Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Masahiko Satoh was born on October 6, 1941 in Tokyo, Japan and the family home contained a piano. He started playing at the age of five, and twelve years later he began playing professionally accompanying singers, magicians, and strippers at a cabaret in the Ginza district.
By 1959 Satoh began playing in Georgie Kawaguchi’s band, together with alto saxophonist Sadao Watanabe and tenor saxophonist Akira Miyazawa. After graduating from Keio University, at the age of 26 he moved to the United States to study at the Berklee College of Music. During those two years of study, he read about composing and arranging, earned money working in a food shop, and played the piano in a hotel.
1968 had Masahiko writing and conducting the music for a series of pieces that were combined with dance and performed around New York City. After returning to Japan, he recorded Palladium, his first album as a leader, and appeared on a Helen Merrill album.
In the late 1960s and early 1970s, his career led him to perform in a free, percussive style. Masahiko played at the 1971 Berlin Jazz Festival as part of a trio, using at the time an unusual ring modulator to alter the sound. During that period he recorded with Attila Zoller, Karl Berger, and Albert Mangelsdorff. He wrote the psychedelic music for the 1973 anime film Belladonna of Sadness.
He went on to write arrangements for recordings led by, among others, Helen Merrill, Kimiko Itoh, and Nancy Wilson. He arranged for strings and quartet on Art Farmer’s 1983 album Maiden Voyage, formed a large group, named Rantooga, that combined various forms of folk music from around the world, and composed for film, television, and advertisements. By the early 1990s pianist, composer, and arranger Masahiko Satoh composed music for a choir of 1,000 Buddhist monks and now spends 70% of his time arranging and composing, the rest on playing and recording.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…Trumpet
Jon Eardley was born on September 30, 1928 in Altoona, Pennsylvania and first started on trumpet at the age of 11. His father played in the Paul Whiteman Orchestra. From the age of eighteen, he played1946 to 1949 he played in the Air Force Band in Washington, D.C., then led with his own quartet in D.C. from 1950 to 1953.
A move to New York City in 1953 got him introduced to the jazz scene. The following year he played with Phil Woods, then left for Gerry Mulligan for three years, and during that time played with Hal McIntyre. Returning to his hometown, Jon played there until 1963, when he moved to Europe and settled for a time in Belgium.
1969 saw his next residency in Cologne, Germany where he played with Harald Banter and Chet Baker and working through the 1980s. The last years before death he played in the WDR Big Band Cologne, Germany. Trumpeter Jon Eardley passed away on April 1, 1991 in Lambermont, near Verviers, Belgium.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Rolf Kühn was born on September 29, 1929 in Köln, Germany, the older brother of the pianist Joachim Kühn. He started out playing in dance bands in the late ’40s, then worked with radio orchestras starting in 1952 before moving west across the Atlantic to America.
Living in the United States for three years from 1956 to 1959, subbing for Benny Goodman on a few occasions, played in the Tommy Dorsey ghost band, and worked in a big band led by Urbie Green. Rolf drew favorable reviews, and over the course of his career, he recorded more than two-dozen albums as a leader, ten with his younger brother, and as a sideman, eighteen.
He has recorded with Eddie Costa, Buddy DeFranco,Klaus Doldinger, Tommy Dorsey, European Jazz Ensemble, Urbie Green, Friedrich Gulda, Greetje Kauffeld, Eartha Kitt, Albert Mangelsdorff, Oscar Pettiford, and George Wallington.
In 2008 he founded a band with Christian Lillinger, Ronny Graupe, and Johannes Fink. In 2019, the New York Times Magazine listed him among the hundreds of artists whose material was reportedly destroyed in the 2008 Universal fire. Clarinetist and saxophonist Rolf Kühn at 90 continued to perform and compose for the next two years until his passing on August 18, 2022 in Berlin, Germany.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Skip Hall was born Archie Hall on September 27, 1909 in Portsmouth, Virginia and studied piano under his father. He lived in New York from age eight and in the late twenties, he relocated to Cleveland, Ohio where he led his own band for most of the 1930s.
He worked as an arranger on contract, arranging for Jay McShann from 1940 to 1944. During World War II he played with Don Redman and in 1943 he entered military service and played in a band while stationed in England.
He would eventually work with Hot Lips Page around the year 1945 and then joined the Sy Oliver band, who was his brother-in-law. Following this he worked with Wynonie Harris, Thelma Houston, and Jimmy Rushing before joining Buddy Tate’s group in 1948. He worked with Tate for twenty years both as a performer and arranger.
In the 1950s and 1960s, he performed with Dicky Wells, Emmett Berry, and George James, as well as working solo and with his own small groups. Arranger, pianist, and organist Skip Hall passed away in November 1980, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Charlie Allen was born on September 25, 1908 in Jackson, Mississippi and grew up in Chicago, Illinois and in the early 1920s just out of high school began playing. In 1925 he was a member of the band led by Hugh Swift, then went on to play with Dave Peyton and Doc Cook in 1927, and Clifford King in 1928 and Johnny Long by the end of the decade.
Allen joined Earl Hines from 1931 to 1934, then did a short stint in Duke Ellington’s orchestra in 1935, though he never recorded any solos with the orchestra. He would play with Fletcher Butler in 1936 and then returned to play with Hines again in 1937.
Charlie played in various groups in Chicago in the 1940s and 1950s and later in his life became a music educator, working in the Chicago Musicians’ Union. He also designed custom trumpet mouthpieces, used by Cat Anderson, among others. Trumpeter Charlie Allen passed away on November 19, 1972 in Chicago, Illinois.
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