Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Buddy Deppenschmidt was born William Henry Deppenschmidt on February 16, 1936 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. His father was a saxophonist and bandleader under the name Buddy Williams, but his mother moved him to Richmond, Virginia when he was four.
Self-taught, he started playing drums professionally while in his teens and then went on the road in the western U.S. with the territory band Ronnie Bartley Orchestra. Returning home, he played with local bands and became the drummer for the Newton Thomas Trio through the mid to late Fifties, which was also the touring rhythm section for the Billy Butterfield Quintet. When the Newton Thomas Trio played the Virginia Beach Jazz Festival, it received rave reviews on a bill that included the Dave Brubeck Quartet and the Charlie Byrd Trio. Two nights later, Charlie Byrd came into the Jolly Roger jazz club where Buddy was playing, and offered him the job as drummer with his trio. He played with the trio at the Showboat Lounge in Washington, D.C. from 1959–62.
In February 1961, while on a goodwill tour sponsored by the U.S. State Department, the Charlie Byrd Trio with Byrd on guitar, Keter Betts on bass, and Buddy on drums, they visited 18 countries throughout South and Central Americas, and Mexico. While in Brazil, he spent his free time with local musicians, teaching them jazz and learning bossa nova. It was his idea to record an album combining jazz and bossa nova with Stan Getz.
After Byrd, Deppenschmidt joined the Tee Carson Trio in the early Sixties, then moved to Pennsylvania and formed the Jazz Renaissance, was also the drummer with the John Coates Trio, toured the midwest and west coast with the Bernard Peiffer Trio and studied with drummer Joe Morello.
He’s worked on A Thousand Clowns, Wall Street, Bossa Nova, The Lake House, and Whatever Works movie soundtracks. He’s played with a who’s who list of jazz musicians from Mose Allison and Chet Baker to Coleman Hawkins and Shirley Horn, Phil Woods and more.
Drummer Buddy Deppenschmidt, biographies are in The Encyclopedia of Jazz in the Sixties and The New Grove Dictionary of Jazz, transitioned on March 20, 2021 in Pennsylvania from complications of COVID-19. He was 85 years old.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Ferdinand Povel was born on February 13, 1947 in Haarlem, Netherlands. Coming from an artistic family, his father was a cineaste (filmmaker) and his mother a pianist. At an early age, he developed a taste for jazz, when first introduced to as a gift on his twelfth birthday, he received a ticket to a late-night concert by the Duke Ellington Orchestra at the Amsterdam Concertgebouw.
In 1961 he began studying clarinet with Theo Loevendie and teaching himself saxophone because jazz was not yet taught formally in the Netherlands. Ferdinand learned by playing with experienced musicians, such as pianists Rob Madna and Frans Elsen, picking up knowledge of harmony and arrangement as a young member of the orchestras of Kurt Edelhagen and Peter Herbolzheimer, and of the Skymasters.
In 1964 at 17, Povel won the Loosdrecht Jazz Concours with the Martin Haak Quartet. This was the start of his career as a professional musician. 1966 saw him playing with The New Sound Incorporated, giving school concerts and radio and TV broadcasts for Tros and Avro broadcasting companies. He went on to be a finalist at the 1966 International Modern Jazz Festival in Vienna, Austria where the judges included Cannonball Adderley and Mel Lewis.
In the same year, the Netherlands Jazz Orchestra invited Povel to join them as a saxophonist and flutist. Three years later he was in Munich, Germany playing with trumpet player Dusko Goykovich in his Summit Quintet, starring drummer Philly Joe Jones and touring Europe several times.
Ferdinand would go on to play with the Kenny Clarke/Francy Boland Big Band, the Kurt Edelhagen Orchestra, tour the United States of America with the Maynard Ferguson Big Band, and the Peter Herbolzheimer’s Rhythm Combination and Brass from 1971 to 1985. He was a member of George Grunz’s band, Jiggs Whigham Sextet, and the bands of Rob Madna, Frans Elsen, and Cees Slinger. He has played in the front line with jazz icons such as Art Farmer, Bennie Bailey, Woody Shaw, and Jimmy Knepper.
