Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Reuben McFall was born on February 1, 1931 in Los Angeles, California to a musician father and grew up in the Belvedere neighborhood of East Los Angeles, long established as a Mexican-American enclave.
McFall attended Westlake College of Music in Hollywood, California, one of the first institutions in the county to offer a diploma in jazz. The school was founded in 1945 and ran until 1961.
As a sideman he performed with Freddie Slack, Vido Musso, Floyd Ray, Glen Henry, Lalo Guerrero. From 1946 to 1955 he recorded albums with Roy Porter and His Orchestra, Gerry Mulligan, Stan Kenton, Woody Herman, Shorty Rogers, Gerald Wilson and Teddi King.
Trumpeter, composer and jazz arranger Reuben McFall, who was also known as Ruben and Rubin and Ruban, is 93 years old.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Eugene Seldon Gammage was born January 30, 1931 in Atlanta, Georgia and his original influences as Max Roach, Kenny Clarke, Philly Joe Jones, Art Blakey, and Elvin Jones. He began his professional career as a drummer in 1952 after serving four years in the Air Force. In 1953 he moved to Los Angeles, California where he found a steady gig with Teddy Charles with Bill Crow on bass. Following this, in 1955 he played with leaders Buddy Collette, Hampton Hawes, and André Previn. In ‘56 he performed with Barney Kessel, Herb Geller and Jack Sheldon
Tenor saxophonist Jack Laird hired him for an engagement at Club El Sereno in East Los Angeles along with pianist Franck Patchen. That November he was in Las Vegas, Nevada with pianist Oscar Peterson. 1957 saw him joining Beverly Kelly and Pat Moran McCoy for a quartet and trio including Scott LaFaro. They recorded and issued two albums in 1958 under the two leaders’ names. From fall 1958 to Spring 1959, he was hired again by Oscar Peterson. The trio, with Ray Brown on bass, recorded a jazz version of My Fair Lady.
Gammage went to St. Louis, Missouri in 1961 and recorded three live dates with Webster Young, Shirley Horn, and Johnny Hartman. By the late Sixties he was residing in New York City and was part of Roswell Rudd’s Primordial group, with Enrico Rava, however, there is no official recording.
The Seventies had him with Gary McFarland and writer, editor David Burnett at Club 55 in New York City, when they were served drinks filled with liquid methadone, provoking a seizure due to overdose. Gary McFarland was pronounced dead in the bar, David Burnett died just a few days later. Fortunately Gene survived after some time in the hospital.
From the mid-seventies to the early eighties, his last known regular gig was with Bobby Short at the Café Carlyle. Never a leader, drummer Gene Gammage has recorded as a sideman on nine albums, been included on seven reissues and been a part of two documentaries covering Gary McFarland and Bobby Short.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Jeffrey Ovid Clyne was born on January 29, 1937 in London, England and taught himself double bass from the age of 17. He played in the 3rd Hussars military band during his national service from 1955 to 1957, and on demobilisation found himself at the cutting edge of the British modern-jazz and bebop movement.
Clyne worked with Tubby Hayes and Ronnie Scott in their group the Jazz Couriers for a year from 1958, and was part of the group of musicians who opened Ronnie Scott’s Jazz Club in November 1959. He was a regular member of Hayes’ groups from 1961. He accompanied Blossom Dearie, Stan Tracey on his Jazz Suite Inspired by Dylan Thomas’ Under Milk Wood album, Ian Carr, and Gordon Beck on Experiments With Pops, with John McLaughlin.
Jeff would go on to perform with Dudley Moore, Zoot Sims, Norma Winstone, John Burch and Marion Montgomery. He was a member of Nucleus, Isotope, Gilgamesh, Giles Farnaby’s Dream Band and Turning Point during the 1970s. He often worked with drummer Trevor Tomkins.
Bass guitar and double bassist Jeff Clyne died on November 16, 2009 from a heart attack at the age of 72.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Richie Crabtree was born January 23, 1934 in Sidney, Montana. A student of legendary piano virtuoso Freddie Saatman, the pianist first popped up on the jazz scene in the company of the Montgomery Brothers. His short recording career seems to have taken place between the late ’50s and early ’60s, largely as a member of a quartet called the Mastersounds. This group, which duplicated the Modern Jazz Quartet’s popular instrumentation of piano, vibes, bass, and drums, but not its style, was an even mix of Montgomery siblings and others. Monk played the bass, with Buddy on the vibraphone, and Crabtree took rhythmic cues from drummer Benny Barth.
While Wes sat in at times, it was Buddy and Monk that were continually looking for a way of making the intricate inventions of bebop more appealing to easy listening and pop listeners. In 1957 the group was gigging in San Francisco and landed a contract with the World Pacific label. They recorded two albums before label honcho Dick Bock went to Indianapolis to check out Wes that they had been bragging about. The resulting recordings were also the debut on vinyl for a 19-year-old Freddie Hubbard.
A serious devotee of the founding fathers of bebop, Richie was not about to slouch on the harmonic contribution. However, little seems to have been written about him since 1961, a point where discographers place his last recording session. The Mastersounds group was at the height of its popularity in 1960, so naturally this was also the year the group decided to break up.
Pianist Richie Crabtree faded into obscurity and to date nothing has surfaced about his whereabouts or whether he is living or dead.
Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Theodore Smith was born on January 22, 1932 in Washington, D.C. During the Sixties he played with Betty Carter, and with Clifford Jordan with whom he recorded the album Bearcat, and Kenny Dorham in 1961-62, recording the album Matador.
From 1962 to 1963 Teddy played with Jackie McLean and Slide Hampton. Following this he played with Horace Silver, including performances at the 1964 Montreux, Antibes, and Paris jazz festivals. He was a member of the quintet that recorded four tracks on Silver’s album Song for My Father.
Smith’s performance on the title track of Song for My Father, beginning with the opening unison figure between his bass and Silver’s piano, has been one of the most widely heard pieces of jazz music in the world for nearly a half-century and an influence on such artists as Stevie Wonder and Steely Dan.
Following his Silver residency in which he also recorded Live, Teddy went on to play with Sonny Rollins from 1964 to ‘65 recording The Standard Sonny Rollins and played with Sonny Simmons in 1966.
Double-bassist Teddy Smith, never a leader, died on August 24, 1979 in his birth city.
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