Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Johnny St. Cyr was born on April 17, 1890 in New Orleans, Louisiana. St. He led several bands in the Crescent City beginning around 1905 and performed on the riverboats with Fate Marable. He played for several leading New Orleans bands including A.J. Piron, the Superior, Olympia and Tuxedo bands before moving to Chicago, Illinois in 1923 with King Oliver.
He is most commonly remembered as a member of Louis Armstrong’s Hot Five and Hot Seven bands. He also played and recorded with Jelly Roll Morton’s Red Hot Peppers. St. Cyr also performed with Don Cook’s Dreamland Orchestra. He composed the popular standard Oriental Strut, noted for its adventurous chord sequence.
In 1930 Johnny returned to New Orleans to make a living as a plasterer while still playing with local bands led by Paul Barbarin or Alphonse Picou. In 1955 he moved to Los Angeles, California and returned to music full time. From 1961 until his death in 1966, he was the bandleader of the Young Men from New Orleans that featured Barney Bigard, performers at Disneyland.
Banjoist and guitarist Johnny St. Cyr passed away on June 17, 1966 in Los Angeles, California.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Walter Gilbert Fuller was born on April 14, 1920 in Los Angeles, California and is no relation to the jazz trumpeter and vocalist Walter “Rosetta” Fuller. In the 1930s and 1940s he did extensive work writing and arranging for bandleaders such as Les Hite, Floyd Ray, Jimmie Lunceford, Billy Eckstine, and Tiny Bradshaw.
He also worked with Benny Carter, Benny Goodman, Woody Herman, Count Basie, Machito and Tito Puente. Following World War II, Gil found himself increasingly in demand as a bebop arranger along with fellow modern arrangers Tadd Dameron, Gil Evans, and George Russell. Fuller’s work with Dizzy Gillespie was of particular note, yielding the tunes “Manteca”, “Swedish Suite”, and “One Bass Hit”. He is the composer of the jazz standard ballad “I Waited For You”, co-credited with Dizzy Gillespie.
Fuller started his own publishing company in 1957, and while he continued to work with some jazz musicians including Stan Kenton in 1955 and again in the 1960s, he also branched out into film music and pop with Ray Charles, among others.
Arranger Gil Fuller recorded a few albums before he passed away on May 26, 1994 in San Diego, California.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Alexander Gafa was born on April 9, 1941 in New York City and worked as a student in the city from 1964 to 1969, playing guitar with Kai Winding and Sam Donahue . During the late Sixties he was a part of the New York Playboy Club playing with Winding, Earl May and Al Foster.
From 1969 to 1970, he was musical director and accompanist for Carmen McRae and performed as a member of the Sammy Davis Jr. orchestra in 1970 and 1971. During this decade he also did some live dates with Sarah Vaughan, one of which aired on PBS.
In 1971 Al played with Dizzy Gillespie and joined his group and toured with him for a period. Under his own name, he recorded the album Leblon Beach in 1976 for Pablo Records. He has recorded as well with Susannah McCorkle, Paul Simon, The Monkees, Alex Leonard, Duke Pearson, Johnny Hartman, Joe Albany and Sonny Stitt.
Before the fall of the World Trade Centers, he and bassist Dr. Lyn Christie would play in a duo configuration in the restaurant on the top floor. He is also part of Tom Lord’s 34 recording sessions from 1934 to 2011 of acoustic and electric guitar, and banjo. Guitarist Al Gafa currently resides in Brooklyn, New York where he performs occasionally.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Ollie Mitchell was born Oliver Edward Mitchell in Los Angeles, California on April 8, 1927. His father, Harold Mitchell, lead trumpeter for MGM Studios, taught his son to play the trumpet.
His career would see him playing in the big bands of Harry James, Buddy Rich and Pérez Prado, among others, as well as the NBC Symphony Orchestra. In the 1960s, Mitchell joined The Wrecking Crew, a group of studio and session musicians who played anonymously on many records for popular singers of the time, as well as television theme songs, film scores, advertising jingles.
An original member of Herb Alpert’s Tijuana Brass, Ollie would go on to lead his own bands under the names of Ollie Mitchell’s Sunday Band and the Olliephonic Horns. It was in 1995 that he moved from to Puako, Hawaii and founded the Horns.
Mitchell recorded some two dozen albums over the course of his career with Chet Baker, Harry James, Stan Kenton, Irene Kral, Shorty Rogers, Pete Rugolo, Dan Terry and Gerald Wilson, among others.
In 2010, Ollie published his memoir, Lost, But Making Good Time: A View from the Back Row of the Band. Around this time he stopped playing the trumpet, due to macular degeneration, hand problems from an automobile accident and complications from cancer. Trumpeter and bandleader Ollie Mitchell passed away on May 11, 2013 in Puako, Hawaii at the age of 86.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Pat LaBarbera was born Pascel Emmanuel LaBarbera on April 7, 1944 in Mt. Morris, New York. He began as a soloist in Buddy Rich bands from 1967–1973 and went on to work with Elvin Jones in 1975 and touring Europe with him in 1979. While working with Rich, he was also working in groups led by Woody Herman and Louie Bellson, as well as playing with Carlos Santana.
He moved to Toronto, Ontario in 1974 and is a on the faculty at Humber College. LaBarbera has played a major role in the development of a generation of Canadian saxophonists. He has released a handful of albums as a leader since 1975 and another two-dozen as a sideman. In 2000, he won a Juno Award for Best Traditional Instrumental Jazz Album for Deep in a Dream.
He is the brother of trumpeter John LaBarbera with who he is a part of his big band, and drummer Joe LaBarbera and worked with the Dave McMurdo Jazz Orchestra, Denny Christianson, Jan Jarczyk. Tenor, alto and soprano saxophonist, clarinetist, and flautist Pat LaBarbera continues to teach, perform and record.
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