Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Jimmy “Craw” Crawford was born on January 14, 1910 in Memphis, Tennessee. For nearly 14 years from 1928 to 1942 he was the drummer of the Jimmie Lunceford big band. Playing with a strong, solid pulsation, his style became a classic trademark of the Lunceford sound and was a key factor in establishing the unique Lunceford beat.
In the 1950s, Crawford worked as a pit drummer on Broadway. He also recorded with numerous notable artists such as Ella Fitzgerald, Dizzy Gillespie, Count Basie, Sy Oliver, Bing Crosby, Benny Goodman, Kenny Burrell, Quincy Jones, Eddie Heywood and Frank Sinatra among others.
Swing era drummer Jimmy Crawford, who was notably Paul Motian’s favorite drummer, passed away on January 28, 1980 in New York City.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Percy Gaston Humphrey was born January 13, 1905 in New Orleans, Louisiana. He was the son of clarinetist Willie Eli Humphrey and the younger brother of clarinetist Willie and trombonist Earl. He learned the musical basics of New Orleans jazz from his grandfather “Professor” Jim Humphrey.
For more than thirty years he was leader of the Eureka Brass Band founded by trumpeter Willie Wilson and played alongside Willie Parker, John Casimir and George Lewis. After Wilson got ill, Alcide Landry, Joseph “Red” Clark and Dominique “T-Boy” Remy each temporarily led the group until 1946 when Percy took over until the demise of the band in 1975. He also played in the band of pianist Sweet Emma Barrett.
For years he led his own jazz band Percy Humphrey and His Crescent City Joymakers. He played regularly at Preservation Hall from its opening in the early Sixties until shortly before his death. He traveled and performed internationally with the Preservation Hall Jazz Band as well as his own bands.
As a leader and sideman of the various groups he recorded prolifically with Pax, Alamac, Folkways, Jazzology and Sounds of New Orleans. A 1951 album, New Orleans Parade, features Humphrey with trombonists Charles “Sunny” Henry and Albert Warner and saxophonist Emmanuel Paul. Their 1962 sessions, Jazz at Preservation Hall, Volume 1: the Eureka Brass Band of New Orleans, on Atlantic Records with his borhter Willie, Kid Sheik Cola, Pete Bocage, Alber Warner and Oscar “Chicken” Henry, Emanuel Pail, Wilbert “Bird” Tilman, Josiah “Cie” Frazier and Robert “Son Fewclothes” Lewis.
After 1975, Percy revived the name occasionally for festival performances and other appearances. Trumpeter and bandleader Percy Humphrey continued to lead his own band until his passing in New Orleans on July 22, 1995 at the age of ninety .His last gig was at the annual New Orleans jazz festival in April, three months before his death.
Inspire A Young Mind
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Guy Lafitte was born on January 12, 1927 in Saint-Gaudens, France. Most notable for his tenor saxophone work with Mezz Mezzrow from 1951–1952 and also toured with Big Bill Broonzy in 1951.
In 1954 Lafitte made Paris his home, and worked with Lionel Hampton Emmett Berry. He also collaborated on various other projects with musicians such as Wild Bill Davis and Bill Coleman.
Guy recorded six albums as a leader beginning with his debut in 1953 with All The Things You Are playing with Franck Pourcel, and continued on with Peanuts Holland, Raymond Fol, Jean-Claude Pelletier, Geo Daly, Andre Persiany, Paul Rovere, Teddy Martin, Hank Jones, George Duvivier, J.C. Heard, Clyde Lucas, Jacky Terrasson, Pierre Boussaguet and Al Lewitt.
He recorded another seven sessions as a sideman with Arnett Cobb, Bill Coleman, Sammy Price, Lucky Thompson, Buck Clayton, Charlie Singleton and Ben Webster. Tenor saxophonist Guy Lafitte passed away on June 10, 1998.
Dose A Day – Blues Away
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Jack Nimitz was born in Washington, DC on January 11, 1930. He first began playing clarinet at age 12, and picked up the alto saxophone at 14. He played in local DC bands and after specializing on baritone sax he found work in the territory bands of Willis Connover, Bob Astor, Johnny Bothwell and Daryl Harpa.
Through the Fifties Nimitz played with Woody Herman, Stan Kenton and Herbie Mann and was in the house band of the Savoy Theater. Moving to Los Angeles, California he worked in film music in addition to performing with Bill Berry, Benny Carter, Onzy Matthews, Gerald Wilson, Supersax, Frank Strazzen, Thelonious Monk, Terry Gibbs, Dizzy Gillespie, Louis Bellson, Quincy Jones, Kenny Burrell, Horace Silver, Gene Ammons, Shelly Manne, Chuck Mangione, Charles Mingus, Gil Fuller, Oliver Nelson, Milt Jackson, Frank Capp and Joey DeFrancesco into the 1980s.
Additionally Jack recorded with the vocalists Johnny Hartman, June Christy, Peggy Lee, Nat King Cole, Carmen McRae, Anita O’Day and Diane Schuur. By the Nineties he was recording again with Claire Fischer, Lalo Schifrin, Stewart Liebig, Bill Perkins, Bud Shank and Gerald Wilson.
In 1995 he released his first of two albums under his own name, The Jack Nimitz Quintet, and played his final performance on May 10, 2009, in Northridge, California. Baritone saxophonist Jack Nimitz passed away at the age of 79 one month later on June 10, 2009 from complications from emphysema in Studio City, Los Angeles, California.
Take A Dose On The Road
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Allen Eager was born on January 10, 1927 in New York City and grew up in the Bronx. Reading by age 3, he learned to drive at the age of 9 with the help of his mother, after catching him driving a garbage truck near their hotels in the Catskill Mountains. He took clarinet lessons with David Weber of the New York Philharmonic at the age of 13 and went on to make the tenor saxophone his instrument.
When he was 15 Eager briefly played with Woody Herman and also took heroin for the first time. The next year he played in the Bobby Sherwood band, then went on to play with Sonny Dunham, Shorty Sherock, Hal McIntyre, Tommy Dorsey and John Bothwell all by 1945. After World War II he became a regular on the 52nd Street scene in New York, led his own ensemble there from 1945–47 and recorded his debut as leader for Savoy Records in 1946 with pianist Ed Finckel, bassist Bob Carter and drummer Max Roach.
Influenced by the playing of Lester Young, he was in good company with his contemporaries Zoot Sims, Stan Getz, Al Cohn and others. He adopted the musical forms pioneered in bebop but also adopted the drug dependency of a lot of the bebop players in the 1940s. As a white saxophonist of the time, Eager was a member of several bands led by black musicians including Coleman Hawkins, Fats Navarro, Charlie Parker, Red Rodney and Tadd Dameron by 1950.
During the Fifties he played with Gerry Mulligan, Terry Gibbs, Buddy Rich and Howard McGhee. He lived and performed in Paris from 1956-1957, returned to the States and recorded his last session for the next 25 years, The Gerry Mulligan Songbook with Mulligan leading. He essentially retired from jazz and while dealing with his own drug addiction did appear in Jack Kerouac’s 1958 book The Subterraneans as the character Roger Beloit. Allen went on to pursue other activities such as skiing, auto racing, and LSD experimentation with Timothy Leary. After several notable racing finishes at Sebring and Europe in 1963 a crash left him with broken bones.
He occasionally dabbled in music again, playing alto saxophone with Charles Mingus, Frank Zappa, recorded a 1982 Uptown Records session titled Renaissance. He toured with Dizzy Gillespie and Chet Baker and played in England. Tenor and alto saxophonist Allen Eager passed away from liver cancer on April 13, 2003 in Daytona Beach, Florida.
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