Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Thelma Carpenter was born January 15, 1922 in Brooklyn, New York. As a child performer she had her own radio show on WNYC in New York and won an amateur night at the Apollo Theatre in 1938. She would go on to play such 52nd Street clubs as Kell’s Stables and the Famous Door and was discovered by John Hammond.
Carpenter subsequently made her debut as a band vocalist with Teddy Wilson’s short-lived orchestra in 1939, recording Love Grows On the White Oak Tree and This Is The Moment on the Brunswick label. She joined Coleman Hawkins’ orchestra in 1940 and recorded the RCA/Bluebird Records classic album He’s Funny That Way. She followed Helen Humes as Count Basie’s vocalist and over two years recorded several sessions with the band such as More Than You Know, Do Nothing Till You Hear From Me and My Ideal.
Thelma replaced Dinah Shore as vocalist on Eddie Cantor’s radio show for the 1945-46 season, marking the first time that a black artist had become a permanent member of an all-white show without playing a character. She would also sing with Duke Ellington in concerts and on television. She was a top nightclub and major theater attraction for most of her career, performing regularly at such chic clubs as Chez Bricktop in Paris and Rome and the Capitol and Palace Theater on Broadway among others.
As a Broadway performer she appeared with Bill “Bojangles” Robinson, replaced Pearl Bailey in Hello Dolly!, performed along with Avon Long in Shuffle Along, co-starred in Barefoot In The Park and created the role of Irene Paige in Bubbling Brown Sugar. She toured nationally in Bob fosse’s Pippin and was the Good Witch of The North in Sidney Lumet’s film The Wiz. So in demand was she that Fosse and Lumet arranged their schedules so she could do both projects simultaneously. She was the mother of Maurice and Gregory Hines in the film The Cotton Club.
She also had a critically acclaimed album Thinking of You Tonight and Sepia Records posthumously released a 26-song compilation title Seems Like Old Times. Carpenter performed on television with Jackie Gleason, Eddie Condon, Duke Ellington, Diana Ross, Sammy Davis Jr. and Eric Clapton, as well as appearing on the Ed Sullivan, Merv Griffin, Paul Lynde and Cosby shows. Jazz vocalist and actress Thelma Carpenter passed away of cardiac arrest on May 14, 1997 in New York City.
Jazz Is Global – Share
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Guy Lafitte was born on January 12, 1927 in Saint-Gaudens, France. Most notable for his tenor saxophone work with Mezz Mezzrow from 1951–1952 and also toured with Big Bill Broonzy in 1951.
In 1954 Lafitte made Paris his home, and worked with Lionel Hampton Emmett Berry. He also collaborated on various other projects with musicians such as Wild Bill Davis and Bill Coleman.
Guy recorded six albums as a leader beginning with his debut in 1953 with All The Things You Are playing with Franck Pourcel, and continued on with Peanuts Holland, Raymond Fol, Jean-Claude Pelletier, Geo Daly, Andre Persiany, Paul Rovere, Teddy Martin, Hank Jones, George Duvivier, J.C. Heard, Clyde Lucas, Jacky Terrasson, Pierre Boussaguet and Al Lewitt.
He recorded another seven sessions as a sideman with Arnett Cobb, Bill Coleman, Sammy Price, Lucky Thompson, Buck Clayton, Charlie Singleton and Ben Webster. Tenor saxophonist Guy Lafitte passed away on June 10, 1998.
Dose A Day – Blues Away
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Jack Nimitz was born in Washington, DC on January 11, 1930. He first began playing clarinet at age 12, and picked up the alto saxophone at 14. He played in local DC bands and after specializing on baritone sax he found work in the territory bands of Willis Connover, Bob Astor, Johnny Bothwell and Daryl Harpa.
Through the Fifties Nimitz played with Woody Herman, Stan Kenton and Herbie Mann and was in the house band of the Savoy Theater. Moving to Los Angeles, California he worked in film music in addition to performing with Bill Berry, Benny Carter, Onzy Matthews, Gerald Wilson, Supersax, Frank Strazzen, Thelonious Monk, Terry Gibbs, Dizzy Gillespie, Louis Bellson, Quincy Jones, Kenny Burrell, Horace Silver, Gene Ammons, Shelly Manne, Chuck Mangione, Charles Mingus, Gil Fuller, Oliver Nelson, Milt Jackson, Frank Capp and Joey DeFrancesco into the 1980s.
