Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Charles Davis was born on May 20, 1933 in Mississippi but was raised in Chicago, Illinois. Graduating from DuSable High School he continued his musical study of the saxophone at the Chicago School of Music and privately under John Hauser. In the 1950s he played in the bands of Billie Holiday, Ben Webster, Dinah Washington and extensively with Sun Ra and Archie Shepp. He teamed up with Kenny Dorham, performing and recording for many years together.
An accomplished tenor and alto saxophonist, Charles was widely known for his baritone, winning Downbeat Magazine’s 1964 International Jazz Critics Poll for the baritone saxophone. Throughout his career he would perform in the musical production of “The Philosophy of The Spiritual – A Masque of the Black”, teach public school in Brooklyn, the Jazzmobile Workshop and at the New School, be the musical director of The Turntable, a nightclub owned by Lloyd Price, and tour Europe several times.
Davis would be a member of the cooperative group “Artistry in Music” with Hank Mobley, Cedar Walton, Sam Jones and Billy Higgins, and was the co-leader and composer/arranger for the Baritone Saxophone Retinue. His numerous collaborations, performances and recordings both as a leader and sideman with a who’s who of his contemporaries such as Elvin Jones, Jimmy Garrison, Illinois Jacquet, Freddie Hubbard, Johnny Griffin, Steve Lacy, Ahmad Jamal, Blue Mitchell, Erskine Hawkins, John Coltrane and Clifford Jordan among many others. Alto, tenor and baritone saxophonist Charles Davis continued to enjoy a prolific career until his passing on July 15, 2016.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Lou Bennett was born May 18, 1926 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania and first learned to play the piano before switching to the organ. It wasn’t until hearing Jimmy Smith play, that Bennett chose to stop playing bebop piano and make this instrument his professional calling.
Lou toured the U.S. with an organ trio between 1957 and 1959, and then moved to Paris in 1960. There he recorded and performed at the Blue Note with Jimmy Gourley, Kenny Clarke, Philip Catherine, Franco Manzecchi and Rene Thomas. He returned to America only once, for the 1964 Newport Jazz Festival.
By the 1980s he played in his own quintet and during this period toured extensively throughout Spain. As a leader he recorded twelve albums for RCA, Impulse, BelAir, Fonatana, Vogue and other labels into the Nineties. Jazz organist Lou Bennett passed away on February 10, 1997 in Paris, France.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Eddie Bert was born May 16, 1922 in Yonkers, New York and learned to lay the trombone as a child. Among his early teachers were Benny Morton and Trummy Young and by age 18 he was a member of the Sam Donahue Orchestra.
Bert would leave Donahue and join up with Red Norvo in 1941, cutting his first recorded solo on Jersey Bounce. Through the Forties he played with the bands of Charlie Barnet, Woody Herman, Herbie Fields, Benny Goodman and Stan Kenton, rejoining Norvo for the legendary Town Hall concert. By the Fifties he was performing briefly again with Stan Kenton before becoming a leader and recording for Discovery, Savoy, Jazztone and Trans-world record labels.
He has performed and recorded with Charles Mingus, various Miles Davis/Gil Evans projects, Thelonious Monks big bands, and was a part of the Dick Cavett TV big band in the Sixties. He has toured Europe with the Mel Lewis/Thad Jones Orchestra, recorded for several obscure labels, worked extensively as a sideman with Michel Legrand, Nat Pierce, Stan Getz, Gene Harris, Ken Peplowski, Loren Schoenberg and others. When performing, trombonist Eddie Bert continuously played to sold-out shows.
Eddie received a Musician of the Year award from Metronome magazine, a Grammy for Musician of the Year, Jazz at the Kennedy Center honors and is inducted into the Rugers University Jazz Hall of Fame.
Trombonist Eddie Bert, whose photography can be seen on Jazz Giants, To Bird With Love (Chan Parker and F. Pandras) and The Band That Never Was (Spotlight Records album cover and liner notes), passed away on September 27, 2012 at age 90 in Danbury, Connecticut.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Joe Gordon was born Joseph Henry Gordon on May 15, 1928 in Boston, Massachusetts and took up trumpet in his youth. His first professional gigs were in Boston in 1947 and he would later play with Georgie Auld, Charlie Mariano, Lionel Hampton, Charlie Parker, Art Blakey and Don Redman into the mid Fifties.
In 1956 he toured the Middle East with Dizzy Gillespie’s big band soloing on “A Night In Tunisia”. Following this Gordon played with Horace Silver and then moved to Los Angeles. During his California stay over the next five years he recorded with Barney Kessel, Benny Carter, Harold Land, Shelly Manne, Donald Byrd, Dexter Gordon and Thelonious Monk.
Trumpeter Joe Gordon would record two studio sessions and one live album as a leader prior to his death in a house fire on November 4, 1963 in Santa Monica, California.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Klaus Doldinger was born on May 12, 1936 in Berlin, Germany. By age eleven he entered a Dusseldorf conservatory originally studying piano and then clarinet, graduating in 1957. During his student years, he gained professional performing experience in 1953 with the German Dixieland band The Feetwarmers, recording with them in 1955. Later that same year he founded Oscar’s Trio, modeled on Oscar Peterson’s work.
During the 1960s Klaus worked as a tenor saxophonist, working with visiting American jazz musicians and recording in his own right. Doldinger is perhaps best known for his film scores to the acclaimed German U-boat film Das Boot and The Never Ending Story. He was an honored recipient of the Bavarian Film Awards in 1997.
Doldinger created a recurring jazz project Passport in 1971 that mirrors Weather Report and still enjoys huge success in Germany. He has worked with Johnny Griffin, Brian Auger, Ernst Stroer, Pete York and Michael Hornek among others. He continues to perform, compose and tour.
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