Daily Dose Of Jazz…

Roy Willox was born August 31, 1929 in Welwyn, Hertfordshire, England into a musical family in 1929. At 16 he initially played with Johnny Claes for a short time in 1945 and then worked in other well-known bands before joining the Ted Heath Orchestra for a five-year stint from 1950 to 1955. During this time he also worked in a band with Keith Christie.

A collaboration with Jack Parnell and other bands led to extensive freelance in television, radio and theater. In the field of jazz, he was part of Harry South’s band in the 1960s and 1970s. This period of performing saw him occasionally returning to the Heath band throughout the 1990s and 2000s, playing the Ted Heath Bands farewell concert at London’s Royal Festival Hall in 2000.

In his later years Roy worked with Kenny Baker, the Robert Farnon Orchestra, and Laurie Johnson’s London Big Band. 2009 with the all-star formation The Allan Ganley Jazz Legacy. He was involved in 156 jazz recording sessions between 1951 and 2016 with Cleo Laine, Larry Page, George Chisholm, Beryl Bryden, Johnny Keating, Tubby Hayes, Kenny Clare, Dudley Moore, Louie Bellson, The London Jazz Chamber Group, Michel Legrand, Phil Woods, and the Len Phillips Big Band.

As a session musician, he is also in pictures of Bert Kaempfert, Tiny Tim ~ Live! At the Royal Albert Hall, and Harry Nilsson ~ A Little Touch of Schmilsson in the Night. Alto saxophonist Roy Willox, who also plays clarinet and flute, passed away on November 25, 2019.

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Daily Dose Of Jazz…

Red Kelly, born Thomas Raymond Kelly on August 29, 1927 in Shelby, Montana initially took lessons on drums, but he was unable to work the hi-hat because polio had inhibited the use of his feet. Switching to double-bass during his teen years, in 1949 he began playing bass in a big band led by Charlie Jackson.

In the early 1950s he toured with Charlie Barnet, Herbie Fields, Claude Thornhill, and Red Norvo. It was while working with Norvo that led to the moniker Red. Kelly and bassist Red Mitchell were living in the same apartment, and when Norvo called Mitchell to invite him to tour, he got Kelly on the phone instead.

He played with Woody Herman for several years, including on a 1954 tour of Europe, and around this time Red also recorded with Dick Collins and Nat Pierce. Relocated to the West Coast, he started playing briefly in Seattle, Washington and then in Los Angeles, California with Maynard Ferguson, Med Flory, Stan Kenton, and Lennie Niehaus.

He was a member of the Modest Jazz Trio with Red Mitchell and Jim Hall, who recorded an album in 1960, and worked with Harry James for most of the 1960s. Later in his life he moved to Tacoma, Washington where he left the music business and ran his own restaurant, Kelly’s. Double-bassist Red Kelly passed away on June 9, 2004 in Tacoma, Washington.

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Daily Dose Of Jazz…

Tony Crombie was born Anthony John Kronenberg on August 27, 1925 in Bishopsgate, London, England. He was a self-taught musician who began playing the drums at the age of fourteen. He was one of a group of young men from the East End of London who ultimately formed the co-operative Club Eleven, bringing modern jazz to Britain.

In 1947 traveling to New York City with his friend Ronnie Scott, he witnessed the playing of Charlie Parker and Dizzy Gillespie, then took it back to the UK along with Scott, Johnny Dankworth, and Dennis Rose. 1948 saw Crombie touring Britain and Europe with Duke Ellington, who only brought Ray Nance and Kay Davis with him. Picking up a rhythm section in London, Ellington chose him on the recommendation of Lena Horne, with whom he had worked when she appeared at the Palladium.

Tony would go on to depart from jazz and set up a rock and roll band in 1956 he called The Rockets. Modelled after Bill Haley’s Comets and Freddie Bell & the Bellboys, he released several singles for Decca and Columbia record labels. By 1958 the Rockets had become a jazz group with Scott and Tubby Hayes. During the following year Crombie started Jazz Inc. with pianist Stan Tracey.

In 1960, he composed the score for the film The Tell-Tale Heart and established residency at a hotel in Monte Carlo. In May 1960 he toured the UK with Conway Twitty, Freddy Cannon, Johnny Preston, and Wee Willie Harris.

During the next thirty years he performed with Ben Webster, Coleman Hawkins, Illinois Jacquet, Joe Pass, Mark Murphy and Eddie “Lockjaw” Davis. In the mid-1990s, after breaking his arm in a fall, he stopped playing the drums but continued composing until his death in 1999. Drummer, pianist, vibraphonist bandleader, and composer Tony Crombie, who was an energizing influence on the British jazz scene for over six decades, passed away on October 18, 1999 in Hampsead, London at the age of 74.

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Three Wishes

The Baroness asked Donald Byrd what his three wishes would be and he replied: 

1. 1. “Health.”

   2. “Education.”

   3. “Long life.”

*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…

Gil Coggins was born Alvin Gilbert Coggins on August 23, 1928 in New York City to parents of West Indian heritage. His mother was a pianist and had her son start on the piano from an early age. Attending school in both New York City and Barbados, he went to the High School of Music & Art in Harlem.

In 1946, Gil met Miles Davis while stationed at Jefferson Barracks in Missouri. After his discharge he began playing piano professionally, working with Davis on several of his Blue Note and Prestige releases. He went on to record with John Coltrane, Sonny Rollins, Lester Young, Art Blakey’s Jazz Messengers, Ray Draper, and Jackie McLean.

Coggins retired from playing jazz professionally in 1954 and took up a career in real estate, only playing music occasionally. He did not record as a leader until 1990, when Interplay Records released Gil’s Mood. He continued performing through the 1990s and the early years of the 2000s.

On February 15, 2004 pianist Gil Coggins, whose second album as a leader Better Late Than Never was released posthumously, passed away from complications sustained in a car crash eight months earlier in Forest Hills, New York.

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