Daily Dose Of Jazz…
B.J. Papa was born on February 9, 1936 in Mobile, Alabama and as a child in the 1940s he was listening to all kinds of jazz and blues on the radio. Drafted into the Army in 1954 he became a medic and was stationed in San Francisco, California at Letterman Hospital in the Presidio. However, he ended up spending much of his service time playing on Army ball teams. By the time he turned 19 he found himself intrigued with the jazz bands booked into the Army noncommissioned officers clubs.
After his discharge from the service in 1956 Papa stayed in town and began saxophone lessons. He also made his first forays into the heart of the bustling Fillmore Street jazz community and would show up to listen and learn at the famous after-hours jams at Jimbo’s Bop City.
Over the course of his fifty year career Papa became a North Beach institution mentoring dozens of young cats making their transition from student to professional musician. He played with the biggest names in jazz to come through the city as well as passionate laymen sans pedigree.
Settling in at Jazz At Pearl’s, one of the few remaining jazz clubs that still possessed an air of authenticity before closing its doors, for thirteen years he shared the stage with an eclectic, enthusiastic audience nightly.
Pianist B.J. Papa, who always fed on and drew from the energy of the audience but has no recordings on line, transitioned on August 31, 2008.
More Posts: bandleader,history,instrumental,jazz,music,piano
Daily Dose Of Jazz…
William Crickett Smith was born on February 8, 1881 in Emporia, Kansas, the child of Tennessee Exodusters. His professional career began in childhood, performing in Nathaniel Clark Smith’s Picaninny Band before moving into minstrel troupes, vaudeville and cabaret.
In 1913-1914, he made several early recordings with James Reese Europe’s group, the Clef Club Society Orchestra. Between 1914 and 1919, he performed in the Ford Dabney Orchestra, the resident band at Florenz Ziegfeld’s Broadway cabaret, Midnight Frolics. Between 1917-1919, they produced several dozen phonographs.
By 1919 Smith had relocated to Paris, France playing with Louis Mitchell’s Jazz Kings until 1924. The group recorded for Pathe Records. He became the leader of Mitchell’s group in 1923. He went on to tour France, Spain and Russia with his own bands from 1925 to 1933. However, during the Depression, he spent nine years in Southeast Asia, working with Herb Flemming, Leon Abbey, and Teddy Weatherford, mostly in Bombay and Batavia. In 1936, he recorded with a group called the Symphonians.
Around 1943 cornetist and trumpeter Crickett Smith, who played jazz blues and ragtime, returned to New York City and the following year transitioned on August 30, 1944.
More Posts: bandleader,cornet,history,instrumental,jazz,music,trumpet
Three Wishes
Pannonica inquired what his three wishes would be if they could be granted and Frank Wess responded by telling her the following:
-
- “I don’t know. I don’t know. You’d think I was crazy if I told you. Well, I’d like to have a crazy pad with horses and some crazy dogs! And to play good music with a lot of people all of my life. And I’ll leave the third wish to the fairy godmother, because she’s been so nice.”
*Excerpt from Three Wishes: An Intimate Look at Jazz Greats ~ Compiled and Photographed by Pannonica de Koenigswarter
More Posts: baroness,flute,history,instrumental,jazz,music,pannonica,saxophone,three,wishes
Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Barry Sweig was born on February 7, 1942 in Detroit, Michigan. His mother loved music and taught her son to clap on the 2 & 4 as a toddler. He received a ukulele for his fifth birthday, played violin from the age of eight until he was eighteen, but bought himself a guitar for ten dollars when he was 15. His first recording session was at age 17, at Capitol Records.
Drafted in the Army in 1964 Sweig was assigned to NORAD Band where he got the opportunity to study with guitarist Johnny Smith. After his discharge he joined Buddy Rich’s band and after recording an album with Sammy Davis Jr. that led to him joining the latter’s band. Touring with Davis ended fourteen months later and he settled in Los Angeles, California and broke into the music scene where he performed and recorded for a host of who’s who vocalists and musicians.
He played his final gig at The Lighthouse Cafe in Hermosa Beach. Guitarist Barry Sweig, who taught at UCLA, USC, and the University of Texas, El Paso, transitioned on March 15, 2020 of complications from Crohn’s disease.
More Posts: bandleader,educator,guitar,history,instrumental,jazz,music
Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Conrad Joseph Gozzo was born in New Britain, Connecticut on February 6, 1922. His father played trumpet, and he began learning the instrument around the age of 5. He played in his junior and senior high school bands, but left school around the age of 16 at the recommendation of Isham Jones to join bandleader and clarinetist Tommy Reynolds in Boston, Massachusetts.
Quickly noted for his exceptional technical ability and style, Conrad played with Reynolds for nine months, then left to play with Red Norvo in 1939. Staying in the band for two years he went on to play with trumpeter Johnnie Davis, then performed and recorded with the Bob Chester Orchestra, and with Claude Thornhill’s band.
By 1942 he had a short stint with Benny Goodman before enlisting in the U.S. Navy, where clarinetist Artie Shaw had formed a band, the Rangers No. 501. Their first assignment was San Francisco, California and then Hawaii before touring in the South Pacific, the U.K. and the mainland States. After his discharge in 1945, Gozzo briefly rejoined Goodman along with fellow trumpet players from Shaw’s band.
By the Fifties Gozzo was sitting in the lead trumpeter chair on the Glen Gray, Stan Kenton, and Harry James “remakes”, and in Dan Terry’s 1954 Columbia sessions. He recorded extensively with arrangers Van Alexander, Nelson Riddle, Billy May, Ray Conniff, Jerry Fielding and Shorty Rogers, and also with performers Dean Martin and Frank Sinatra. He played first trumpet on all of the recordings of composer Henry Mancini.
He performed on many major live television shows broadcast on the NBC network, including the Dinah Shore Show, and performed on motion picture soundtracks including The Glenn Miller Story, The Benny Goodman Story, Bye Bye Birdie, Call Me Madam, Ben-Hur and Cleopatra. He played on the two-record set on Verve, Ella Fitzgerald Sings the Harold Arlen Songbook. In 1955, Gozzo released his own album, Goz the Great!, signed with RCA Victor and played by “Conrad Gozzo and his Orchestra”, directed by Billy May. Three of the twelve tracks were written together by Gozzo and May.
Conrad Gozzo, whose nicknames were Goz and Gopher because of his resemblence to the animal when playing, transitioned on October 8, 1964 from liver disease in Burbank, California. Jazz composer Sammy Nestico dedicated Portrait of a Trumpet to Gozzo.
More Posts: bandleader,history,instrumental,jazz,music,trumpet