Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Jimmy Nottingham was born December 15, 1925 in New York City. His first professional job was with Cecil Payne in 1943 prior to serving in the Navy from 1944 to 45 and playing in Willie Smith’s band. Following his discharge from the service he worked with Lionel Hampton for two years and then with Charlie Barnet, Lucky Millinder, Count Basie and Herbie Fields through the rest of the decade.
He played Latin jazz from 1951–53, then was hired by CBS as a staff musician in 1954, working for the network for more than 20 years. In his spare time he played jazz with Budd Johnson, Dizzy Gillespie, Oliver Nelson, Benny Goodman, Thad Jones/Mel Lewis and Clark Terry. He recorded with Mose Allison, Joe Cain, Coleman Hawkins, Billy Byers, Seldon Powell, Charlie Mariano, Kenny Burrell, Tony Scott, Maynard Ferguson, Jimmy McGriff, Chico O’Farrill, Shirley Scott and Sonny Stitt among numerous others.
Trumpeter Jimmy Nottingham was such a valuable big band and studio musician that he spent most of his life playing anonymously in the background and had limited chances to solo. He never released an album as a leader, but did, record four songs for Seeco Records in 1957. He passed away at the age of 52 on November 16, 1978 in his home city.
Sponsored By
More Posts: trumpet
Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Sonny Greer was born on December 13, 1895 in Long Branch, New Jersey. He played with Elmer Snowden’s band and the Howard Theatre Orchestra in Washington, D.C. before joining Duke Ellington, whom he met in 1919. He was Ellington’s first drummer, playing with his quintet, the Washingtonians, before moving with Ellington into the Cotton Club.
As a result of his job as a designer with the Leedy Drum Company of Indiana, Greer was able to build up a huge drum kit worth over a considerable $3,000 at the time, including chimes, a gong, timpani, and vibes.
A heavy drinker and a pool-hall hustler, often needing to retrieve his drums from the pawnbroker, in 1950 Ellington responded to his drinking and occasional unreliability by taking a second drummer, Butch Ballard, with them on a tour of Scandinavia. Sonny became enraged and the subsequent argument led to their permanent estrangement.
Greer continued to play, mainly as a freelance drummer, working with musicians such as Johnny Hodges, Red Allen, J. C. Higginbotham, Tyree Glenn, and Brooks Kerr. He appeared in films, briefly led his own band and never recorded as a leader. He was part of a tribute to Ellington in 1974, which achieved great success throughout the United States.
Drummer, percussionist and vocalist Sonny Greer passed away on March 23, in 1982.
Sponsored By
More Posts: drums,percussion,vocal
Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Dámaso Pérez Prado was born on December 11, 1916 in Matanzas, Cuba to a school teacher and a journalist. He studied classical piano in his early childhood, later playing organ and piano in local clubs. For a time, he was pianist and arranger for the popular Cuban band Sonora Matancera and worked with Havana casino orchestras for most of the 1940s.
In 1949 he moved to Mexico to form his own band and record for RCA Victor. Specializing in mambos, the upbeat adaptation of the Cuban danzón, Perez stood out with their fiery brass riffs, strong saxophone counterpoints and his signature grunt ¡Dilo! (Say it!). In 1950 arranger Sonny Burke heard Qué Rico El Mambo while on vacation in Mexico and recorded it back in the United States as Mambo Jambo. The single was a hit, which caused Pérez to launch a US tour, his appearances were 1951 sell-outs and he began recording US releases for RCA Victor.
Prado composed several famous songs Caballo Negro, Lupita, and Mambo no.8 among others, reached #1 with a cha-cha-chá arrangement of Cherry Pink and Apple Blossom White, held the spot for ten consecutive weeks and sold a million copies. The song went on to be danced to by Jane Russell in the 1954 movie Underwater!, and in 1958 his final #1 hit Patricia scaled the Jockeys and Top 100 charts and was introduced onto the Billboard Hot 100.
His popularity outside the Latino communities in the United States came with the peak of the first wave of interest in Latin music during the 1940s, 1950s and early 1960s. He performed in films in the United States, Europe and Mexico until his success waned, his association with RCA ended and music made way for rock and roll and pop music.
