joyner on June 21, 1932 in Memphis, Tennessee and learned to play the piano from his mother as a child. He took up the bass at age 16 and as a student at Arkansas State University he led the school band. He played bass and tuba in bands while stationed in Korea as a member of the U.S. Army and following his discharge he played with B.B. King in 1955 and 1956.
Moving to New York City in 1956, Jamil played with Phineas Newborn, Sonny Rollins, Gene Ammons, Evans Bradshaw, Randy Weston, Herbie Mann, Charlie Rouse, Kenny Burrell, Mal Waldron, Red Garland and Lou Donaldson before the decade was over. He toured Europe and North Africa with Idrees Sulieman in 1959, then went to Paris, France and recorded with Lester Young. He briefly lived in Italy briefly from 1961 to 1962 during which time he recorded with Eric Dolphy, then returned to New York City and formed his own trio, playing for the next two years. In 1964 he began working with Ahmad Jamal, a relationship lasting until 1972. He closed out the rest of the decade playing with Al Haig.
The 1980s and 1990s saw Nasser performing on many sessions with among others George Coleman, Clifford Jordan, Jimmy Raney, Harold Mabern, Gene Ammons and Hideaki Yoshioka.
Double bassist, electric bassist and tubist Jamil Nasser, who never recorded as a leader but is also credited on some of Ahmad Jamal‘s recordings as Jamil Sulieman, passed away on February 13, 2010 in Englewood, New Jersey.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Philip Francis Bates was born June 19, 1931 in Brixton, London. After playing bass on regular gigs at London’s 51 Club with Harry Klein and Vic Ash throughout 1956, he joined The Jazz Couriers with Tubby Hayes and Ronnie Scott. After the Couriers disbanded,
Bates went on tour with Sarah Vaughan and played with the Lennie Metcalfe Band on the Cunard liner the RMS Mauretania. By the early 1960s he was working with Johnny Dankworth and Ronnie Ross, among others, before joining Dick Morrissey’s Quartet from 1962 until 1968. During that period he also played with the Harry South Big Band, as did the other members of the quartet, and with the Tony Kinsey Quintet.
In 1968 he played briefly again with Tubby Hayes and from 1968 on, he worked as a session musician, accompanying visiting American musicians such as Sonny Stitt, Jimmy Witherspoon, Judy Collins and Tom Paxton. He spent five years touring Europe with Stéphane Grappelli in the late 1970s and in the Eighties and 1990s he led his own trio. At 86, double bassist Phil Bates seldom performs, if at all.
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Marilyn Moore was born on June 16, 1930 in Chicago, Illinois. She began her singing career during the 1950s and recorded only one solo album as a leader on the Bethlehem label titled Moody Marilyn Moore in 1957.
Her vocal style was similar to Billie Holiday’s, and according to jazz critic Will Friedwald, the two were friends. When Marilyn was an aspiring teenager vocalist in California she wrote her for advice. They wrote some thirty letters to one another during the 1940s. Holiday encouraged her and advised her to look up producer John Hammond when she arrived in New York City.
Vocalist Marilyn Moore, the first wife of saxophonist Al Cohn, who played on her album and the mother of guitarist Joe Cohn, passed away on March 19, 1992 in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida.
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Melvin Moore was born on June 15, 1923 in Chicago, Illinois. In 1944 the trumpeter began his career playing with Lucky Millinder, then joined Duke Ellington’s Orchestra from 1948 to 1950. This he followed with performance in rhythm and blues bands. By 1951 he was recording with Dizzy Gillespie and singing on such titles as The Champ and Swing Low, Sweet Cadillac.
At the end of 1951 he was recording some vocal titles for King Records with Terry Gibbs, Billy Taylor, Mundell Lowe and Charles Mingus. In 1957 he was a member of Don Redman’s orchestra, the following year he recorded with John Pisano and with Billy Bean. Between 1964 and 1966 he worked with Gerald Wilson and he also accompanied Johnny Hartman. During the Sixties he performed on separate dates at the Monterey Jazz Festival with Mingus, Thelonious Monk and Dizzy Gillespie.
By 1967 he was playing in B.B. Kings band followed by the Seventies bands of Esther Phillips, T – Bone Walker, Don Sugarcane Harris, Johnny Otis, Jerry Garcia and Shuggie Otis and in the early 1980s with Ted Hawkins. Moore is not to be confused with the singer born in 1917, who sang with Jimmie Lunceford and Ernie Fields .
Trumpeter, violinist and singer of swing and bebop Mel Moore passed away on February 26, 1989 in New York City.
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