Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Jimmy Deuchar was born James Deuchar on June 26, 1930 in Dundee, Scotland. Taught trumpet by WWI bugler John Lynch, after national service he began his professional career in the John Dankworth Seven in 1950. He would go on to work with the Oscar Rabin Band, Ronnie Scott, and Kurt Edelhagen’s Orchestra through the decade.
By the Sixties he was working with Tubby Hayes and sitting in with visiting Americans at Ronnie Scott’s club. A highly gifted player and a leading exponent of the “modern” style, he was in demand and achieved success as a touring player in Europe and the United States.
He joined the Kenny Clarke-Francy Boland Big Band during the late 60 and early 70s, returned to London and freelanced, arranged for the BBC Big Band, the BBC Scottish Radio Orchestra and played in a number of settings.
He recorded a number of albums as a leader and sideman beginning in the Fifties utilizing many of his compositions on albums such as The Deuchar Plays Deuchar, Down In The Village, Pal Jimmy and Live In London.
With his health deteriorated, on September 9, 1993 jazz trumpeter and arranger Jimmy Deuchar, who was influenced by Fats Navarro and whose small range was broad and fat toned, passed away at age 63.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Bill Russo was born William Russo on June 25, 1928 in Chicago, Illinois and studied piano under Lennie Tristano. He would become an arranger and composer and by the 1950s was writing groundbreaking orchestral scores for the Stan Kenton Orchestra. He would compose for Kenton 23 Degrees N 82 Degrees W, Frank Speaking, Portrait of a Count and one of his most famous Halls Of Brass, featuring Buddy Childers, Maynard Ferguson and Milt Bernhart.
By the 60s Russo moved to England, founded the London Jazz Orchestra, and contributed to the Third Stream movement that sought to close the gap between jazz and classical music. Returning to Chicago by mid-decade he founded Columbia College’s music department, became the director of its Center for New Music, the college’s first full-time faculty member and the Director of Orchestral Studies at Scuola Europea d’Orchestra Jazz in Palermo, Italy.
Bill has composed classical symphonies, choral works, operas and several works for the theater. He has received a Koussevitsky award, had his work performed by the New York Philharmonic, the San Francisco and Chicago Symphony Orchestras, and has set music to the poetry of Gertrude Stein as well as scores for dance and film.
Russo has worked with Manny Albam, Teo Macero, Teddy Charles, Donald Byrd, Phil Woods, Bill Evans, Eddie Costa, Bob Brookmeyer, Al Cohn and Art Farmer among others. Starting the Chicago Jazz Ensemble, which is dedicated to preserving and expanding jazz, He was succeeded by Jon Faddis and it is currently under the artistic direction of Dana Hall. Trombonist, composer, arranger, eudcator and author Bill Russo passed away on January 11, 2003 after a bout with cancer. He was 74 years old.
Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Lalo Schifrin was born Boris Claudio Schifrin in Buenos Aires, Argentina on June 21, 1932. At the age of six he began a six-year course of study on piano with Enrique Barenboim and at 16 studied piano with Andreas Karalis and harmony with Argentine composer Juan Carlos Paz. By twenty he was attending the Paris Conservatoire during the day and playing at night in jazz clubs.
1955 saw Lalo playing with Astor Piazzolla and on stage at the International Jazz Festival in Paris. Back in Argentina he formed a jazz orchestra, met Dizzy in ’58 and wrote Gillespiana for his big band. He would go on to work with Xavier Cugat, move to New York, take the piano chair in Dizzy’s quintet and wrote a second extended composition titled, The New Continent.
The Sixties had MGM signing Schifrin to his first movie score, he moved to Hollywood, changed The Man from U.N.C.L.E. to a jazz melody and won an Emmy for the theme. He would go on to score television and movies like Mission Impossible, Mannix, Cool Hand Luke, Dirty Harry, The Exorcist, Bullitt and even ABC’s Eyewitness News.
