Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Sam Butera was born on August 17, 1927 and raised in an Italian-American family in New Orleans, Louisiana where his father ran a butcher shop and played guitar in his spare time. Hearing the saxophone at seven for the first time at a wedding, with his father’s encouragement he began to play.
His professional career blossomed early, beginning with a stint in big band drummer Ray McKinley’s orchestra directly after high school. At eighteen Butera was named one of America’s top upcoming jazzmen by Look magazine and by his early twenties, he had landed positions in the orchestras of Tommy Dorsey, Joe Reichman, and Paul Gayten.
As the big band era wound down Sam re-settled in New Orleans, where he played regularly at the 500 Club for four years. The club, owned by Louis Prima’s brother, was the connection that led him to his Las Vegas, Nevada collaborations with Prima and Keely Smith.
Prima transitioned from big band to Vegas and the Sahara and called Butera to assemble a band posthaste. They drove from New Orleans to Las Vegas and without a name on opening night in 1954 when Prima asked Butera before a live audience he responded spontaneously, “The Witnesses”, and the name stuck, remaining the bandleader for more than twenty years.
Noted for his raucous playing style, his off-color humor, and the innuendo in his lyrics, he also wrote arrangements, composed music. Sam is widely regarded as the inspiration for the vocal style of fellow New Orleans-born jazz singer Harry Connick, Jr. He went on to appear on television and in movies. Tenor saxophonist Sam Butera transitioned from pneumonia in Las Vegas on June 3, 2009 at the age of 81.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Armando Joseph “Buddy” Greco was born Armando Joseph Greco to an Italian-American family in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania on August 14, 1926. His mother introduced him to piano at age four and as a child he sang on the radio, and in his teens performed in the city’s night clubs. Sixteen saw him hired by Benny Goodman and spent four years touring the world with the Goodman orchestra, playing piano, singing, and arranging. Becoming acquainted with Great Britain in 1949 he spent many years performing in numerous clubs. He moved to Essex, keeping his Palm Springs property as a vacation home.
In 1951 he started his recording career, signing with labels such as Coral, Kapp, Epic, and Reprise. 1969 saw Buddy form a duo with jazz guitarist Ron Escheté. He opened a small club in Palm Springs, California which became popular for celebrities to dine. After closing it, he moved to England.
In 2008, he and singer Lezlie Anders toured the UK, performed with the BBC Big Band and at Ronnie Scott’s Jazz Club in London. He was the first Las Vegas headliner to star at a British casino when he performed at the Circus Casino, and he performed a tribute to Frank Sinatra for BBC Radio 2 with the 42-piece BBC Concert Orchestra. He toured the UK with the Swinging Las Vegas Legends show beginning in July 2010.
In 2010, Greco and his wife Lezlie produced the stage show Fever! The Music of Miss Peggy Lee, which met with critical acclaim at its London West End opening. They continued to perform and tour for the next seven years. Vocalist Buddy Greco transitioned on January 10, 2017, in Las Vegas, Nevada, at the age of 90.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Donald Vernon Burrows was born on August 8, 1928 Marrickville, New South Wales, Australia and attended Bondi Public School. In 1937, visiting flutist and teacher Victor McMahon inspired him to start learning the flute, beginning on a B-flat flute. By 1940 he was captain of the Metropolitan Schools Flute Band and studying at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music.[2]
In 1942, Burrows had begun playing clarinet and appeared on The Youth Show, a Macquarie Radio show. In 1944 he was invited to play and record with George Trevare’s Australians. He became well-known in Sydney jazz circles and was performing in dance halls, nightclubs and radio bands.
During the 1960s and 1970s, Burrows had many engagements in Australia and the United States, including six years performing at the Wentworth Hotel in Sydney. In 1972, he was invited to perform at the Montreux Jazz Festival[4] and later the Newport Jazz Festival.
He received his first gold record in 1973 for his record Just the Beginning, instigating the first jazz studies program in the southern hemisphere, at the New South Wales Conservatorium of Music. He was appointed a Member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE) and appointed Chair of Jazz Studies at the conservatorium.
