Three Wishes

When the subject of three wishes was broached, Willie Ruff told Nica he had only one that he would like to be granted and that was:  

1. 1. “I wouldn’t have three wishes. I would only have one and that’s to be forty. Because by then I will have everything I need.”

*Excerpt from Three Wishes: An Intimate Look at Jazz Greats ~ Compiled and Photographed by Pannonica de Koenigswarter

Willie Ruff: September 1, 1931 | French Horn, Double Bass

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Daily Dose Of Jazz…

Billy Robinson was born on May 31, 1939, in Fort Worth, Texas. His jazz roots go back to his father’s nightclub where he played boogie-woogie piano as a child, and watched the adult musicians perform. At the beginning of his musical career he played with John Carter, Ornette Coleman, and Dewey Redman. Living and playing in San Francisco, California in the mid-1960s towards the end of the decade he relocated to New York City, where he collaborated with Charles Mingus in 1969.

During the late 1960s, Robinson converted to Islam and remained a practicing Muslim for the rest of his life. A move to Montreal, Canada is where he married his first wife in 1970. Short-lived, four years later  he married Suzanne Cyr and moved to Ottawa, Canada in 1978 and performed sporadically at the local level.

Following his recording debut on Archie Shepp’s Attica Blues, Billy released his first album titled Evolution’s Blend as a leader in 1972. Then in 1973 he played on the Sadik Hakim track Grey Cup Caper. From 1972 to 1998 he was a part of six recording sessions.

Tenor saxophonist, composer, educator and bandleader Billy Robinson, who was dubbed The Mystic by Freddie Hubbard, transitioned from a heart attack on August 11, 2005, in Ottawa, Ontario, at the age of 66.

Bestow upon an inquiring mind a dose of a Fort Worth saxophonist to motivate the perusal of the genius of jazz musicians worldwide whose gifts contribute to the canon…

Billy Robinson: 1939 ~2005 | Tenor Saxophone

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Daily Dose Of Jazz…

William Charles “Diz” Disley was born on May 27, 1931 in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada, where his parents worked. When he was four, they moved back to Llandyssil in Montgomeryshire, Wales and then five years later to Ingleton, North Yorkshire, England where his mother worked as school teacher. During his childhood he learned to play the banjo, but took up jazz guitar at the age of 15, after being exposed to the playing of Django Reinhardt. His neighbour Norry Greenwood taught him the chords to Miss Annabel Lee and Try a Little Tenderness in the summer of 1946.

Showing an early gift for drawing, he left school to enroll at Leeds College of Art, which had a reputation for student music making, in particular trad jazz. Soon he was playing in the Vernon City Ramblers and the Yorkshire Jazz Band with trumpeter Dick Hawdon and clarinettist Alan Cooper.

Post National Service in 1953, he resumed his studies in Leeds, and began selling cartoons to national newspapers and periodicals. A move to London, England saw him joining Mick Mulligan’s band with George Melly. He worked with most of the trad jazz bands of the day, including Ken Colyer, Cy Laurie, Sandy Brown, Kenny Ball, and Alex Welsh. In 1958, he formed a quintet to replicate that sound, employing violinist Dick Powell, guitarists Danny Pursford and Nevil Skrimshire, and a range of double bassists including Tim Mahn.

Disley started working as guitarist with a number of skiffle groups as it took over from trad jazz working and recording with Ken Colyer, Lonnie Donegan, Bob Cort, Nancy Whiskey. He would go on to persuade Stephane Grappelli to return to public performances using an all-strings acoustic line-up, recreating the spirit of the Quintette for a new generation of listeners. This began a collaboration between Grappelli and the Diz Disley Trio, sometimes billed The Hot Club of London, and after twenty years he broke his wrist when he was knocked down by a motorcycle. In 1978 Grappelli, Disley, and others were invited by David Grisman to contribute the score to the film King of the Gypsies. Grappelli and Disley had walk-on parts as gypsy musicians and were suitably attired for the occasion, but the soundtrack to the movie was never released.

In the 1980s Disley formed a working partnership with gypsy jazz guitar prodigy Bireli Lagrene, then put together a club quintet for Nigel Kennedy, and the Soho String Quintette that recorded Zing Went The Strings for Waterfront Records.

In the 1990s, he spent several years in Los Angeles, California and delved into blues and country-rockabilly. He moved to Spain in the 2000s and painted several portraits of jazz musicians in the cubist style. In early 2010 his health took a turn for the worse, and he was admitted to the Royal Free Hospital in Hampstead, England on February 2nd. Guitarist Diz Disley transitioned on March 21, 2010.

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Three Wishes

What Johnny Mathis responded to the question posed by Baroness Pannonica was one word answers as to his three wishes: 

1. 1. “Love.”

   2. “Kindness.”

   3. “Tactfulness.

*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…

Thomas Joseph Gumina was born on May 20, 1931 in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. He began playing accordion at age eleven, and took lessons on the instrument in Chicago, Illinois throughout the second half of the 1940s.

He began his professional career working with Harry James on television in 1952 as an accompanist for popular tunes, and in 1955 Gumina began working solo and as a leader with an ensemble. He recorded with Buddy DeFranco and Willie Smith in the 1960s.

Tommy started experimenting with modifying an electric accordion, whose amplified sound resembled that of an electronic organ. During the Seventies he was occasionally active as a performer, working with Art Pepper in 1974, but he increasingly turned his concentration to his amplifier manufacturing business, Polytone Musical Instruments which was based in North Hollywood, California.

Along with guitarist Joe Pass, they co-founded Polytone Records in 1987. Accordionist Tommy Gumina, who was also a musical instrument builder, transitioned on October 28, 2013.

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