Daily Dose Of Jazz…

David A. Young was born January 14, 1912 in Nashville, Tennessee but was raised in Chicago, Illinois. There he joined a band made up of newsboys from the Chicago Defender.

In the 1930s he worked in the bands of Frankie Half Pint Jaxon, Fletcher Henderson, Carroll Dickerson, and Roy Eldridge. He was with Horace Henderson in 1939-1940.

During World War II worked with Walter Fuller, Lucky Millinder, and Sammy Price. He was drafted into the U.S. Navy in 1944 and played in a military band until the end of the war. After his discharge Dave returned to Chicago and played with Dinah Washington.

The 1950s had Young leaving his career in music and returning to working for the Chicago Defender, this time as an advertising executive.

Tenor saxophonist Dave Young died on December 25, 1992.

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Daily Dose Of Jazz…

Otis Johnson was born on January 13, 1908 in Richmond, Virginia. He began his career in the late 1920s, working with Gene Rodgers, Henri Saparo, Eugene Kennedy, and Charlie Skeete. In 1929 he joined Luis Russell’s band, and rejoined Kennedy’s group before working with Benny Carter in 1934. He played with Charlie Turner and Willie Bryant in the mid-1930s. 

Toward the end of the decade he performed with Louis Armstrong and Don Redman. On December 30, 1940 Otis enlisted in the 369th Coast Artillery of the New York Army National Guard. He was discharged on October 13, 1945.

Trumpeter Otis Johnson, who never returned to active performance after leaving the military, died on February 28, 1994.

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Daily Dose Of Jazz…

William “Keg” Purnell  was born on January 7, 1915 in Charleston, West Virginia. He studied at West Virginia State College from 1932 to 1934, and played with the Campus Revellers while there. He toured for a year with King Oliver in 1934, then freelanced with his own trio in the late 1930s. In 1939, he worked with Thelonious Monk.

By the end of the decade and into the 1940s Keg was playing in the bands of Benny Carter, Claude Hopkins, and Eddie Heywood. He also recorded with Rex Stewart, Teddy Wilson, and Willie “The Lion” Smith. Late in his career he played with Snub Mosley in 1957 and subsequently on.

Drummer Keg Purnell, whose influences included Chick Webb and Big Sid Catlett died on June 25, 1965 at the age of 50.

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Daily Dose Of Jazz…

Vernon Brown was born on January 6, 1907 in Venice, Illinois. He began his career as a jazz trombonist playing in St. Louis, Missouri with Frankie Trumbauer in 1925, and then moved through a variety of groups at the end of the 1920s and into the 1930s, including those of Jean Goldkette, Benny Meroff, and Mezz Mezzrow.

In 1937 Brown joined Benny Goodman’s orchestra, remaining there until 1940. While only soloing occasionally with Goodman, this association got him well known. The Forties saw him performing with Artie Shaw, Jan Savitt, Muggsy Spanier, and the Casa Loma Orchestra. In the 1940s, Brown switched focus from swing to Dixieland, playing often in studio recordings and working with Sidney Bechet.

Brown performed with Louis Armstrong and his All Stars for the ninth Cavalcade of Jazz concert in 1953 at Wrigley Field in Los Angeles, California. The concert also featured that day were Roy Brown and his Orchestra, Don Tosti and His Mexican Jazzmen, Earl Bostic, Nat “King” Cole, and Shorty Rogers and his Orchestra.

He led his own band in the Pacific Northwest in 1950 and did reunion tours with Goodman in that decade. He worked with Tony Parenti in 1963, and remained a studio musician into the early-1970s

Trombonist Vernon Brown, who later in his life lived in Roslyn Heights, New York, died in Los Angeles on May 18, 1979.

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Daily Dose Of Jazz…

Stanley William Tracey was born on December 30, 1926 in Denmark Hill, South London, England. The Second World War disrupted his formal education, and he became a professional musician at the age of sixteen as a member of an Entertainments National Service Association touring group playing the accordion, his first instrument. He joined Ralph Reader’s Gang Shows at the age of nineteen, while in the RAF and formed a brief acquaintance with the comedian Tony Hancock.

Later, in the early 1950s, he worked in groups on the transatlantic liners Queen Mary and Caronia and toured the UK with Cab Calloway. By the mid-1950s, he had also taken up the vibraphone, but later ceased playing it. During the decade he worked widely with leading British modernists, including drummer Tony Crombie, clarinettist Vic Ash, the saxophonist-arranger Kenny Graham and trumpeter Dizzy Reece.

1957 saw Tracey touring the United States with Ronnie Scott’s group, and then became the pianist with Ted Heath’s Orchestra for two years at the end of the Fifties, including a US tour with singer Carmen McRae. Although he disliked Heath’s music, he gained a regular income and was well featured as a soloist on both piano and vibes. He contributed compositions and arrangements that stayed in the Heath book for many years.

He first recorded in 1952 with the trumpeter Kenny Baker, then recorded his first album as leader in 1958, Showcase, for English Decca label and Little Klunk in 1959. From 1960 until about 1967 Stan was the house pianist at Ronnie Scott’s Jazz Club in Soho, London, which gave him the opportunity to accompany many of the leading musicians from the US who visited the club. It is Tracey on piano that film viewers hear behind Rollins on the soundtrack of the Michael Caine version of Alfie. At the same time, he became active in Michael Horovitz’s New Departures project, mixing poetry performances with jazz, where the musicians interacted spontaneously with the words.

The early 1970s were a bleak time for Tracey. He began to work with musicians of a later generation, who worked in a free or avant-garde style. He continued to work in this idiom with Evan Parker at the UK’s Appleby Jazz Festival for several years, but this was always more of a sideline for Tracey, lasting 18 years that the festival existed. Stan formed his own label In the mid-1970s titled Steam, and a number of commissioned suites. These included The Salisbury Suite, The Crompton Suite and The Poets Suite.

He led his own octet from 1976 to 1985 and formed a sextet in 1979 and toured widely in the Middle East and India. He had a longstanding performance partnership from 1978 with saxophonist Art Themen, and his own son, drummer Clark Tracey. He shared the billing with arranger Gil Evans,  Sal Nistico and Charlie Rouse. He went on to record over four dozen albums as a leader or co~leader, thirty as a sideman and on two soundtracks over the course of his career.

Pianist and composer Stan Tracey, who received the honor of the Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) and appointed Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE), transitioned from cancer on December 6,

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