Daily Dose Of Jazz…
George Girard was born on October 7, 1930 in Jefferson Parish, Louisiana. In high school, he studied music under Johnny Wiggs and became a professional musician immediately after graduating in 1946. He played and toured with the bands of Johnny Archer and Phil Zito before co-founding the band The Basin Street Six, made up mostly of friends he had grown up with, including clarinetist Pete Fountain. The band got a regular gig at L’Enfant’s Restaurant in New Orleans, as well as regular television broadcasts over WWL. The band started receiving favorable national attention, but Girard was dissatisfied with it and broke up the band in 1954.
He found his own band, George Girard & the New Orleans Five which included trombonist Bob Havens, drummer Paul Edwards, and bassist Bob Coquille. He landed a residency at the Famous Door in the French Quarter, recorded for several labels, and got a weekly broadcast on CBS. His ambitions to make a national name for himself and the musical ability to do so fell short of time as he became ill and in 1956 had to give up playing.
Trumpeter George Girard, a member of the Basin Street Six whose technical ability combined Dixieland and big band style trumpet, passed away from colon cancer in New Orleans, Louisiana on January 18, 1957.
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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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