Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Charlie Margulis was born on July 24, 1903 in Minneapolis, Minnesota into a family of accomplished theater music performers in the 1920s. That was his introduction to the professional musician’s life which led to him working with territory bands led by Eddie Elkins and Paul Specht among others. Heading to Detroit, Michigan in 1924 he joined Jean Goldkette’s Book-Cadillac Hotel Orchestra under violinist Joe Venuti. His next move was to work with bandleader Ray Miller during a period when the trumpeter roamed back and forth between Detroit and Chicago, Illinois.
By 1927 Charlie began working with Paul Whiteman, the relationship lasting nearly three years and concluding in a traditional manner for progressive jazz bands, with various sidemen stranded on the West coast. He managed to straggle back to New York City, bad luck perched on his shoulder. He got so sick that he had to return to California in order to recover but by the middle of the ’30s was well enough to log in for a New York City recording session with the Dorsey Brothers.
Caught up in the excitement of the new swing style, Margulis tried out life as a bandleader as well as spending a year on tour with Glenn Miller. His role as a bandleader was offset with work in the recording studios embracing doo-wop and r&b styles. He would go on to freelance, sometimes under the name Charlie Marlowe in California, under his own name in New York City during the Forties and Fifties.
Trumpeter Charlie Margulis died on April 24, 1967 at the age of 63 in Little Falls, Minnesota.
More Posts: history,instrumental,jazz,music,trumpet
Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Eddie Miller was born Edward Raymond Müller on June 23, 1911 in New Orleans, Louisiana. In his early teens he got a job selling newspapers, so he would be eligible for a newsboys’ band. His professional career began in New Orleans at 16, with his recording debut occurring in 1930 with Julie Wintz.
He went on to work in Ben Pollack’s orchestra and then stayed when Bob Crosby took over its leadership. He stayed with Crosby until the band broke up in 1942. He had his own band for a brief time after that, before being drafted. However, he was discharged from the military early because of illness.
Settling in Los Angeles, California he worked with Pete Fountain, appeared in most of Crosby’s reunions, did club work and also played with trumpeter Al Hirt.
As a songwriter Eddie composed Slow Mood, which later became known as Lazy Mood after Johnny Mercer noticed the tune and composed lyrics. Miller was inducted into the Big Band and Jazz Hall of Fame in 1998. He won numerous Playboy and Esquire Jazz polls. Miller finished his career as the lead saxophonist with Pete Fountain, living in New Orleans.
Tenor saxophone and clarinet Eddie Miller died at age 79 in Van Nuys, California of pneumonia on April 1, 1991.
More Posts: bandleader,clarinet,history,instrumental,jazz,music,saxophone
Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Ben Pollack was born on June 22, 1903 in Chicago, Illinois and learned to play drums in high school. He formed groups on the side, performing professionally in his teens. He joined the New Orleans Rhythm Kings in Chicago in 1923 and later went out to Los Angeles, California and joined Harry Bastin Band.
In 1924, returning to Chicago he played for several bands including Art Kessel. That association led to his forming Ben Pollack and His Californians, the 12-piece Venice Ballroom Orchestra in 1925. He had some performances broadcast on WLW radio in Cincinnati, Ohio. Over time the band included Benny Goodman, Glenn Miller, Jack Teagarden, Jimmy McPartland and Gil Rodin. From about 1928, with involvement from Irving Mills, members of Pollack’s band moonlighted at Plaza-ARC and recorded a vast quantity of hot dance and jazz for their dime store labels.
His band played in Chicago and moved to New York City in 1928, having obtained McPartland and Teagarden around that time. This outfit enjoyed immense success, playing for Broadway shows and winning an exclusive engagement at the Park Central Hotel. Pollack’s band was involved in extensive recording activity at that time, using a variety of pseudonyms in the studios. The orchestra also made a Vitaphone short subject sound film.
Fancying himelf more as a bandleader-singer type he signed Ray Bauduc to handle the drumming chores. They became known as Ben Pollack and his Park Central Orchestra. When Benny Goodman and Jimmy McPartland left the band in mid-1929. They were replaced by Matty Matlock on clarinet and Jack Teagarden’s brother, Charlie, on trumpet and tenor saxophonist Eddie Miller in 1930. Five years later the band broke up.
Pollack formed a new band with Harry James and Irving Fazola, the former with whom he wrote the hit “Peckin'”. In the early 1940s, he organized a band led by comedian Chico Marx, started Jewel Records, opened restaurants in Hollywood and Palm Springs, and appeared as himself in the movie The Benny Goodman Story, and made a cameo in The Glenn Miller Story.
Drummer Ben Pollack, who appeared in five films in the late Forties and Fifties, suffered a series of financial losses, grew despondent and hanged himself in his home in Palm Springs on June 7, 1971.
More Posts: bandleader,drums,history,instrumental,jazz,music,vocal
Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Joseph Vankert Thomas was born on June 19, 1909 in Uniontown, Pennsylvania. His first band job was with the Earl Hood Orchestra and after eight months Horace Henderson offered him a job. Heplayed alto saxophone under Hood and Henderson, but took up the tenor saxophone when he joined Stuff Smith’s band in 1932.
He played with Jimmie Lunceford’s band from 1933 until the leader’s death in 1947, often soloing and occasionally singing. After Lunceford died, Thomas and Ed Wilcox co-led his ghost band until he left to form his own septet. This band members were trumpeter Johnny Grimes, trombonist Dicky Harris, baritone saxophonist Ben Kynard, pianist George Rhodes, bassist George Duvivier, and drummer Joe Marshall. They recorded between 1949 and 1951.
When Joe left the music industry he went to work for his family’s undertaking business. He played occasionally, accepting an invitation to the 1970 Newport Jazz Festival, and recorded again under his own name in 1979. Three years later he recorded with a septet that included Grimes, Harris, and Duvivier from his band three decades earlier.
Tenor saxophonist and vocalist Joe Thomas died on August 3, 1986 in Kansas City, Missouri. Material from his career is held by the University of Missouri, Kansas City.
More Posts: bandleader,history,instrumental,jazz,music,saxophone
Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Dennis Dotson was born on June 18, 1946 in Jacksonville, Florida and grew up in Rusk, Texas where he first picked up the trumpet. While attending Sam Houston State College in Huntsville, Texas and studying trumpet with Kit Reid and Fisher Tull and composition with John Butler, he began his professional career playing around Houston, Texas.
For over fifty years Dotson has played in the house bands in Las Vegas, free- lanced in New York City and Houston, and was trumpet soloist in the Woody Herman and Buddy Rich big bands. As a small group player he has performed with Joe Lovano, Joe Henderson, Marvin Stamm and David Liebman, among others. His other big band experience saw him performing alongside Carl Fontana, Bobby Shew, Tom Harrell, and Kenny Wheeler.
As an educator Dennis is jazz trumpet instructor at the University of Texas at Austin and was on the faculty at Houston Community College and the University of Houston. He has led several All-Region high school jazz bands and has been a guest soloist/ adjudicator/clinician at over forty high schools and colleges.
Trumpeter Dennis Dotson continues to be very active in jazz and commercial circles throughout the state of Texas and has been a sideman on numerous jazz recordings.
More Posts: educator,history,instrumental,jazz,music