Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Kitty Kallen, born Katie Kallen on May 25, 1921 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, was one of seven children. As a child, she won an amateur contest by imitating popular singers. Returning home with her prize camera, her father punished her for stealing it. Only when neighbors subsequently visited to congratulate her did her father realize she had actually won it.
As a young girl, she sang on The Children’s Hour, a radio program sponsored by Horn & Hardart, an automat chain. As a preteen, Kallen had a radio program on Philadelphia’s WCAU and sang with the big bands of Jan Savitt in 1936, Artie Shaw in 1938, and Jack Teagarden in 1939. At twenty she sang the vocals for Moonlight Becomes You with Bobby Sherwood and His Orchestra at the second ever session for what was then still called Liberty Records but would soon be renamed Capitol Records. It was her only session for the label.
She joined the Jimmy Dorsey band when she was twenty-one replacing Helen O’Connell. Her recording with Dorsey, They’re Either Too Young or Too Old, was a favorite of American servicemen. She followed this with Dorsey’s #1 hit Besame Mucho. Singing duets with Bob Eberly, when he left to go into the service in 1943, she joined Harry James’s band.
With James she went on to have many hits in the top twenty with two hitting #1. In 1954 she was voted the most popular female singer in Billboard and Variety polls. She followed up with the song, In the Chapel in the Moonlight, which was another million seller. Kittty performed live at numerous prominent venues, as well as popular television shows like the Tonight Show, American Banstand and The Big Beat.
Her final album was Quiet Nights, a bossa nova–flavored release for 20th Century Fox Records. Subsequently, she retired owing to a lung ailment. On February 8, 1960, Kallen received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame A compilation of her hits on various labels remains available on the Sony CD set The Kitty Kallen Story. Vocalist Kitty Kallen passed away on January 7, 2016.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Bonnie Wetzel was born Bonnie Jean Addleman on May 15, 1926 in Vancouver, Washington. She learned violin as a child, and was an autodidact on bass. She played with Ada Leonard in an all-female ensemble, and soon after worked in a trio with Marian Grange.
Marrying trumpeter Ray Wetzel in 1949, the pair worked in the Tommy Dorsey Orchestra in 1951. She went on to play in Beryl Booker’s trio with Elaine Leighton in 1953, touring Europe in 1953-54 and recorded for Discovery Records.
She also played with Herb Ellis, Charlie Shavers, Roy Eldridge, and Don Byas. Later in the 1950s she freelanced in New York City. Double bassist Bonnie Wetzel passed away on February 12, 1965 at the age of 38.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Arne Bue Jensen, known as Papa Bue, was born May 8, 1930 in Copenhagen, Denmark and at an early age became fascinated with jazz, prompted by a pile of records from his brother. The collection included Harry James, Artie Shaw, Tommy Dorsey, Glenn Miller, Bert Ambrose. Bunk Johnson and George Lewis made a strong impression.
After World War II, Jensen became a sailor, visiting ports around the world. It was around this time that he started to play jazz, buying a slide trombone with money he borrowed. Learning the basics from a musician from the Royal Danish Orchestra, he was mostly self-taught, he went on to play in clubs around Copenhagen with other young musicians and bands, including the Royal Jazzman, Henrik Johansen’s Jazz Band, and the Saint Peter Street Stompers, participating as a sideman in several recordings.
In the 1950s, Papa Bue worked with the Bonanza Jazz Band, Chris Barber, Adrian Bentzon, and Henrik Johansen. During the decade In the mid 1950s, he was part of the entertainment district in Nyhavn. With six musicians he founded the New Orleans Jazz Band in 1956, after a jam session at Cap Horn. Since Jensen was the eldest, he became the bandleader and as the only band member who was a father, was given the nickname Papa Bue.
By late 1957 he renamed the ensemble the Viking Jazz Band. The name came from American journalist and vocalist Shel Silverstein, who attended one of their concerts at Cap Horn during a stay in Copenhagen. He subsequently wrote an article about them, calling them the Danish Vikings, and adopting the new name, they released their first album as the Viking Jazz Band in 1958. In 1960 their Schlafe Mein Prinzchen sold over one million copies, and was awarded a gold disc.
At a time when many jazz musicians worked in the Bebop idiom, Bue’s style remained based on the Dixieland tradition but also with influences from early swing music. He is considered one of the most significant proponents of his genre.
The group remained active into the 1990s, and recorded with musicians such as George Lewis, Champion Jack Dupree, Art Hodes, Wild Bill Davison, Wingy Manone, Edmond Hall, Albert Nicholas. Earl Hines, Stuff Smith, and Ben Webster. In 1969, Papa Bue’s Viking Jazz Band was the only non-American band to participate in the New Orleans Jazz Festival.
While in New Orleans, he was honored with the Golden Keys to the City. In 1989 he received the Ben Webster’s Prize of Honour. Trombonist and bandleader Papa Bue, chiefly associated with the Dixieland jazz revival style, passed away on November 2, 2011 at the age of 81.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Herbert Bickford Steward was born May 7, 1926 in Los Angeles, California.
He recorded six albums as a leader and worked as a sideman with Serge Chaloff, Zoot SimsAl Cohn and Stan Kenton.
Saxophonist Herbie Steward, widely known for being one of the tenor saxophone players in Four Brothers, part of Woody Herman’s Second Herd, passed away on August 9, 2003 in Clearlake, California.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Robert Havens was born May 3, 1930 to a musical family in Quincy, Illinois and began studying violin and trombone at age seven and played both instruments throughout his school years. Landing his first professional job with a local dance band at age 12, by 16 his talent as a trombonist was recognized earning him a scholarship from the Interlochen Music Camp in Michigan and he held the first trombone chair in the school’s 250 piece concert band. He later held the first trombone chair in the Quincy Symphony while also playing in many popular dance groups in Illinois.
Leaving Quincy in 1955 after serving in the Illinois National Guard as a bandsman during the Korean War, Bob toured with the Ralph Flanagan Orchestra. In 1956, he joined George Girard’s Dixieland Band at the Famous Door in New Orleans, Louisiana where he met his idol, Jack Teagarden.
In 1957, Bob joined Al Hirt at Dan’s Pier 600 on Bourbon Street when Hirt formed his very first band. The front line consisted of Hirt, Havens and Pete Fountain. During his time in New Orleans, he recorded albums for Good Times Jazz and Vic labels with the Girard band, and on Verve and Audio Fidelity with Hirt. He also recorded about a dozen albums for the Southland label with many other New Orleans musicians.
Bob stayed with this group until 1960 when he was persuaded to move to the West Coast and join the Lawrence Welk Orchestra as a featured soloist on their weekly TV series. His tenure with this show lasted for 23 years until the show ended in 1982.
Following Welk, he continued as a freelance professional, working often with the Bob Crosby Bob Cats and the Benny Goodman Orchestra, then led by clarinetist Peanuts Hucko. From 1985 to 1995, Havens played with the Great Pacific Jazz Band along with Bob Ringwald (lead vocals/piano), Don Nelson (saxophone), and Zeke Zarchy (trumpet).
In 2005, he performed with the North Carolina Pops Orchestra at Campbell University with fellow Welk star Ava Barber in a benefit concert raising money for victims of Hurricane Katrina. Trombonist Bob Havens returned home to Quincy, and continued to record and appear at jazz festivals and concerts throughout the world.
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