Over the course of his career Lalo Schifrin has recorded over 50 albums and soundtracks, 90 television and film scores as a leader, composer and conductor; and has worked with Cannonball Adderley, Eddie Harris, Count Basie, Luiz Bonfa, Candido Camera, Louis Bellson, Al Hirt, Jimmy Smith, Sarah Vaughan, Cal Tjader, Paul Horn and many others.
In 1997, the composer founded Aleph Records; played an orchestra conductor in Red Dragon, has had his music sampled by hip-hop artists, has been nominated twenty-one times and won four Grammy Awards, one Cable Ace Award, received six Oscar nominations and has a star on the Hollywood Walk Of Fame.
Pianist, composer, arranger and conductor Lalo Schifrin continued to compose, conduct and perform until his death from complications of pneumonia at a hospital in Los Angeles, California at the age of 93 on June 26, 2025.
Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Buddy Catlett was born George James Catlett on June 13, 1933 and grew up in Seattle, Washington. During his childhood he listened to records his mother brought home, and learned to play the cornet around age 10 after hearing Louis Armstrong, and by fourteen had saved enough money from his movie theater job to buy a saxophone. He would soon be gigging with his childhood friend Quincy Jones till 5:30 in the morning and then the two would go to Garfield High School a few hours later. It was during this time that he also met and performed with Ray Charles.
He first professional gig was with vibraphonist Bumps Blackwell’s band that included Ernestine Anderson, but by 17 had to stop performing due to tubercular pleurisy that hospitalized him for two years. Not to be beaten, he started taking bass lessons with Tiny Martin of the Seattle Symphony. Learning quickly he was soon asked to join pianist Horace Henderson’s band and on the road he went. This was followed up with a stint with Cal Tjader, a move to New York in 1958, and a European tour with Quincy Jones playing for the musical Free and Easy starring tapper Harold Nicholas.
Throughout his career he performed with Billie Holiday, Ella Fitzgerald, Sarah Vaughan, Frank Sinatra, Count Basie and Louis Armstrong among others. He has appeared on over 100 recordings and is recognizable on the Sinatra/Basie arrangement of Fly Me To The Moon and Armstrong’s What A Wonderful World. With declining health, bassist Buddy Catlett scaled down his jazz performances in his hometown of Seattle but has not lost his popularity or respect from an admiring community. Bassist Buddy Catlett passed away on November 12, 2014, at age 81 at the Leon Sullivan Health Care Center in Seattle’s Central District.
Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Nat Hentoff was born Nathan Irving Hentoff on June 10, 1925 in Boston, Massachusetts. He graduated from the Boston Latin School, matriculated through Northeastern University with honors, did graduate work at Harvard University and was a Fulbright fellow at the Sorbonne in Paris.
He became an American historian, novelist, jazz and country music critic and a syndicated columnist having written for Down Beat, Jazz Times as well as the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Village Voice, The New Yorker amongst others.
Hentoff joined Down Beat Magazine as a columnist in 1952 and from 1953 through 1957 was an associate editor. In 1958 he co-founded The Jazz Review, a magazine that he co-edited with Martin Williams until 1961. His broadcast career began with a notable radio show called “JazzAlbum”, that would continue into the 50s. During this period he would also host radio shows “Evolution of Jazz” and “The Scope of Jazz”.
In June 1955, Hentoff co-authored with Nat Shapiro “Hear Me Talkin’ to Ya: The Story of Jazz by the Men Who Made It”. The book features interviews with some of the best-known names in jazz, including Dizzy Gillespie, Duke Ellington and Paul Whiteman. He went on to author numerous other books on jazz.
Hentoff is a Guggenheim Fellow, NEA Jazz Master, and has been honored y Northeastern University, National Press Foundation, Human Life Foundation and the American Bar Association. He has written twenty non-fiction books and nine novels, of which eight are dedicated to jazz. Writer, author and record producer Nat Hentoff passed away of natural causes at his Manhattan apartment on January 7, 2017.
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