The early Seventies saw Prado returning to Mexico City to continue a healthy career in Latin America. He toured and continued to record material released in Mexico, South America and Japan. Revered as one of the reigning giants of the music industry he was a regular performer on Mexican television, was featured in a musical revue titled Sun, and his final United States concert to a pack house was in Hollywood in 1987.
During his lifetime, at one time or another, Ollie Mitchel, Alex Acuña, Maynard Ferguson, Pete Candoli, Beny Moré, Johnny Pacheco, Armando Peraza, Mongo Santamaría, Luisito Jorge Ballan Garay lll performed as part of his orchestra. His music has appeared in the films La Dolce Vita, Goodbye Columbus, Space Cowboys and on television shows The Simpsons, and HBO’s Real Sex series.
With persistent ill health plaguing him for the next two years, pianist, composer, arranger and bandleader Pérez Prado passed away of a stroke in Mexico City, Mexico on September 14, 1989, aged 72.
Put A Dose In Your Pocket
More Posts: piano
Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Jay Leonhart was born December 6, 1940 in Baltimore, Maryland and grew up in a musical family, with his parents and six siblings all played the piano. By the age of seven he and his older brother Bil were playing banjos, guitars, mandolins and basses. They played country music, jazz and anything with a beat. In their early teens, the brothers were television stars in Baltimore and were touring the country performing on their banjos.
By fourteen Jay started playing the bass in The Pier Five Dixieland Jazz Band in his hometown. He studied at The Peabody Institute, attended The Berklee College of Music and The Advanced School of Contemporary Music in Toronto. He then left school to start touring with the traveling big bands of the late 1950s and early 1960s.
At 21 Leonhart moved to New York City to start his career and played lots of funky road gigs with big bands, small bands and singers, visiting many little jazz joints around the world. He eventually began playing for many of the great jazz musicians, big bands, and singers like Thad Jones and Mel Lewis, Lou Marini, Tony Bennett, Marian McPartland, and Jim Hall.
Becoming a very busy New York City studio musician he played every musical genre from James Taylor to Ozzy Osbourne and Queen Latifah, as well as Barbara Carroll, Peggy Lee, Eddie Higgins, Terry Clarke, Gerry Mulligan, Donnie O’Brien, Bucky Pizzarelli, Daryl Sherman and Bluesiana Triangle. Between 1975 and 1995 he was named The Most Valuable Bassist in the recording industry three times by the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences.
Bassist Jay Leonhart has now recorded fifteen solo albums and is performing a one-man show called The Bass Lesson about his life in the music business and song. He has toured worldwide for more than forty years and currently performs regularly with trombonist Wycliffe Gordon in a duo which began as a result of their recording This Rhythm on My Mind.
Sponsored By
Voices From The Community
More Posts: bass
Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Edward Ernest Sauter was born December 2, 1914 in Brooklyn, New York and studied music at Columbia University and the Juilliard School. He began as a drummer and then played trumpet professionally, most notably with Red Norvo’s orchestra, eventually becoming Norvo’s full-time arranger.
Eddie went on to arrange and compose for Artie Shaw, Tommy Dorsey, Woody Herman and Benny Goodman, earning a reputation for intricate, complex, and carefully crafted works such as Benny Rides Again, Moonlight on the Ganges and Clarinet a la King.
From 1952 to 1958 he co-led the Sauter-Finegan Orchestra and between 1957 and 1959 he was Kurt Edelhagen’s successor as leader of the SWF Orchestra in Baden-Baden, Germany. By 1961, he was working with tenor saxophonist Stan Getz on Focus, a unique collaboration of string compositions, and featuring drummer Roy Haynes on I’m Late, I’m Late, the only selection to feature a non-string instrument other than Getz. They collaborated again during Sauter’s work composing the score for the 1965 film Mickey One, starring Warren Beatty.
He would venture into composing for television including the third season theme to Rod Serling’s Night Gallery. He also orchestrated a number of Broadway musicals, most notably 1776, but also The Apple Tree and It’s a Bird…It’s a Plane…It’s Superman. His composition World Without Time is used as the theme music for the public affairs show The Open Mind.
Composer, arranger, drummer and trumpeter Eddie Sauter, who was prominent during the swing era, passed away of a heart attack in New York City on April 21, 1981.
Dose A Day-Blues Away