Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Johnny Parker was born on November 6, 1929 in Beckenham, Kent, England. In 1940, his family moved to Wiltshire where he was exposed to American Forces Network broadcasts and first heard boogie-woogie piano at a U.S. Air Force base. He returned to Beckenham after the Second World War and worked a paper round to be able to buy records by pianists such as Pete Johnson and Albert Ammons.
While in Beckenham, he regularly watched George Webb’s Dixielanders perform, joined the Catford Rhythm Club, played at regular sessions, and became the resident pianist, until 1948. At this point, he was called up for National Service with the Royal Army Ordnance Corps as an ammunitions examiner, while accompanying jazz musicians. After his armed service Parker enrolled at Regent Street Polytechnic, and from 1950 to 1951 played in Mick Mulligan’s band. He would later join Humphrey Lyttelton’s band and was the pianist on the trumpeter’s 1956 hit record Bad Penny Blues. Staying with Lyttleton for six years, he also performed with Sidney Bechet, Louis Armstrong, Eddie Condon, and Big Joe Turner.
After a failed attempt to start his own band, Johnny took a position inspecting components at an aircraft assembly plant. He continued playing in jazz bands alongside Alexis Korner, Diz Disley, Cyril Davies, and Long John Baldry among others. Early 1969, he joined Kenny Ball’s Jazzmen, but undergoing a spinal operation in December that year, he recovered within months and returned to regular touring.
He performed with Ball until 1978 and subsequently led his own jazz groups around London and toured the Middle East. Retiring in 2005 due to long-term health problems, pianist Johnny Parker passed away on June 11, 2010.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Red Wooten was born Lawrence Bernard Wooten on November 5, 1921 in Social Circle, Georgia and started his career playing country & western before moving to big band jazz. While still in his teens, he landed a six-dollar-a-week gig on Archie “Grandpappy” Campbell’s C&W show on radio station WDOD in Chattanooga, Tennessee. The band included future Sons of the Pioneers guitarist Roy Lanham. Texas crooner Gene Austin hired the band and dubbed them the Whippoorwills. He toured with Austin for a time, then quit the band due to exhaustion.
Red went on to play with several successful big bands of the ’40s, including those led by Jan Savitt and Tony Pastor. Beginning in 1949, he played with a succession of prominent swing bandleaders, including Tommy Dorsey, Woody Herman, and Charlie Barnet. In 1957, he recorded with Harry Babasin’s Jazzpickers in a rhythm section that also included Red Norvo. He hooked up with Norvo and recorded and toured with the vibist in 1957-1958.
He recorded The Most Exciting Guitar with Lanham in 1959. That year, Wootten also toured with Benny Goodman and Frank Sinatra. With Sinatra, he did movies, TV, and worked the Sands Hotel in Las Vegas. In the ’60s and ’70s, he worked mostly in the studios, composed and arranged for film, and authored a book of musical exercises for bass instruments.
In addition to the aforementioned, Wootten played with Merle Travis, Glen Campbell, Eddie Dean, Mary Ford, Tex Williams, Jimmy Bryant, Joe Maphis, and Roy Rogers, among many others. He also worked on Gene Autry’s Melody Ranch radio show. Returning to country and won an Academy of Country Music Award as Best Bassist in 1982.
By the start of the Seventies, he was less active as a jazz musician and concentrated more on studio work. He also composed and arranged film scores. In the mid-1970s he recorded with Anita O’Day. Double bassist Red Wooten, whose name was sometimes spelled Wootten, at present no date of his transition is available.
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Three Wishes
When asked about his three wishes, Thad Jones told the Baroness he would wish for:
- “Health for my family and myself.”
- “An opportuity for my kids.”
- “Peace.”
*Excerpt from Three Wishes: An Intimate Look at Jazz Greats ~ Compiled and Photographed by Pannonica de Koenigswarter
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Bobby Jones was born on October 30, 1928 in Louisville, Kentucky and played drums as a child, starting on clarinet at age 8. His father encouraged him to explore jazz and
From 1949 into the mid-1950s he played with Ray McKinley, and then with Hal McIntyre before rejoining McKinley later in the decade. During a stint in the Army, he met Nat and Cannonball Adderley as well as Junior Mance. After getting his discharge, he played country music and rock & roll as a studio musician and did time with Boots Randolph and Glenn Miller before returning again with McKinley from 1959 to 1963.
Briefly playing with Woody Herman and Jack Teagarden in 1963, after the latter’s death, Bobby retired to Louisville and started a local jazz council and taught at Kentucky State College. In 1969 he moved to New York City and from 1970 to 1972 played with Charles Mingus, touring Europe and Japan with him. He also recorded sessions under his own name in 1972 and 1974.
Late in life saw him moving to Munich, Germany, where he ceased performing due to emphysema. Over the course of his career, he only recorded two albums as a leader, 15 as a sideman ~ 8 with Mingus and seven with Bill Cosby, Glen Miller, Woody Herman, Jimmy Raney, Willie Thomas and Bunky Green. Saxophonist Bobby Jones passed away on March 6, 1980 in Munich, Germany.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Giorgio Gaslini was born on October 22, 1929 in Milan, Italy and began performing aged 13 and recorded with his jazz trio at 16. In the 1950s and 1960s, Gaslini performed with his own quartet. He was the first Italian musician mentioned as a “new talent” in the Down Beat poll and the first Italian officially invited to the New Orleans Jazz Festival in 1976-77. He collaborated with leading American soloists, such as Anthony Braxton, Steve Lacy, Don Cherry, Roswell Rudd, Max Roach, but also with the Argentinian Gato Barbieri and Frenchman Jean-Luc Ponty.
Adapting the compositions of Albert Ayler and Sun Ra for solo piano, issued on the Soul Note label, he also composed the soundtrack of Michelangelo Antonioni’s La Notte, The Night, in 1961. In the early Seventies, he was the first holder of jazz courses at the Santa Cecilia Academy of Music in Rome.
As to contemporary music, he composed symphonic works, operas and ballets represented at the Scala Theatre in Milan and other Italian theatres. In addition from 1970 to 1977 he scored nine films, including Your Hands On My Body, Cross Current, and Kleinhoff Hotel. From 1991 to 1995, Gaslini composed works for Carlo Actis Dato’s Italian Instabile Orchestra.
Pianist, composer and conductor Giorgio Gaslini passed away on July 29, 2014 at age 84 in Borgo Val di Taro, Parma, Italy, where he had been living for years together with his longtime wife and fourteen dogs and cats.
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