Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Toby Hardwicke was born Otto James Hardwicke on May 31, 1904 in Washington, D.C., and started on string bass at the age of 14, then moved to C melody saxophone and finally settled on alto saxophone. A childhood friend of Duke Ellington, he joined Ellington’s first D.C. band in 1919. He also worked for banjoist Elmer Snowden at Murray’s Casino.
In 1923, Ellington, Hardwick, Snowden, trumpeter Arthur Whetsol, and drummer Sonny Greer had success as the Washingtonians in New York City. After a disagreement over money, Snowden was forced out of the band and Duke Ellington was elected as the new leader. Booked at a Times Square nightspot called the Kentucky Club for three years, they met Irving Mills, who produced and published Ellington’s music.
Otto left the Duke Ellington band in 1928 to visit Europe, where he played with Noble Sissle, Sidney Bechet and Nekka Shaw’s Orchestra, and led his own orchestra before returning to New York City in 1929. He went on to have a brief stint with Chick Webb that year, then led his own band at the Hot Feet Club, with Fats Waller leading the rhythm section in 1930. He led a group at Small’s before rejoining Duke Ellington in the spring of 1932, following a brief stint with Elmer Snowden.
He played lead alto on most Ellington numbers from 1932 to 1946 and was a soloist on Black and Tan Fantasy, In a Sentimental Mood and Sophisticated Lady. Hardwick, with his creamy tone, was almost always the lead alto in the reed section of the Ellington orchestra except in some situations where Ellington required the more cutting tone of Johnny Hodges’ alto to set the tone of the ensemble. He left the band in 1946 over a disagreement with Ellington about his girlfriend, freelanced for a short time in the following year, and then retired from music.
>Occasionally doubling on violin and string bass in the Twenties, alto saxophonist Toby Hardwicke who also played clarinet and bass, baritone, and soprano saxes, passed away on August 5, 1970.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Reginald Foresythe was born on May 28, 1907 in London, England. He played piano from age eight and by the second half of the 1920s was working as a pianist and accordionist in dance bands in Paris, Australia, Hawaii, and California. He wrote music for films by D.W. Griffith and played in Paul Howard’s Quality Serenaders.
In 1930 Foresythe moved to Chicago, Illinois, wrote arrangements for Earl Hines and music for Paul Whiteman. Hines made one of his songs, Deep Forest, a part of his repertory, while Louis Armstrong, Fats Waller, Adrian Rollini, and Hal Kemp recorded his compositions. He worked in New York City in 1934–35, arranging for Whiteman and recording with Benny Goodman, John Kirby, and Gene Krupa.
Returning to London, Reginald assembled a studio recording group called The New Music of Reginald Foresythe. Between 1933-1936 he recorded for British Columbia and British Decca, usually spotlighting his jazzy tone poems. Among the more well known were Serenade to a Wealthy Widow, Garden of Weed, Dodging a Divorcee, and Revolt of the Yes-Men. His recordings featured reeds and sax, but no horns.
1935 saw Foresythe assembling a one-off session in New York City which featured Benny Goodman and Gene Krupa recording four of his compositions. He also recorded a number of piano solos and piano duets with Arthur Young that included at least three medleys and four arrangements of St. Louis Blues, Tiger Rag, Solitude and Mood Indigo for H.M.V. in 1938.
After serving in the Royal Air Force during World War II, he accompanied vocalists and played solo piano in London in the 1950s. He collaborated with songwriters Andy Razaf and Ted Weems, composing Be Ready with both, Please Don’t Talk About My Man with Razaf, and He’s a Son of the South with Razaf and Paul Denniker. Pianist, arranger, composer, and bandleader Reginald Foresythe passed away in relative obscurity in London on December 28, 1958.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Earl Malcolm “Jock” Caruthers Sr. was born on May 27, 1910 in Monroe, Mississippi and studied at Fisk University in the 1920s. He began playing in Bennie Moten’s ensemble in 1928.
Working in St. Louis, Missouri early in the next decade with Dewey Jackson and Fate Marable, Jock then joined Jimmie Lunceford’s band in 1932, recording often with the band. He remained a member of the orchestra until Lunceford’s death in 1947.
Following this he played with Joe Thomas and Ed Wilcox, and he worked locally in Kansas City through the 1960s. Saxophonist Earl Caruthers, who was a mainstay on the Kansas City jazz scene, passed away on April 5, 1971 in Kansas City, Kansas.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Milt Bernhart was born on May 25, 1926 in Valparaiso, Indiana and began on tuba but switched to trombone in high school. At 16 he worked in Boyd Raeburn’s band and later had some gigs with Teddy Powell. After time in the Army he worked, off and on, with Stan Kenton for the next ten years. In 1955 Bernhart recorded his first album as a leader. In 1986 he was elected President of the Big Band Academy of America.
Although known as mild-mannered or humorous, he spent a brief period with Benny Goodman, who brought out his ire. He indicated working with Goodman was “the bottom” of his first 23 years of life, except for basic training in the Army. He called Goodman a bore and claimed he did nothing about the treatment Wardell Gray faced at a segregated club in Las Vegas and he even alleges that he quit because Goodman publicly humiliated Gray in front of an audience.
The West Coast jazz trombonist recorded more than a hundred albums as a sideman working with Maynard Ferguson, Henri Rene, Shorty Rogers, Pete Rugolo, Howard Rumsey, Lalo Schifrin, Chet Baker, Sammy Davis Jr., June Christy, Astrud Gilberto, Peggy Lee, Johnny Mandel, and Henry Mancini among numerous others.
He recorded with Frank Sinatra, supplying the solo in the middle of Sinatra’s 1956 recording of I’ve Got You Under My Skin conducted by Nelson Riddle. Trombonist Milt Bernhart passed away from congestive heart failure at the Adventist Health in Glendale, California at the age of 77 on January 22, 2004.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Bill Barber was born John William Barber on May 21, 1920 in Hornell, New York. He started playing tuba in high school and studied at the Juilliard School of Music. After graduating, he traveled west to Kansas City, Missouri, where he played with the Kansas City Philharmonic and various ballet and theatre orchestras.
Joining the United States Army in 1942, he played in Patton’s 7th army band for three years. After the war, he started playing jazz, joining Claude Thornhill’s big band where he became friends with trombonist Al Langstaff, pianist Gil Evans and saxophone player Gerry Mulligan in 1947. Barber was one of the first tuba players to play in a modern jazz style, playing solos and participating in intricate ensemble pieces.
Barber became a founding member of Miles Davis’s nonet in 1949 in what became known as the Birth of the Cool recording sessions. He then worked in the theatre pit orchestras of The King and I, Paradiso, and the City Center Ballet. He joined up with Davis and Gil Evans in the late 1950s to record the albums Sketches of Spain, Miles Ahead and Porgy and Bess. Barber also played tuba on John Coltrane’s album Africa/Brass released in 1961.
Completing a master’s degree from the Manhattan School of Music and became an elementary school music teacher at Copiague, New York. He continued to play where possible including with the Goldman Band. In 1992, he recorded and toured with a nonet led by Gerry Mulligan, reworking material from Birth of the Cool.
From 1998 to 2004 he was part of The Seatbelts, New York musicians who played the music of the Japanese anime Cowboy Bebop. Over the course of his career, he recorded with Art Blakey, Bob Brookmeyer, Kenny Burrell, John Coltrane, Miles Davis, Gil Evans, Urbie Green, Gigi Gryce, Slide Hampton, and Pete Rugolo. Tubist Bill Barber, who was also known as Billy Barber, passed away from heart failure on June 18, 2007 in Bronxville, New York.
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