Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Nathaniel Edward Story was born on August 8, 1904 in Oak Station, Kentucky. He played on riverboats on the Mississippi River with Fate Marable and Floyd Campbell in the 1920s, and played with the Jones & Collins Astoria Hot Eight in 1928.
Moving to New York City in the 1930s, he worked with Luis Russell, Sam Wooding, and Chick Webb. After Webb’s death he remained in the orchestra under the direction of Ella Fitzgerald, but left in 1940.
Early in the 1940s he played with Andy Kirk and Lucky Millinder, but went into semi-retirement after this, though he performed occasionally into the 1960s. Trombonist Nat Story passed away on November 21, 1968 in Evansville, Indiana.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Otto Lington was born on August 5, 1903 in Copenhagen, Denmark. The son of a clown, he showed an early interest in music and got his first professional arrangement as a musician at 14 years old. During the 1920s and 1930s he led his own orchestras and held jobs as a leader of orchestras, such as Kai Ewans in Denmark , Jack Harris in Sweden and Bernard Etté in Germany.
He was one of the pioneers of jazz in Denmark and was nicknamed The White Negro. In 1929, Otto performed the first major jazz concert in Denmark, where, among other things, George Gershwin’s Rhapsody In Blue was performed.
For many years during 1951 ~ 1952 and 1958 ~ 1972 Lington led the orchestra at the Tivoli in Copenhagen, but also at many theaters, revue establishments and the like.
Violinist., composer, music publisher and bandleader Otto Lington, was a pioneer of jazz in Denmark, passed away on December 15, 1992 and interred at Søndermark Cemetery in Frederiksberg, Denmark.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Earl Bowman Swope was born on August 4, 1922 in Hagerstown, Maryland into a musical family: his parents, a sister and two brothers were all musicians. When he was 20, he played with Sonny Dunham.
During the Forties, from 1943~47 he played with Boyd Raeburn, Georgie Auld, and Buddy Rich. Then, from 1947 to 1949 he worked with Woody Herman and recorded in small groups with Stan Getz and Serge Chaloff. The Fifties began with Earl working with Elliot Lawrence, then worked freelance in New York and Washington, D.C.
Later in the 1950s he returned to big band work, playing with Jimmy Dorsey and Louie Bellson. Residing in Washington, D.C. in the 1960s he played locally until his death. Trombonist Earl Swope, whose style was not influenced by J. J. Johnson and played in a modern barrelhouse style, passed away on January 3, 1968.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Kamil Hala was born on August 1, 1914 in Most, Czechoslovakia. During the late Fifties he led his own orchestra. He was a member of the Czechoslovak Radio Dance Orchestra beginning in 1960, starting as a pianist and later as its arranger and conductor. After the orchestra split in 1963 he was the conductor of the Czechoslovak Radio Jazz Orchestra until the 1990s.
Pianist composer, arranger, and conductor Kamil Hala passed away on October 29, 2014 in Prague, Czechoslovakia.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Victor Lewis was born on July 29, 1919 in London, England and began playing the guitar at the age of three, and dabbled with cornet and trombone. One of his early bands included George Shearing, then a teenager, among its members.
Lewis first toured the United States in 1938, where he recorded sessions with a band that had Bobby Hackett, Eddie Condon, and Pee Wee Russell. Serving in the Royal Air Force from 1941 to 1944, he recorded with Buddy Featherstonhaugh. While he was in the RAF, he met Jack Parnell and together they formed the Vic Lewis/Jack Parnell Jazzmen. He worked with Stephane Grappelli after the war and with Ted Heath soon after.
Lewis put together his first big band in 1946 to play swing jazz, but soon after its formation he began to direct the ensemble toward the sound of Stan Kenton, who gave him some of his arrangements by Pete Rugolo, Gerry Mulligan, and Bill Holman. Pianist Ken Thorne also made arranging contributions. He toured the US with the band at various intervals between 1956 and 1959, and recorded extensively for Parlophone, Esquire, Decca, and Philips.
After 1959, Vic semi-retired as a performer, only occasionally recording, but he continued to write about jazz and champion its value. He went into artist management, and oversaw the careers of photographer Robert Whitaker and the singer Cilla Black among many others.
Selling his management agency in 1964 to Brian Epstein’s company NEMS, then worked with Epstein arranging the Beatles’ international tours. Following Epstein’s death in 1967, Lewis served as managing director of NEMS. Lewis also managed Robin Gibb of the Bee Gees, and produced his debut album Robin’s Reign in 1970.
He conducted recordings of his own and others with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra on Vocalion, which included excerpts from his Russian Suite, a Romance for Violin, and two movements (Red and Jade) from a multi-composer suite called Colours. Guitarist, bandleader, agent and manager Vic Lewis, who was awarded the MBE in 2007, continued to work in the music industry until he passed away on February 9, 2009 in Golders Green, London.
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