Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Gösta Theselius (was born June 9, 1922 in Stockholm, Sweden and was the younger brother of musician Hans Theselius.
He worked in the 1940s with a number of European big bands, including those of Thore Jederby, Hakan von Eichwald, Sam Samson, Lulle Elboj, and Thore Ehrling.
He played jazz into the 1950s, both as a saxophonist and a pianist. The latter instrument with Benny Bailey, Arne Domnerus, James Moody, and Charlie Parker, and composed copiously for film in the 1950s and 1960s.
Arranger, composer, film scorer, pianist and saxophonist Gösta Theselius died in Stockholm on January 24, 1976.
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Daily Dose Of Jaz…
Zalman “Porky” Cohen was born on June 2, 1924 in Springfield, Massachusetts and began performing publicly in his mid-teens, and studied with trombonist Miff Mole. By 19 he was playing with the Charlie Barnet Orchestra, often featured as a soloist. Stints with Tony Pastor and Glen Gray’s Casa Loma Orchestra followed, and in 1948 during the segregation era in the jazz and blues worlds, he was one of a few white musicians to perform with the Lucky Millinder Orchestra.
Porky married, settled down and limited his performing career to local gigs in Rhode Island and southeastern New England. He did, however, join the Grammy winning jump-blues band Roomful Of Blues from 1981 to 1987, touring all over the U.S. and Europe. During this phase of his career, he recorded with jump-blues greats Big Joe Turner, Eddie “Cleanhead” Vinson, Jimmy Witherspoon and Earl King.
Having had enough of the rigors of constant touring, in 1987 he returned to Providence, Rhode Island and again played with various area bands. He continued performing until increasitg ill-health sidelined him Trombonist Porky Cohen died of complications resulting from a stroke on April 14, 2004 at age 79 in Providence.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz
Edgar Charles Thompson, known professionally as Eddie Thompson, was born blind on May 31, 1925 in London, England. After studying at the same school for the blind as George Shearing, he recorded with Victor Feldman in the late 1940s and also with the Carlo Krahmer Band at the Paris Jazz Fair in 1949.
By the 1950s he was working with Tony Crombie, making records with him under his own name, Vic Ash, Freddy Randall and Tommy Whittle. He was house pianist at Ronnie Scott’s from 1959 until 1960. Emigrating to Manhattan, New York, from 1962 to 1972, he lived and worked at the Hickory House, a well-known jazz club on 52nd Street. He led his own trio featuring Len Skeat and Martin Drew, which recorded an album with Spike Robinson.
Thompson also formed a duo with Roger Kellaway. Thompson was considered to have been a dazzlingly inventive player during his early recording career. He recorded in the early 1980s by Hep Records,including Memories of You released in 1983.
During the 70s, Eddie returned to his homeland and regularly travelled up to Stockport on Fridays, with his dog. During the day he would perform piano tuning at Nield and Hardy’s, and played the Warren Buckley pub’s jazz cellar where Eddie played during the evening with two local musicians making up the trio. One notable evening Al Grey and Buddy Tate played a memorable session with Eddie’s trio.
Pianist Eddie Thompson, a lifelong smoking habit which caused him to develop emphysema, died on November 6, 1986 in London at the age of 61.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Thornel Schwartz Jr. was born on May 29, 1927 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. He attended the Landis Institute for piano, but became known as a jazz guitarist starting in the 1950s. He was Freddie Cole’s guitarist early in the decade, then worked with Jimmy Smith and Johnny Hammond Smith later in the decade.
The 1960s saw Schwartz recording with Larry Young, Jimmy Forrest, Charles Earland, Byrdie Green, Sylvia Syms and extensively with Jimmy McGriff. In the 1970s he recorded with Groove Holmes.
Though he is known as Thornel on recordings and standard jazz reference works, having recorded one album as a leader and twenty-six as a sideman, his name is spelled Thornal on his social security application, as is his father.
Electric guitarist Thornel Schwartz Jr., who played on the recordings of many Philadelphia jazz musicians, especially electronic organ players, died on December 30, 1977 in his hometown.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Jimmy Henderson was born on May 20, 1921 in Wichita Falls, Texas and began studying piano at age six, picking up the trombone a few years later. By the time he was thirteen he had joined a musicians’ union and was first chair at the Wichita Falls Symphony Orchestra.
Winning several trombone competitions by age fourteen, Jimmy started his own orchestra while still in his teens, in addition to studying at the Cincinnati Conservatory of Music. Henderson toured with the big bands of Hal McIntyre, Jimmy Dorsey, and Tommy Dorsey.
In 1954, he moved to Los Angeles, California where he steadily worked as a session musician for some 20 years. Among his credits in the studios was the soundtrack for Bonanza. From 1957 to 1960, he was also a member of Lawrence Welk’s orchestra in which he appeared weekly on the Maestro’s television show.
He led his own orchestra for fifteen years, and was the musical director for the Emmy Awards, Television Academy Honors, and Directors Guild of America Awards In the 1970s, he led the Glenn Miller Orchestra ghost band before retiring in 1980.
Trombonist and bandleader Jimmy Henderson died at the age of 77 on June 10, 1998 in New York City, New York.
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