Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Nick Drozdoff was born on June 28, 1953 in Glencoe, Illinois. Holding degrees in music, engineering and physics, in 1978 he began his professional career in Maynard Ferguson’s band. Leaving the band in 1981 he ran his own contracting business and after completing his masters in classical trumpet, he began leading a double life in 1991 when he took on a day gig as a high school physics teacher at Winnetka’s New Trier High School.
After leading a double career existence and garnering awards as a high school science teacher, Nick developed endorsement deals as a jazz trumpeter at night. Retiring from teaching he pursued his musical passion. Now he spends time in Door County, Wisconsin and in the Northern Suburbs of Chicago where he regularly performs in both locations. He lives equal time in both places, depending on his performance and lecture/masterclass schedule.
His latest project centers on his new band, The Variable D Postulate Ensemble. This band is minimally a quartet of drums, guitar, keybaord and trumpet. It is primarily jazz driven but not exclusively. Drozdoff built a studio where he does his recording and has built connections as a trumpeter all over the world.
He has recorded with Grilly Brothers, Marshall Vente, Doug Lofstrom, Chuchito Valdes, and Guy Fricano. He is currently on call as solo trumpet with the Chicago Grandstand Big Band, The Jazz Consortium Big Band and the Starfall Big Band. Trumpeter Nick Drozdoff frequently appears as a classical soloist for churches, recitals andleads one of the Chicago area’s finest brass quintets.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Ronald “Ronnie” Hughes was born in Aberystwyth, Wales on June 27, 1925 and took up the trumpet at the age of eleven. The following year he was playing local semi-pro gigs. At nineteen he was in the RAF until 1947, spending part of his service in India. After returning to Wales to study photography, he then moved to London, England to join the Trinidadian clarinettist Carl Barriteau band. He worked for a year with the Teddy Foster Band from 1948 until 1949, and was a member of the Ted Heath band from 1949 until 1954.
In the late fifties, Ronnie was in the bands of Geraldo and Jack Parnell, and after his marriage broke up had a spell working on ocean liners. A fluent jazz improviser and reliable and ubiquitous session player during the heyday of TV work, he was one of the original members of the BBC Big Band. He was a member of the Sinatra band and a long-term friend of fellow trumpeter Mannie Klein.
He would go on to appear in the film Quartet directed by Dustin Hoffman, who was captivated by his playing. Throughout his career he worked with Nat Allen, Lesle Holmes’ Londonairs, Harry Parry, Teddy Foster, Cyril Stapleton, Johnny Evans, BBC Radio Orchestra and led own quintet in 1958. He was a member of the Berlin Big Band, Eric Winston & His Orchestra, Johnny Keating and 27 Men, The Pride of London Big Band, and the Ray Davies Orchestra.
Trumpeter Ronnie Hughes died on April 1, 2020 in Banstead, Surrey at the age of 94.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Charlie Margulis was born on July 24, 1903 in Minneapolis, Minnesota into a family of accomplished theater music performers in the 1920s. That was his introduction to the professional musician’s life which led to him working with territory bands led by Eddie Elkins and Paul Specht among others. Heading to Detroit, Michigan in 1924 he joined Jean Goldkette’s Book-Cadillac Hotel Orchestra under violinist Joe Venuti. His next move was to work with bandleader Ray Miller during a period when the trumpeter roamed back and forth between Detroit and Chicago, Illinois.
By 1927 Charlie began working with Paul Whiteman, the relationship lasting nearly three years and concluding in a traditional manner for progressive jazz bands, with various sidemen stranded on the West coast. He managed to straggle back to New York City, bad luck perched on his shoulder. He got so sick that he had to return to California in order to recover but by the middle of the ’30s was well enough to log in for a New York City recording session with the Dorsey Brothers.
Caught up in the excitement of the new swing style, Margulis tried out life as a bandleader as well as spending a year on tour with Glenn Miller. His role as a bandleader was offset with work in the recording studios embracing doo-wop and r&b styles. He would go on to freelance, sometimes under the name Charlie Marlowe in California, under his own name in New York City during the Forties and Fifties.
Trumpeter Charlie Margulis died on April 24, 1967 at the age of 63 in Little Falls, Minnesota.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Eddie Miller was born Edward Raymond Müller on June 23, 1911 in New Orleans, Louisiana. In his early teens he got a job selling newspapers, so he would be eligible for a newsboys’ band. His professional career began in New Orleans at 16, with his recording debut occurring in 1930 with Julie Wintz.
He went on to work in Ben Pollack’s orchestra and then stayed when Bob Crosby took over its leadership. He stayed with Crosby until the band broke up in 1942. He had his own band for a brief time after that, before being drafted. However, he was discharged from the military early because of illness.
Settling in Los Angeles, California he worked with Pete Fountain, appeared in most of Crosby’s reunions, did club work and also played with trumpeter Al Hirt.
As a songwriter Eddie composed Slow Mood, which later became known as Lazy Mood after Johnny Mercer noticed the tune and composed lyrics. Miller was inducted into the Big Band and Jazz Hall of Fame in 1998. He won numerous Playboy and Esquire Jazz polls. Miller finished his career as the lead saxophonist with Pete Fountain, living in New Orleans.
Tenor saxophone and clarinet Eddie Miller died at age 79 in Van Nuys, California of pneumonia on April 1, 1991.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Ben Pollack was born on June 22, 1903 in Chicago, Illinois and learned to play drums in high school. He formed groups on the side, performing professionally in his teens. He joined the New Orleans Rhythm Kings in Chicago in 1923 and later went out to Los Angeles, California and joined Harry Bastin Band.
In 1924, returning to Chicago he played for several bands including Art Kessel. That association led to his forming Ben Pollack and His Californians, the 12-piece Venice Ballroom Orchestra in 1925. He had some performances broadcast on WLW radio in Cincinnati, Ohio. Over time the band included Benny Goodman, Glenn Miller, Jack Teagarden, Jimmy McPartland and Gil Rodin. From about 1928, with involvement from Irving Mills, members of Pollack’s band moonlighted at Plaza-ARC and recorded a vast quantity of hot dance and jazz for their dime store labels.
His band played in Chicago and moved to New York City in 1928, having obtained McPartland and Teagarden around that time. This outfit enjoyed immense success, playing for Broadway shows and winning an exclusive engagement at the Park Central Hotel. Pollack’s band was involved in extensive recording activity at that time, using a variety of pseudonyms in the studios. The orchestra also made a Vitaphone short subject sound film.
Fancying himelf more as a bandleader-singer type he signed Ray Bauduc to handle the drumming chores. They became known as Ben Pollack and his Park Central Orchestra. When Benny Goodman and Jimmy McPartland left the band in mid-1929. They were replaced by Matty Matlock on clarinet and Jack Teagarden’s brother, Charlie, on trumpet and tenor saxophonist Eddie Miller in 1930. Five years later the band broke up.
Pollack formed a new band with Harry James and Irving Fazola, the former with whom he wrote the hit “Peckin'”. In the early 1940s, he organized a band led by comedian Chico Marx, started Jewel Records, opened restaurants in Hollywood and Palm Springs, and appeared as himself in the movie The Benny Goodman Story, and made a cameo in The Glenn Miller Story.
Drummer Ben Pollack, who appeared in five films in the late Forties and Fifties, suffered a series of financial losses, grew despondent and hanged himself in his home in Palm Springs on June 7, 1971.
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