Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Bobby Hackett was born January 31, 1915 and raised in Providence, Rhode Island. At an early age he played the ukulele and by the time he was twelve, he was playing guitar, violin and had bought his first cornet. Leaving high school after his freshman year he took a steady job with a band that performed seven days a week at the Port Arthur and playing guitar regularly at the Rhodes and Arcadia ballrooms that often broadcasted on Providence radio and when Cab Calloway arrived short-handed and invited him to fill in.
In the fall of 1932 Bobby was recruited by The Herbie Marsh Orchestra, spent the summer of 1933 playing with Payson Re’s band, met Pee Wee Russell, by 1934, and playing college gigs with his band The Harvard Gold Coast Orchestra on weekends between Providence and Boston throughout 1935 and 36.
He worked with a new band at Nick’s in Greenwich Village, with Benny Goodman, Eddie Condon, Jack Teagarden and Teddy Wilson, played the new York World’s Fair in 1939, did the club circuit in New York, toured, recorded with his own band on MCA, took a seat with the Horace Heidt Musical Knights and recorded on the soundtrack of Fred Astaire vehicle “Second Chorus”.
After a dental surgery Bobby’s lip was in bad shape making it difficult for him to play, however, Glenn Miller offered him a job as a guitarist with the Miller Band and playing short trumpet solos. During the 1950s, he made a series of albums of ballads with a full string orchestra, produced by Jackie Gleason, in the Sixties toured with singer Tony Bennett, and by the early 1970s, Hackett performed separately with Dizzy Gillespie and Teresa Brewer. In his later years, he continued to perform in a Dixieland style even as trends in jazz changed.
Trumpeter Bobby Hackett passed away on June 7, 1976 from a heart attack. In 2012, he was selected to be inducted into the Rhode Island Music Hall of Fame.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Pud Brown was born Albert Francis Brown on January 22, 1917 in Wilmington, Delaware but was raised in Shreveport, Louisiana. Brown was fluent on saxophone by age five, and toured throughout North America in a family band at the age of seven, playing the circus, nightclub and minstrel show circuits in the mid 1920s.
After moving to Chicago, Pud found work in Phil Lavant’s orchestra in 1938 and then in Lawrence Welk’s band. In 1941 he married, left music to run a motorcycle shop in Shreveport – a failed endeavor, relocated to Los Angeles and found work as a jazz musician.
Brown career exploded over the next several decades working with such jazz musicians as Les Brown, Coleman Hawkins, Doc Cheatham, Danny Barker, Kid Ory, Percy Humphrey and Louis Armstrong among others. He returned to New Orleans in 1975 and became a mainstay of the local scene playing with Clive Wilson’s Original Camelia Brass Band in the 1980s, holding a regular gig at the French Quarter’s Palm Court Jazz Cafe.
Pud Brown, clarinetist, reed player and active as an educator in local schools until his death, passed away on May 27, 1996 in Algiers, Louisiana.
Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Sam Woodyard was born January 7, 1925 in Elizabeth, New Jersey. He learned to play the drums by teaching himself, with no instruction. He began playing locally around Newark, New Jersey area in the 1940s. Sam gigged with Paul Gayten in an R&B group, moving on in the early 50s to play with Joe Holiday, Roy Eldridge, and Milt Buckner. It was in 1955 that Woodyard would join Duke Ellington’s orchestra, remaining the ensemble’s drummer until 1966.
After his time with Ellington, Sam played behind Ella Fitzgerald prior to moving to Los Angeles, California. In the 1970s he played less due to health problems, but recorded with Buddy Rich and toured with Claude Bolling. In 1983 he played in a band with Teddy Wilson, Buddy Tate and Slam Stewart. His last recording was on Steve Lacy’s 1988 album “The Door”.
A little more than a month after this recording was completed, drummer Sam Woodyard passed away on September 20, 1988 in Paris, France.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Keith Ronald Christie was born January 6, 1931 in Blackpool, England and began playing trombone at 14 while attending the Guildhall School of Music and Drama. He formed a band with his brother Ian in the late 1940s, and soon after the pair joined the band of Humphrey Lyttleton, recording copiously.
Keith served in the military early in the 1950s, reconvening to lead an ensemble with his brother in 1951 that lasted until 1953. He went on to work with other jazz musicians like John Dankworth, Cleo Laine, George Chisholm, Vic Ash and others in the mid 50s. He worked with Ted Heath as well as Allan Ganley in the Jazzmakers from the late 50s to early 60s, with brief stints in other bands through the end of the decade.
During this period he joined Benny Goodman on a European tour, also playing with Tubby Hayes, Paul Gonsalves, Kenny Wheeler, Ronnie Ross, and Bobby Lamb among others. In the mid-1970s Keith Christie suffered and recovered from a fall but his continuing battles with alcoholism eventually resulted in the trombonist’s early death on December 16, 1980 in London, England.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Snub Mosley was born Lawrence Leo Mosley on December 29, 1905 in Little Rock, Arkansas. Playing trombone in high school after graduation he joined Alphonse Trent’s territory band from 1926 to 1933. Following this he played with the Jeter-Pillars Orchestra in 1934, Claude Hopkins from 1934-35, was band mates with Fats Waller and Louis Armstrong with the Luis Russell Orchestra 1936-37. In addition, he led his own groups before settling in New York City.
Though Mosley spent most of his career on trombone, he also invented an instrument called the slide saxophone, which had both the slide portion of a trombone and a saxophone mouthpiece. The instrument is prominently featured in his 1940 recording The Man With The Funny Little Horn. From 1940 to 1978 he recorded for Decca, Sonora, Penguin, Columbia and Pizza record labels.
Trombonist Snub Mosley passed away quietly on July 21, 1981 at his home at 555 Edgecombe Avenue in Harlem, New York City.
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