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Ron Mathewson was born 19 February 1944 Lerwick, Shetland Isles, Scotland into an unusually musical household. At eight years old he was studying classical piano, continuing his studies and performing classical piano until he reached sixteen. A year earlier he started playing bass guitar and his talent was noted and encouraged by Shetland musician, Peerie Willie Johnson.
In 1962, Mathewson was in Germany playing professionally with a Scottish Dixieland band, then in London he also performed with various jazz and R&B bands through to the middle of the decade. Around this time he was also a member of the Kenny Clarke-Francy Boland Big Band.
By1966 Ron became a member of the Tubby Hayes band, with which he performed until 1973. From 1975 on in to the 1990s, he was frequently a participant in various Ronnie Scott recordings and concerts.
In 1983, he appeared on Dick Morrissey’s solo album After Dark with Jim Mullen, John Critchenson, Martin Drew and Barry Whitworth. In 2007 a benefit concert was held for him after he had an accident that left him recovering from two broken hips, a broken wrist and a burst artery.
Best known for his years spent with Scott, the double bassist and bass guitarist has recorded with Stan Getz, Joe Henderson, Ben Webster, John Taylor, Gordon Beck, Philly Joe Jones, Roy Eldridge, Tony Oxley, Kenny Wheeler, Oscar Peterson, John Stevens, Terry Smith, Bill Evans, Phil Woods and His European Rhythm Machine, Acoustic Alchemy, Ian Carr, Spontaneous Music Ensemble, Ray Nance and Charles Tolliver, among numerous others.
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Chris Pyne was born Norman Christopher Pyne on February 14, 1939 in Bridlington, England and played piano as a child before switching to trombone.
Beginning in 1963 he played with Fat John Cox, Alexis Korner’s Blues Incorporated, John Stevens’s Spontaneous Music and the London Jazz Orchestra before settling in with Humphrey Littleton from ’66 until 1970.
During the Sixties he recorded with John Dankworth, Ronnie Scott and Stan Tracey. Staying very busy in the 70s Chris played with Mike Gibbs off and on from 1967-1979, toured with Frank Sinatra’s backing bands from 1970 and 1983, and was also performing with the John Taylor Sextet between 1971 and 1981.
Pyne also performed or recorded with Kenny Wheeler, John Surman, Philly Joe Jones, Maynard Ferguson, Tony Coe, Bobby Lamb, Ray Premru, Ronnie Ross, Barbara Thompson, John Stevens, Norman Winstone and Alan Cohen.
He toured with Gordon Beck in the Eighties, joined Surman’s Brass Project from ’84-’92 and later in his musical life became a member of the Charlie Watts Big Band. Trombonist Chris Pyne passed away on April 12, 1995 in London, England without ever recording as a leader.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Les Hite was born in DuQuoin, Illinois on February 13, 1903. He attended the University of Illinois and played saxophone with family members in a band in the 1920s. Following this, he played with Detroit Shannon, then with the Helen Dewey Show, but when this group disbanded abruptly, he relocated to Los Angeles, California.
In L.A. he played with The Spike Brothers Orchestra, Mutt Carey, Curtis Mosby and Paul Howard. He became leader of Howard’s band in 1930, and played at the Cotton Club in Los Angeles for several years, accompanying Louis Armstrong and Fats Waller among others. The band also recorded frequently for film soundtracks and occasionally appeared on camera.
Hite’s big band, known as Sebastian’s Cotton Club Orchestra, primarily played in Los Angeles, though they occasionally went on tour. Musicians who played in the band included Lionel Hampton, Marshal Royal, Lawrence Brown, Britt Woodman, Joe Wilder, T-Bone Walker and Dizzy Gillespie.
Rarely recorded, for this reason much of the details of his life and work are poorly documented. The only sessions he did were 14 numbers recorded between 1940 and 1942. Saxophonist and bandleader Les Hite passed away at St. John’s Hospital in Santa Monica, California on February 6, 1962 from complications following a heart attack one week before his 59th birthday.
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Buddy Childers was born Marion Childers in Belleville, Illinois on February 12, 1926. He came to fame in 1942 at the age of 16 when he took over the first trumpet chair in the Stan Kenton Orchestra. For years he worked with Kenton as well as performing with Tommy Dorsey, Woody Herman, Les Brown, Charlie Barnet, Dan Terry and other big bands.
He would go on to work with Gene Ammons, Elmer Bernstein, Maynard Ferguson, Clare Fischer, Milt Jackson, Carmen McRae, Oliver Nelson and Lalo Schifrin among others. No stranger to television programs and or films, Childers put together a big band that recorded for Candid Records in the 1980s and 1990s. He also recorded quintet and quartet sessions with Herbie Steward, Arnold Ross, Bob Harrington and Harry Babasin on the Jazz City label.
Trumpeter, composer and ensemble leader Buddy Childers passed away of cancer on May 24, 2007, at the age of 81.
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Chick Webb was born William Henry Webb on February 10, 1905 in Baltimore, Maryland. Suffering from tuberculosis of the spine as a child, it left him short of stature and with a badly deformed spine, causing him to appear hunchbacked. His doctor suggested playing an instrument would loosen up his bones and after saving up his newspaper boy money bought a set of drums and was playing professionally by age 11.
At the age of 17 Chick moved to New York City, took drum lessons from Tommy Benford and by 1926 was leading his own band in Harlem. He alternated between band tours and residencies at New York City clubs through the late 1920s and by 1931 his band became the house band at the Savoy Ballroom. He became one of the best-regarded bandleaders and drummers of the new swing style.
Webb couldn’t read music but memorized the arrangements played by the band and conducted from a platform in the center. Although his band was not as influential and revered in the long term, it was feared in the battle of the bands, with the Savoy often featured “Battle of the Bands” where Webb’s band always came out on top over Goodman’s or Basie’s band. He was crowned the first King of Swing and didn’t lose until 1937 to Duke Ellington.
In 1935 he began featuring a teenaged Ella Fitzgerald and the two electrified the Swing Era with hits like Van Alexander’s A-Tisket A-Tasket. By 1938, Webb’s health began to decline; for a time, however, disregarding his own discomfort he continued to play, refusing to give up touring so that his band could remain employed during the Great Depression. Finally, following a major operation at John Hopkins Hospital, drummer and bandleader William Henry “Chick” Webb passed away from spinal tuberculosis at age 34 on June 16, 1939, in Baltimore, Maryland.
His death hit the jazz/swing community very hard and after his death Ella Fitzgerald led the band until it disbanded when she left to focus on her solo career in 1942.
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