Though he mostly performed to classical music audiences through tours with Musica Viva and the Australian Broadcasting Corporation concert series, he had an extensive recording career with his groups and performed on albums by others. He also worked with Frank Sinatra, Dizzy Gillespie, Nat King Cole, Oscar Peterson, Tony Bennett, Stéphane Grappelli, Cleo Laine, and the Sydney Symphony Orchestra.
His arthritis from age 38, though making it somewhat difficult to play, never stopped him. In later years he had Alzheimer’s disease and lived in a nursing home in northern Sydney. Saxophonist, flutist and clarinetist Don Burrows transitioned on 12 March 12, 2020, aged 91.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Warren Covington was born on August 7, 1921 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania and played with Isham Jones in 1939, then with Les Brown in 1945-46 and Gene Krupa in late 1946. Following this he became a staff musician for CBS radio.
By the end of the decade he was working with Ralph Flanagan and again in the mid Fifties. He played briefly with Tommy Dorsey but by 1956 he replaced Eddie Grady as leader of the Commanders, a Decca recording and touring band which lasted until the middle of 1957. Covington recorded two albums and one single with this band.
Post Tommy Dorsey’s sudden death in 1956, the band continued under the direction of Jimmy Dorsey. However, Tommy’s estate took back his arrangements and approached Warren to form a new Tommy Dorsey band, which he led, touring and recording for Decca, into 1961. Among his hits with the Dorsey band was Tea for Two Cha Cha, which sold over one million copies and was awarded a gold disc.
A player who also occasionally played, with a variety of the baritone horn, baritone and tenor saxophone, Covington participated in the big bands of Charles Mingus, Randy Weston, Bobby Hackett, and George Benson on recordings, and also a number of film soundtracks.
Big band trombonist Warren Covington, who was also an active session player, arranger and bandleder, transitioned on August 24, 1999 in New York.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
John Russell Parnell was born on August 6, 1923 in Paddington, London, England and raised in Wembley. The only son of vaudevillians, his father a ventriloquist, his mother, a gifted classical pianist, worked as her husband’s accompanist. He toured with his parents as a very young child and standing in the wings enthralled by the big bands that were often top of the bill in the late 1920s. He started piano lessons as a four-year-old and could pick up tunes easily. Sent away to boarding school from the age of six, he began to take an interest in drums, and this soon became a consuming passion.
Not much interested in academic study, Parnell bought all the jazz records he could, starting with Duke Ellington and moving on to the more informal Chicago school epitomised by trumpeter Muggsy Spanier. Armed with a Premier drum kit purchased by his mother from the window-cleaner for £15 and following six lessons from Max Abrams, at 15 he ventured north to Scarborough to start his professional career playing for the summer season at the town’s theatre.
During his military service in the 1940s he became a member of Buddy Featherstonhaugh’s Radio Rhythm Club Sextet and played drums with Vic Lewis and other servicemen who were keen on jazz. From 1944 to 1946 he recorded with the Lewis-Parnell Jazzmen’s version of Ugly Child.
During the 1940s and 1950s, Parnell was voted best drummer in the Melody Maker poll for seven years in succession. He composed many television themes, including Love Story, Father Brown, The Golden Shot and Family Fortunes. He was a regular judge on the ATV talent show New Faces and the musical director for The Benny Hill Show.
He was appointed as the musical director for ATV in 1956, a post he held until 1981, and was the conductor for The Muppet Show orchestra for the series’ entire run. Jack composed the score theme for ITC Entertainment. Throughout the 1960s, Parnell directed the pit orchestra for Sunday Night at the London Palladium.
In the 1970s, he co-founded the group The Best of British Jazz with Kenny Baker, Don Lusher, Betty Smith, Tony Lee, and Tony Archer, which performed until 1985. From 1991 on Parnell was part of the Norfolk-based Mike Capocci Trio who backed saxophonists Johnny Griffin, Ronnie Ross, and Kathy Stobart. In 1994, he took over as the leader of the London Big Band.
Drummer and musical director Jack Parnell, whose uncle was the theatrical impresario Val Parnell, transitioned from the effects of cancer at 87 on August 8, 2010 in Southwold, Suffolk, England.
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