Throughout his career he was never far from playing in various occasional orchestras for radio and television. As an educator he taught jazz improvisation at the Rotterdam Conservatory and at conservatoriums in Zwolle, Hilversum and The Hague. Since 1990 he has taught exclusively at the Hilversum Music Academy, now named the Conservatory of Amsterdam, as part of Amsterdam School of the Arts.
Saxophonist Ferdinand Povel has a discography that includes over one hundred record and CD albums to which he has contributed as a soloist. He has received several honors and continues to perform and educate.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Le Roy Watts Harris Jr. was born on February 12, 1916 in St. Louis, Missouri. He played violin while young, then learned saxophone and clarinet. By age 13 he was playing with pianist Chick Finney.
Relocating to Chicago, Illinois around 1930 he played with Ray Nance from 1931 to 1936. Following this stint he worked with Earl Hines from 1937 to 1943. He joined the United States Navy during World War II and played in a band from 1943 to 1944. After his discharge he played with Bill Doggett, Ben Thigpen, Tadd Dameron, Sarah Vaughan, Singleton Palmer, and Wynonie Harris, then returned to play with Hines once more.
In the early 1950s he led his own band at the Kit Kat club in New York. He resettled in St. Louis again in 1957 and played with Eddie Johnson from 1960 to 1971.
Saxophonist and clarinetist Le Roy Harris Jr., whose father and uncle were both jazz musicians, transitioned on February 16, 2005 in his hometown of St. Louis.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Marc McDonald was born in London, England on February 8, 1961 and lived there for six years before his parents moved to Princeton, New Jersey, where he grew up. Since the 1980s he has led groups in the New York City metropolitan areas as well as Honolulu, London and Athens. Releasing his debut CD as a leader, It Doesn’t End Here, it features his own compositions and the inventive arrangements of standards, drawing from mainstream jazz, Brazilian, and New Orleans R&B influences.
He has been equally active as a sideman and has been a member of award-winning composer Jamie Begian’s big band since 1998, appearing as a featured soloist on the band’s CD Trance.
In 1990, McDonald was among ten jazz composers invited to the ASCAP/Louis Armstrong Jazz Composers Workshop at New York’s Lincoln Center. Always the student, he attended the BMI Jazz Composers Workshop in New York for several years. Between 1991 and 1996 he was invited to premiere works for jazz chamber ensemble, solo saxophone, and saxophone quartet.
As an educator he has held a position for five years as a member of the artist faculty at a private music school in Princeton, and is currently in private teaching practice. Saxophonist and composer Marc McDonald continues to explore the world of jazz.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Raymond Colignon was born on February 7, 1907 in Liège, Belgium. He initially was active as an accompanist for silent films, then went on to tour Switzerland, France and Algeria. In the early 1930s, he joined the Lucien Hirsch and His Orchestra who made the first recordings for Columbia Records. Between 1931 and 1934 he worked in a nightclub in his native town. From 1935 to 1940 he played and wrote big band arrangements with Fud Candrix.
As a soloist, he recorded under his own name for the Brussels Jazz Club record label. In 1939 he recorded Honeysuckle Rose for Telefunken and Swinging Through the Style, accompanied by bassist Camille Marchand and drummer Armand Dralandts. The early Forties saw him playing in Brussels, Belgium with Jack Lowens and His Swing Quartet, in Berlin, Germany with Kurt Widmann and his dance orchestra, and in Adolf Steimel ‘s Organum dance orchestra.
In 1941/42 further recordings were made in Brussels under his own name, with trumpeter and singer Billy West recording I Hear A Rhapsody and with Tony Jongenelen Gute Nacht, Mutter (Good NIght , Mother) sung in German. In the post World War II period he worked mainly as an organist in the genre of dance and entertainment music, recording Surprise Party – Calling All Dancers or Come Dance with Me for Philips.
Pianist, organist and arranger Coco Colignon, who was involved in 53 jazz recording sessions between 1931 and 1961, transitioned on February 10, 1987 in Wavre, Belgium.
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