Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Judd Proctor was born Procter on January 2, 1931 in Doncaster, Yorkshire, England. He played banjo in his youth and joined a local trio, but switched to guitar in his teens. He won a regional Melody Maker contest in a group, The Zetland Players. By the age of 18 he was conscripted into the Royal Air Force, where he met and was influenced by guitarist Ike Isaacs. After his military service ended, he worked in accountancy for British Rail, but soon left to join a dance band in Nottingham and became a professional musician.
After playing in various bands he joined Ray Ellington’s quartet in 1955, remaining for six years. He appeared on many radio broadcasts including The Goon Show. The early Sixties saw Proctor become a session musician, appearing on recordings by Cliff Richard, Helen Shapiro, The Springfields, Cilla Black, Serge Gainsbourg, Harry Nilsson and many others. In his later years he worked with the Benny Goodman Orchestra. He recorded some instrumentals under his own name, including the 1961 single Palamino/Nola, and a 1968 LP, Guitars Galore.
Judd appeared on many television shows with Ella Fitzgerald, Sammy Davis Jr., and Victoria Wood, and on many film soundtracks. The 1960s through the ‘80s had him touring with Stanley Black, a member of the Don Lusher Orchestra, and with the Bert Kaempfert Orchestra. His last and longest regular gig was providing incidental music for the TV comedy series Last of the Summer Wine.
Guitarist and session musician Judd Proctor, whose name was often misspelled on early recordings, transitioned on August 21, 2020 in Market Deeping, Lincolnshire, England at the age of 89.
More Posts: bandleader,guitar,history,instrumental,jazz,music
Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Helmut Brandt was born in Berlin Germany on January 1, 1931 and began singing in a church choir as a boy. He played violin from age ten before learning saxophone and guitar at a conservatory.
He began playing professionally in 1950 initially as a tenor saxophonist and clarinetist. Brandt switched to baritone in 1954 and led his own group.Through the end of the 1950s he worked in a Berlin radio dance band, and played in the orchestras of Lubo D’Orio and Kurt Widmann.
Baritone saxophonist Helmut Brandt, whose Mainstream Orchestra was popular in Berlin in the 1970s, transitioned from a heart attack on July 26, 2001.
More Posts: saxophone
Three Wishes
The Baroness asked Joe Farrell what his three wishes would be and his response was:
- “Money! And if I had that, it would satisfy the second and third wish.”
More Posts: bandleader,history,instrumental,jazz,music,saxophone
Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Joe Lee Wilson was born on December 22, 1935 in Bristow, Oklahoma of African-American and Creek Native American parentage who were farmers.
Seeing Billie Holiday perform in 1951 began his interest in a music-industry career. Moving to Los Angeles, California at the age of 15, he went to Los Angeles High School, where he majored in music and sang in an a cappella choir. Graduating with honors in 1954, Joe won a scholarship to the Los Angeles Conservatory of Music, where he studied opera, leaving after a year and then attending Los Angeles Junior College.
He began singing with local bands in 1958 and toured the West Coast, where he sat in with Sarah Vaughan, and down to Mexico. Relocating to New York City by 1962, he worked with Sonny Rollins, Lee Morgan, Miles Davis, Pharoah Sanders, Freddie Hubbard, Kenny Dorham and Jackie McLean. During the 1970s, Wilson operated a jazz performance loft in New York’s NoHo district known as the Ladies’ Fort at 2 Bond Street. His regular band, Joe Lee Wilson Plus 5, featured the alto saxophonist Monty Waters and for several years the Japanese guitarist Ryo Kawasaki. Archie Shepp and Eddie Jefferson were frequent collaborators at these sessions.
Wilson had a minor radio hit on New York jazz radio in 1975, a rendition of Norman Mapp’s Jazz Ain’t Nothing But Soul. In 1977 he and his English wife Jill Christopher moved to Europe and settled in Brighton, Sussex. He recorded regularly with pianist Kirk Lightsey, including the Candid recording Feelin’ Good. One of his last albums was an Italian recording with Riccardo Arrighini and Gianni Basso, Ballads for Trane.
Inducted into the Oklahoma Jazz Hall of Fame in 2010, he gave his last public performance at the event. He is the subject of a documentary film, Around Joe Lee, by Yves Breux and Brad Scott. Vocalist Joe Lee Wilson transitioned from congestive heart failure at his Brighton home on July 17, 2011, aged 75.
More Posts: bandleader,history,instrumental,jazz,music,vocal
Three Wishes
While at a club or her Cathouse, Pannonica ventured the question to C. Stroman Scoby asking him to give her his three wishes he would want granted and his reply was:
- “Self~realization, by which I mean to realize my connection to the universe.”
- “Harmony among all the creatures in the universe. I wouldn’t need a third wish if those two.”
More Posts: drums,history,instrumental,jazz,music