Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Ronnie Stephenson was born January 26, 1937 in Sunderland, England and as a boy wanted to become a tap dancer like his idol Gene Kelly, but he was persuaded by his father and his pianist brother to take up the drums. Already playing his first public gig the same week he took his first drum lesson at the age of 14, Ronnie was soon working with his elder brother Bob’s band, and then with the Ray Chester’s Sextet. Moving to Birmingham he joined the Cliff Deeley Band at the Tower Ballroom, and played for several months before going on the road.
At 16 he joined singer Lita Roza, a national star who had left the Ted Heath band to tour the variety theatre circuit as a soloist. The 10 months he spent with her garnered him great experience in the music business. Conscripted into the Army, Stephenson performed in The Royal Signals Band until he was demobbed in 1957. Having a close association with Ronnie Scott, he spent two years in Scott’s Quartet, playing the club and accompanying many visiting stars.
He toured Germany with Tom Jones in 1969 and then sat the resident drum chair with the Kurt Edelhagen Band after moving to Cologne, Germany with his wife and two children. After three years with Edelhagen, Ronnie teamed up with pianist Paul Kuhn in Berlin, Germany and toured all over Europe with a variety of bands and artists. He played on the Bond themes Diamonds Are Forever and You Only Live Twice and on other film scores, including Chitty Chitty Bang Bang. Stephenson joined the Theater des Westens Orchestra in Berlin from 1981 to 1995, and taught at the University of Berlin from 1990 to 1993. He retired from music due to poor health, settled in Scotland, and turned to golf as a restorative, becoming a member of Strathmore Golf Club.
Drummer Ronnie Stephenson, one of the most in-demand drummers of the British jazz scene, passed away on August 8, 2002. Over the course of his career he performed or recorded with Sonny Rollins, Stan Getz, Wes Montgomery, Zoot Sims, Quincy Jones, Paul Gonsalves, Johnny Griffin, Roland Kirk, Gerry Mulligan, Sonny Stitt, Barney Kessel, Benny Golson, Benny Goodman, Nelson Riddle, Ella Fitzgerald, Mel Tormé, Tony Bennett, Ronnie Ross, Stan Tracey, Ted Heath, Dick Morrissey, Terry Smith, Jack Parnell, John Dankworth, Tubby Hayes, Cleo Laine, Peter Herbolzheimer, Horst Jankowski, Paul Kuhn, Rolf Kuhn, Kenny Clarke, Victor Feldman, Heinz von Hermann and Hans Rettenbacher, among many others including pop stars Matt Monro, Engelbert Humperdinck, Cilla Black and Shirley Bassey.
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Fred Lee Beckett was born on January 23, 1917 in Nettleton, Mississippi and began playing horn in high school. He began playing the trombone professionally in Kansas City, Missouri in the 1930s. Soon after beginning his career he landed a job with Eddie Johnson’s Crackerjacks in St. Louis, Missouri.
He went on to play with Duke Wright, Tommy Douglas, Buster Smith and Andy Kirk over the next few years. Beckett spent time as well in a territory band with Prince Stewart and played a gig in Omaha, Nebraska with Nat Towles. Towards the end of the Thirties he played with Harlan Leonard.
The early 1940s saw Fred performing and recording extensively with Lionel Hampton, and providing trombone support behind Dinah Washington recordings. Serving in the Army during World War II he contracted tuberculosis and passed away of the illness on January 30, 1946. He was twenty-nine years old.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Ed Lewis was born on January 22, 1909 in Eagle City, Oklahoma. His early career saw him in Kansas City, Missouri playing with Jerry Westbrook as a baritone saxophonist, but in 1925 he switched to trumpet He played with Paul Banks and Laura Rucker before joining the Bennie Moten Orchestra, where he was the primary trumpet soloist from 1926-1932 until Hot Lips Page joined the outfit.
In the 1932 he worked with Thamon Hayes for two years followed by a three year stint with Harlan Leonard, the in 1937 played for a short time with Jay McShann. That same year Ed joined the Count Basie Orchestra, remaining until 1948 and though he recorded frequently with the orchestra, he almost never soloed.
In the 1950s Lewis led his own band in New York City for strictly local gigs, and worked for a period as a taxicab driver. He returned to play with The Countsmen in Europe in 1984, shortly before his death.
Harry “Sweets” Edison considered Lewis and Snooky Young the two greatest first trumpet players he ever played with. Trumpeter Ed Lewis, who never led his own recording session, passed away on September 18, 1985.
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Quentin “Butter” Jackson was born January 13, 1909 in Springfield, Ohio. His brother-in-law Claude Jones, who played with McKinney’s Cotton Pickers taught him to play the trombone. During the Thirties he played with Zack White, McKinney’s Cotton Pickers and the Don Redman Orchestra.
The Forties saw Butter, as he was affectionately known, working with Cab Calloway and then Lucky Millinder, taking occasional solos with those groups, and in the early days was a ballad singer. In 1949 he became a fixture in the Duke Ellington Orchestra, becoming his best wa-wa trombonist utilizing the plunger mute. This relationship, that included recordings, lasted until 1960, both as a soloist and in the ensembles.
Jackson went on to tour of Europe and recorded with Quincy Jones, then performed and recorded with Count Basie for two years and recorded notable work with Charles Mingus in 1962-63, followed by a return to Ellington and worked with the big bands of Louie Bellson and Gerald Wilson. By the 1970s he was working with the Mel Lewis/Thad Jones Orchestra until near the end of his life.
A consummate sideman he recorded with Dorothy Ashby, Kenny Burrell, Ella Fitzgerald, Johnny Hodges, Leon Thomas, Dizzy Gillespie, Ray Charles, Aretha Franklin, Louis Armstrong, Milt Jackson, Herbie Mann, Freddie McCoy, Wes Montgomery, Shirley Scott, Jimmy Smith, Clark Terry, Billy Strayhorn, Randy Weston and Dinah Washington, who did a version of Bessie Smith’s Trombone Cholly on her album Dinah Sings Bessie Smith, enlisting Jackson on the horn, under the title “Trombone Butter”.
Trombonist Quentin Jackson, whose only session as a leader resulted in four titles in 1959 that were reissued by Swing, passed away on October 2, 1976 in New York City.
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Wendell Philips Culley was born on January 8, 1906 in Worcester, Massachusetts. He performed locally in Boston, then moved to New York City in 1931 and found early work playing with Horace Henderson and Cab Calloway.
He then spent eleven years in the employ of Noble Sissle, recording with him extensively. Following this he played with Lionel Hampton from 1944 to 1949, and then briefly worked again with Sissle.
In 1951 he joined the Count Basie Orchestra and until 1959 he recorded twenty albums with the man and toured the world. After his tenure with Basie, he retired from music and pursued a career in insurance. Trumpeter Wendell Culley, who never led a session of his own, passed away on May 8, 1983 in Los Angeles, California. He was seventy-seven years old.
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