Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Alois Maxwell Hirt was born on November 7, 1922 in New Orleans, Louisiana to a police officer father. At the age of six, he got his first trumpet, which had been purchased at a local pawnshop. He played in the Junior Police Band with friend Roy Fernandez, the son of Alcide Nunez. By 16 he was playing professionally with his friend Pete Fountain, while attending Jesuit High School. During this time, he was hired to play at the local horse racing track, beginning a six-decade connection to the sport.
1940 saw Al in Cincinnati, Ohio studying at the Cincinnati Conservatory of Music with Dr. Frank Simon. After a stint as a bugler in the Army during World War II, he performed with various swing big bands, including those of Tommy Dorsey, Jimmy Dorsey, Benny Goodman, and Ina Ray Hutton.
In 1950 Hirt became the first trumpet and featured soloist with Horace Heidt’s Orchestra and after several years on the road he returned to New Orleans working with various Dixieland groups and leading his own bands. He soon signed with RCA Victor and posted twenty-two albums on the Billboard charts in the 1950s and 1960s. He recorded the theme for the 1960s television show The Green Hornet, with arranger and composer Billy May.
From the mid-1950s to early 1960s, Hirt and his band played nightly at Dan’s Pier 600, hosted the hour-long television variety series Fanfare, as the summer replacement for Jackie Gleason and the American Scene Magazine, and would go on to play for Pope John Paul II.
Trumpeter and bandleader Al Hirt died of liver failure on April 27, 1999 at the age of 76, after having spent the previous year in a wheelchair due to edema in his leg.
More Posts: bandleader,history,instrumental,jazz,music,trumpet
Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Charles Richard Cathcart was born on November 6, 1924 in Michigan City, Indiana. He was a trumpeter for the U.S. Army Air Force Band, and was a member of big bands led by Bob Crosby, Ben Pollack, and Ray Noble.
After World War II he moved to Los Angeles. His friend Jack Webb was playing the part of trumpeter Pete Kelly in the movie Pete Kelly’s Blues and told Cathcart he should supply the music. The band from the movie stayed together in the 1950s for performances and recordings under the name Pete Kelly’s Big Seven.
Cathcart also supplied music for the television show Dragnet, which starred Jack Webb as Joe Friday. He spent much of his career from 1962 to 1968 as a musician on The Lawrence Welk Show. On the Welk show, he met Peggy Lennon, a singer with the Lennon Sisters, and the two married.
Trumpeter Dick Cathcart, who played in both Dixieland and big band genres, died on November 8, 1993 in Los Angeles, California.
More Posts: history,instrumental,jazz,music,trumpet
Jazz Poems
JAZZ
It starts with an alto horn, and a young
boy who’d grown faster than he should have, and
who’d become great before he should have, and
who sought for the source of the feeling deep in-
side before he should have. He stood in his room
and started with a short burst of notes, and then
sought the tone he’d felt inside him, but which
he couldn’t match he couldn’t match by blowing.
He blew, fast, and beautifully; seeking the right
burst of notes, notes blown so fast that only God’s
perfection would be a match for it. He tried for
a tone that he’d never heard, but which he knew
as a sensation of mystery, of greatness, a feeling
that he was bigger than he seemed to be, could
blow faster than his fingers were letting him,
could cry out the tone that cried within him. All
this strained inside him, strained and drove him,
pushed him and made him whip his fingers upon
the valves of his horn until they hurt. And his
lungs seemed to bleed inside; his eyes ran water,
and he kept blowing, and blowing, with his eyes
closed to the white of the daytime and the touch
of the wind and the sound of the fists banging
at the door, and the bark of the voices outside
his door, shouting: Open up! It’s the police!
What’s going on in there?
FRANK LONDON BROWN
from Jazz Poems ~ Selected and Edited by Kevin Young
More Posts: book,classic,collectible,history,jazz,library,poet
Daily Dose Of Jazz…
John Gordon Markham was born on November 1, 1922 in Oakland, California. After graduating from Piedmont High School he served in the Army during World War II, performing for troops in the Pacific.
A mainstay in countless San Francisco ensembles, John worked with Chuck Travis, Johnny Coppola, and Larry Vuckovich. He worked on the Tennessee Ernie Ford Show in the 49er band and for many years he performed with Jimmy Diamond at the New Orleans Room of the Fairmont Hotel.
He performed and recorded with Charlie Barnet 1950-1952 and then with Billy May 1952-1953. From 1955 mostly working in television, with the occasional tour or recording session. He is noted for his work with many greats, including Frank Sinatra, Benny Goodman, Ella Fitzgerald, Peggy Lee, Bill Perkins, Red Norvo, Vince Guaraldi and other prominent musicians with whom he toured.
Drummer and bandleader John Markham, who led an orchestra under his own name, died October 4, 1998 at the age of 76 years old.
More Posts: bandleader,drums,history,instrumental,jazz,music
Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Theodore Malcolm Nash Sr. was born on October 31, 1922 in the Boston suburb of Somerville, Massachusetts. His goal was to become a classical flutist until he began playing saxophone in his early teens. He started playing professionally when he went on the road with a succession of dance bands. In 1944, he became tenor saxophonist for the Les Brown big band.
The late 1940s had him married and settling in Los Angeles, California where he became an active session musician in the Hollywood movie and television studios. In 1956, he recorded with Paul Weston’s orchestra the album Day by Day, with vocals by his former colleague and close friend, Doris Day.
He was the featured soloist on The Music from Peter Gunn soundtrack, performing the alto saxophone solo on the theme and on the second bridge of Dreamsville. Through the 1950s and 1960s, he worked as a sideman for June Christy, Nat King Cole, Bing Crosby, Billy Eckstine, Ella Fitzgerald, Frank Sinatra, and Nancy Wilson. During the 1970s, he worked with Judy Collins and Quincy Jones.
Retiring in the 1980s, saxophonist, flutist and clarinetist Ted Nash Sr. died on May 12, 2011.
More Posts: clarinet,flute,history,instrumental,jazz,music,saxophone