Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Seger Ellis was born on July 4, 1904 in Houston, Texas. He began his career as pianist playing live for a local Houston radio station KPRC in the early 1920s. In 1925 he was added to the orchestra of Lloyd Finlay for a “field trip” recording session for Victor Records and was also allowed to cut two piano solos.
The recordings led to Ellis being invited to Victor’s regular recording studio in Camden, New Jersey to cut a number of piano solos, all or most of them compositions of his own. These were among the earliest records Victor made using the new electric microphone and recording equipment, a technique that was yet not perfected which probably explains why only four of the titles were eventually issued. Of these the coupling Prairie Blues and Sentimental Blues became a minor hit.
After his first recording experiences Seger returned to Houston and radio work as well as playing in vaudeville theaters. During this period he started adding singing to his piano playing and was well received by audiences. In 1927 he was invited to New York to make vocal test recordings, his first issued vocal record was Sunday on the Columbia label. This was followed by a string of records for Okeh Records and he chose the best musicians to play with him such as Tommy and Jimmy Dorsey, Joe Venuti, Eddie Lang, Andy Sannella and Louis Armstrong.
His first recording career ended in 1931, however towards the end of the decade he returned with a big band of his own, the Choirs of Brass Orchestra with himself conducting and taking occasional vocals and featuring his wife, Irene Taylor as a vocalist. In 1939 Ellis reorganized and his new band featured the conventional four-man reed section but disbanded in 1941 and enlisted in the Army-Air Force in 1942.
A move back to Texas saw him being less active as a performer and more involved in songwriting. Many of compositions were recorded by Harry James, Gene Krupa, Bing Crosby, Count Basie and the Mills Brothers. Pianist and vocalist Seger Ellis gradually retired and took up residence in Houston where he passed away in a retirement home on September 29, 1995.
Dose A Day-Blues Away
Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Manny Albam was born on June 24, 1922 in Samana, Dominican Republic. Growing up in New York City he became interested in jazz after hearing Bix Beiderbecke and at sixteen dropped out of school to play for Dixieland trumpeter-leader Muggsy Spanier, but it was his membership in a group led by Georgie Auld that turned his career around.
While playing with Auld group, saxophonist Budd Johnson mentored Albam as an arranger. By 1950, Albam put down his baritone sax and began to concentrate strictly on arranging, writing, and leading. Within a few years, he became known for a bebop-oriented style that emphasised taut and witty writing with a flair for distinctive shadings. Flute-led reed sections became his trademark.
He became known for his work for bandleaders Charlie Barnet and Charlie Spivak, before moving forward to collaborate with Count Basie, Stan Getz, Bob Brookmeyer, Coleman Hawkins, Dizzy Gillespie, Freddie Hubbard, Hank Jones, Mel Lewis, Art Farmer, Urbie Green, and Milt Hinton, among others.
Manny found an entree into the classical music world when he arranged Leonard Bernstein’s score for West Side Story in 1957. Bernstein was said to have been so impressed that he invited him to write for the New York Philharmonic, and, in due course, write such works as Concerto for Trombone and Strings, became musical director for United Artists-Solid State Records, composed the score for a few films and television programs, and recording the albums The Blues is Everybody’s Business, The Drum Suite, The Jazz Workshop, Jazz New York, Something New, Something Blue and his jazz suite The Soul of the City.
As an educator Manny started teaching summer workshops at the Eastman School of Music in Rochester, New York in 1964. He later joined the faculties of Glassboro State College in New Jersey and the Manhattan School of Music in New York. By 1988 he helped establish the BMI Jazz Composer’s Workshop to foster young composers and arrangers. In 1991 he eventually took over as director from Bob Brookmeyer and has as long list of former students throughout the music industry and in higher education, a pursuit he continued until his death.
Baritone saxophonist,composer,arranger, producer and educator Manny Albam passed away of cancer on October 2, 2001 in Croton-on-Hudson, New York.
Sponsored By
www.whatissuitetabu.com
More Posts: saxophone
Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Eli Robinson was born on June 23, 1911 in Greenville, Georgia. After working in Cincinnati in bands led by Speed Webb and Zack White, he worked as well with McKinney’s Cotton Pickers.
Robinson made his first recordings in 1935 with Blanche Calloway. In 1936 he moved to New York City where he played with Teddy Hill, and Willie Bryant. After working briefly with Roy Eldridge in Chicago in 1939, he joined Count Basie from 1941 to 1947.
During the 1950s and 60s, he worked with Lucky Millinder and Buddy Tate. Trombonist and arranger Eli Robinson passed away on December 24, 1972.
Dose A Day-Blues Away
More Posts: trombone
Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Jerry “Buck” Jerome was born on June 19, 1912 in Brooklyn, New York and began playing the saxophone in high school in Plainfield, New Jersey. In 1936 he was part of a national tour with bandleader Harry Reser and his Clicquot Club Eskimos.
He joined Glenn Miller’s original orchestra in 1937 and was a member until it broke up in 1938. He played on the Miller recording Doin’ the Jive in which in soloed. He then joined the Red Norvo band followed by taking a chair in the Benny Goodman Orchestra in 1938.
When Goodman broke up his band in 1940, Buck joined the Artie Shaw Orchestra. While with Shaw he appeared in the 1940 film Second Chorus starring Fred Astaire and Burgess Meredith.
Tenor saxophonist Jerry Jerome, who was a mainstay during the big band era and led four recording sessions, passed away on November 17, 2001.
Sponsored By
More Posts: saxophone
Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Ray McKinley was born on June 18, 1910 in Fort Worth, Texas. He got his start at age 9 working with local bands in the Dallas–Fort Worth area. Leaving home when he was 15, he played with Milt Shaw’s Detroiters and the Smith Ballew and Duncan-Marin bands. It was with the Smith Ballew band in 1929 that McKinley met Glenn Miller. The two formed a friendship that lasted from 1929 until Miller’s death in 1944. McKinley and Miller joined the Dorsey Brothers in 1934.
The Dorsey brothers split in 1935 and Ray remained with Jimmy Dorsey until 1939, when he joined Will Bradley, becoming co-leader. His biggest hit with Bradley, as a singer, was Beat Me Daddy, Eight to the Bar, which he recorded in 1940 and got a partial songwriting credit. Known also as Eight Beat Mack, taken from the lyrics to Down the Road a Piece, he recorded the song a trio with Will Bradley and Freddie Slack.
Splitting with Bradley in 1942, McKinley formed his own band and recorded for Capitol Records. The band was short-lived and he joined Glenn Miller’s Army Air Force Band, which he co-led with arranger Jerry Gray after Miller’s disappearance in December 1944. Upon discharge he formed a modern big band that featuring original material by legendary arranger Eddie Sauter and vocals by the leader. However, with business declining, by 1950 that band was history and his interest turned towards becoming a part-time leader and radio and TV personality.
In 1956, capitalizing on the popularity of The Glenn Miller Story movie with James Stewart, McKinley was chosen to be the leader of the revived Glenn Miller band, which he led until 1966. He co-hosted, with former Air Force band vocalist Johnny Desmond, a 13-week CBS-TV summer replacement series with the band called Glenn Miller Time in 1961. He also wrote the lyrics to the 1945 wartime song My Guy’s Come Back with music by Mel Powell and recorded by Benny Goodman with vocals by Liza Morrow on Columbia Records. His final recording session was in 1977 for Chiaroscuro Records. Drummer, singer, and bandleader Ray McKinley passed away on May 7, 1995.
Uplift Someone’s World
More Posts: drums