Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Arnold Fishkind was born July 20, 1919 in Bayonne, New Jersey, and grew up in Freeport, Long Island, New York where he met and began a lifelong friendship with Chubby Jackson. At age 7 Fishkind began learning violin, and played in The Musical Aces, a local band of budding musicians. By age 14 he was playing bass.
Fishkind had his first professional gig with Bunny Berigan in 1937. Following this he played with Jack Teagarden, Van Alexander, and Les Brown in the early Forties. After serving three years in the armed forces during World War II he met and played with pianist Lennie Tristano in New York, but by the fall he left to go to Hollywood to play with Charlie Barnet. During this experience he played alongside Stan Getz.
Returning to New York City from 1947 to 1949 he played with Tristano, then at the end of the decade recorded with Lee Konitz and on Johnny Smith’s Moonlight in Vermont. He also continued to play with Barnet, and played with Benny Goodman.
By the 1950s he found much work as a session musician, for radio, television and pop musicians including Frankie Laine. His career at ABC lasted fifteen years and included appearances in the Andy Williams Show in 1961. Fishkind became well known enough during this time to be mentioned by Jack Kerouac in his novel Visions of Cody.
Rock and Roll having decimated the market for jazz musicians in New York City, Fishkind moved from New York City back to California. In California he found work with the Dean Martin and Bob Hope television shows and some substitution engagements on the Tonight and Merv Griffin television shows, as well as some recording and film work.
He toured with Les Brown and Lena Horne, while continuing to record into the 1980s, playing with Frank Scott. Ultimately he moved to Palm Desert, California, where he was able to join the celebration of his friend Chubby Jackson’s 80th birthday. In his latter years, Fishkind became an ordained minister at Family Life Church in Palm Desert.
During his career he performed swing and bebop jazz, television, jingles, and even western themed music. He worked with Ella Fitzgerald, Stan Hasselgard, Peanuts Hucko, Charlie Parker, Shorty Rogers, Butch Stone and Jerry Wald. Bassist Arnold Fishkind, sometimes credited as Arnold Fishkin and who appeared on over 100 albums, transitioned on September 6, 1999 in Palm Desert, California.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Hank Shaw was born Henry Shalofsky was born June 23, 1926 in London, England. At the age of 15 he played with Teddy Foster’s band during World War II. In the latter half of the decade he played around his hometown with Oscar Rabin, Frank Weir, and Tommy Sampson, then switched permanently from swing to playing bebop music in 1946 after hearing Dizzy Gillespie.
Visiting the United States in 1947 he came with close friend and fellow pioneer bebopper altoist Freddy Syer. However, unable to secure work permits they moved to Canada where they played with Oscar Peterson and Maynard Ferguson. Returning to England in 1948, Hank was one of the early Club Eleven players, along with Ronnie Scott, John Dankworth, Lennie Bush, and others. He also played with many of these musicians on the recordings of Alan Dean’s Beboppers.
After Club Eleven shuttered, Shaw played with Vic Lewis and toured Europe with Cab Kaye, then joined Jack Parnell’s ensemble in 1953 and Ronnie Scott’s nonet in 1954. He joined Jamaican alto saxophonist Joe Harriott in his celebrated quintet in 1958 but left with pianist Harry South when Harriott sought to introduce his “free-form” concept. Shaw played regularly both live and as a session musician for many British jazz musicians over the course of the next twenty or so years, working with Joe Harriott, Tony Crombie, Don Rendell, Tony Kinsey, Stan Tracey, Bill Le Sage, and others.
He led a quartet at the 100 Club in the Sixties, and played in the Bebop Preservation Society and the John Burch Quartet for over two decades each. He retired due to ill health in the late 1990s. Bebop trumpeter Hank Shaw transitioned four months past his 80th birthday on October 26, 2006 in Kent, England.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Lemuel A. Davis was born in Tampa, Florida on June 22, 1914. He started playing alto saxophone in high school and worked in semi-pro bands before moving to New York City in the early Forties. There his career started with pianist Nat Jaffe. He went on to play with the Coleman Hawkins Septet in 1943 and with Eddie Heywood’s group.
Throughout the 1940s, he played in a variety of jazz groups. Lem composed the bebop tune Lem Me Go in 1946 and recorded it with Eddie Safranski’s All Stars along with Vido Musso, Sanford Gold and Denzil Best. Then in 1953 he appeared on Buck Clayton’s The Hucklebuck recording. He continued playing in New York City throughout the 1950s, recording four albums with Buck Clayton between 1954 and 1956. He recorded little thereafter.
Alto saxophonist Lem Davis, mostly associated with swing music, transitioned on January 16, 1970 in New York City.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Fatty George was born Franz Georg Pressler on April 24, 1927 in Vienna, Austria. He originally modeled himself after Benny Goodman but subsequently became a bebop player under the banner of Charlie Parker. He started out playing in clubs near the end of World War II for an audience of both American and Russian soldiers. his setlist adhering to the enormously popular swing recipes of the era.
He became involved in personally running nightclubs in both Germany and Austria, opening Fatty’s Jazz Casino in Insbruck, Austria in the early ’50s and Fatty’s Saloon in Vienna in 1958. His Fatty George Jazzband performed throughout the European continent at both clubs and festivals and released a series of albums under his own name, including Two Sides of Fatty George and Fatty’s Saloon. His playing partners often included the brothers Bill Grah and Heinz Grah on piano and trombone, respectively.
His recorded legacy includes about 50 recordings made over four decades beginning in the Forties, covering aspects of European history as well as ongoing developments in jazz itself.
Clarinettist Fatty George, who may have acquired the stage name of Fatty George with the help of double servings of apple strudel and goulash, transitioned on March 29, 1982.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Eric “Big Daddy” Dixon was born on March 28, 1930 in New York City, New York. Although he played bugle as a child,he switched to the tenor saxophone at the age of 12. Following a stint as a musician in the US Army from 1951 to 1953 he played in groups that sometimes included Mal Waldron, with whom he would later record.
In 1954, he played with Cootie Williams and the following year with Johnny Hodges. In 1956, he performed and recorded with Bennie Green and also took up the flute.
The late Fifties had him spending four years in the house band led by Reuben Phillips at the Apollo Theatre in New York. At the end of the decade he toured Europe and recorded with the Cooper Brothers.
He also worked with Paul Gonsalves, Ahmed Abdul-Malik, Oliver Nelson, Quincy Jones, Jack McDuff, Joe Williams, Frank Foster, and Eddie “Lockjaw” Davis, but is probably best known for his tenure in Count Basie’s band, which lasted almost two decades. Dixon continued to play in the ghost band after Basie’s death.
Tenor saxophonist, flautist, composer, and arranger Eric Dixon, who has been credited on as many as 200 recordings, transitioned on October 19, 1989 in New York City.
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