Additionally Jack recorded with the vocalists Johnny Hartman, June Christy, Peggy Lee, Nat King Cole, Carmen McRae, Anita O’Day and Diane Schuur. By the Nineties he was recording again with Claire Fischer, Lalo Schifrin, Stewart Liebig, Bill Perkins, Bud Shank and Gerald Wilson.
In 1995 he released his first of two albums under his own name, The Jack Nimitz Quintet, and played his final performance on May 10, 2009, in Northridge, California. Baritone saxophonist Jack Nimitz passed away at the age of 79 one month later on June 10, 2009 from complications from emphysema in Studio City, Los Angeles, California.
Take A Dose On The Road
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Allen Eager was born on January 10, 1927 in New York City and grew up in the Bronx. Reading by age 3, he learned to drive at the age of 9 with the help of his mother, after catching him driving a garbage truck near their hotels in the Catskill Mountains. He took clarinet lessons with David Weber of the New York Philharmonic at the age of 13 and went on to make the tenor saxophone his instrument.
When he was 15 Eager briefly played with Woody Herman and also took heroin for the first time. The next year he played in the Bobby Sherwood band, then went on to play with Sonny Dunham, Shorty Sherock, Hal McIntyre, Tommy Dorsey and John Bothwell all by 1945. After World War II he became a regular on the 52nd Street scene in New York, led his own ensemble there from 1945–47 and recorded his debut as leader for Savoy Records in 1946 with pianist Ed Finckel, bassist Bob Carter and drummer Max Roach.
Influenced by the playing of Lester Young, he was in good company with his contemporaries Zoot Sims, Stan Getz, Al Cohn and others. He adopted the musical forms pioneered in bebop but also adopted the drug dependency of a lot of the bebop players in the 1940s. As a white saxophonist of the time, Eager was a member of several bands led by black musicians including Coleman Hawkins, Fats Navarro, Charlie Parker, Red Rodney and Tadd Dameron by 1950.
During the Fifties he played with Gerry Mulligan, Terry Gibbs, Buddy Rich and Howard McGhee. He lived and performed in Paris from 1956-1957, returned to the States and recorded his last session for the next 25 years, The Gerry Mulligan Songbook with Mulligan leading. He essentially retired from jazz and while dealing with his own drug addiction did appear in Jack Kerouac’s 1958 book The Subterraneans as the character Roger Beloit. Allen went on to pursue other activities such as skiing, auto racing, and LSD experimentation with Timothy Leary. After several notable racing finishes at Sebring and Europe in 1963 a crash left him with broken bones.
He occasionally dabbled in music again, playing alto saxophone with Charles Mingus, Frank Zappa, recorded a 1982 Uptown Records session titled Renaissance. He toured with Dizzy Gillespie and Chet Baker and played in England. Tenor and alto saxophonist Allen Eager passed away from liver cancer on April 13, 2003 in Daytona Beach, Florida.
Give The Gift Of Knowledge
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Roger Guérin was born on January 9, 1926 in Saarbrücken, Germany and initially studied violin, followed by cornet and trumpetat the Paris Conservatory. It was there as a teenager that he won first prize.
Roger began working professionally in 1947, playing with Aime Barelli, Django Reinhardt, Don Byas, Hubert Fol, James Moody, Benny Golson, Bernard Peiffer, Fats Sadi, Lucky Thompson, Kenny Clarke, Blossom Dearie, Martial Solal, Michel Legrand and Andre Hodeir.
Playing at the 1958 Newport Jazz Festival l with a youth ensemble, Guérin also played in Les Double Six in 1959, later returning to this group. He replaced Clark Terry in Quincy Jones’s Big Band in 1960. He worked on the soundtrack to the film Paris Blues in 1961 with Duke Ellington and went on to work extensively as a vocalist for Michel Legrand.
He has over 150 album credits to his name including recording with the Kenny Clarke/Francy Boland Big Band, and has won the Prix Django Reinhardt in 1959. Trumpeter and vocalist Roger Guérin passed away on February 6, 2010 in Nimes, France.
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