Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Paul Bascomb was born into a family with nine siblings on February 12, 1912 in Birmingham Alabama. From an early age he felt the urge to create music and by his late teens he was an accomplished clarinetist and tenor saxophonist. Attending Alabama State Teacher’s College he was a founding member of the Bama State Collegians, a respected regional swing band that stayed together from the mid-thirties on assuming leadership under Erskine Hawkins. Paul was a part of this band till the mid 40’s, save a stint with Count Basie’s band from 38-39. During this period he co-wrote the tune Tuxedo Junction with Hawkins but by 1945 left the band a co-led small combos with his brother Dud.
1946 saw Bascomb in New York recording with a small combo for Alert records. A year later he moved to the Jersey based Manor label recording a series of sides for them, went to the London label and recorded Pink Cadillac and in ’48 did a session with The Riffs who eventually became famous with King Pleasure.
In 1950 Paul relocated to the Midwest and began a long association with the Chicago and Detroit nightclubs where owners were allowing black and white musicians to play together. By 1952 he started recording extensively with United Records and later for Mercury as he ventured into the R&B world.
By the late fifties he demand changed and took a job with the city of Chicago. He returned to music in the late 70s, was inducted into the Alabama Jazz Hall of Fame in 1979, and played well into the 80s for well receiving European audiences. It was the last hurrah for tenor saxophonist Paul Bascomb, who passed away at 74 years old on December 2, 1986.
More Posts: saxophone
Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Snooky Young was born Eugene Young in Dayton, Ohio on February 3, 1919. Taking up the trumpet at the age of five, he didn’t begin making a name for himself until he joined the Jimmie Lunceford band as lead trumpeter in 1939, a relationship that lasted for three years.
He played a total of eight years over three stints with Count Basie, Lionel Hampton and was an original member of the Thad Jones/Mel Lewis Big Band. However, his longest engagement was as a studio trumpeter with NBC’s Tonight Show Band from 1967 to 1992 when Johnny Carson’s departure broke up the band and the network replaced it with a new, smaller group.
Young only recorded three albums as a leader but was a sideman on nearly three-dozen albums and he continued to perform in L.A. with several big bands and holds membership in the Clayton-Hamilton Jazz Orchestra. Known for his mastery of the plunger mute, he is able to create a wide range of sounds. He can make his horn speak, shout, growl, and sigh with his mutes while always swinging irresistibly.
On October 17, 2008 he received the NEA Jazz Masters Award. Trumpeter and flugelhornist Snooky Young passed away on May 11, 2011 in Newport Beach, California at the age of 92.
More Posts: flugelhorn,trumpet
Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Benny Morton was born on January 31, 1907. Growing up in New York City, Benny was a graduate of the Jenkins Orphanage Band and was greatly influenced by church music as well as Dope Andrews, trombonist for Mamie Smith. By 1923, just 16 years old, he was gaining experience with the Clarence Holiday Orchestra and just three years later joined Fletcher Henderson. Swing was in and Benny moved on to spend six years with Don Redman and then three with Count Basie.
By 1938 he was recording with Clarence Holiday’s daughter Billie on My First Impression Of You and on The Sound Of Jazz. Morton went on to play with Teddy Wilson and Ed Hall in the 40’s and led his own band before playing in the Broadway pit for shows like Guys and Dolls and for Radio City Music Hall.
During the sixties and over the next two decades, the gentle and self-effacing trombonist was back in high jazz society with cornetist Wild Bill Davison and Bobby Hackett, The Saints and Sinners and the World’s Greatest Jazz Band.
One of the most sophisticated trombonists of the swing era, Benny Morton passed away on December 28, 1985.
More Posts: trombone
Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Vocalist Irene Kral was born in Chicago, Illinois on January 18, 1932. The younger sister of Roy Kral, an already a successful musician, she started singing professionally as a teenager making her debut with the Jay Burkhardt Big Band. She went on to work with Woody Herman and Chubby Jackson.
Freelancing around Chicago, Irene gigged with a vocal group called Tattle-Tales, spent nine months singing with Maynard Ferguson’s big band and also performed with groups led by Stan Kenton and Shelly Manne, After an association with the Herb Pomeroy Orchestra, she got married, moved to Los Angeles and stopped performing.
Fortunately for the jazz world by the late 50’s Irene embarked upon a solo career recording two sessions for United Artists, a ’65 date for Mainstream and from 1974 to 1977 recorded three great albums, “Kral Space” and two projects with pianist Alan Broadbent “Where Is Love” and “Gentle Rain”. Her rendition of Spring Can Really Hang You Up The Most is not only considered classic but also definitive.
Irene Kral died at the age of 46 of breast cancer in Encino, California on August 15, 1978. She attributed Carmen McRae as one of her inspirations and was brought back to the attention of the world posthumously by director Clint Eastwood when he used her recording in the Bridges of Madison County.
More Posts: vocal
Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Milt Jackson was born Milton Jackson on January 1, 1923 in Detroit, Michigan. Discovered by Dizzy Gillespie and hired in 1946 for his sextet and also for his larger ensembles. He quickly acquired experience working with the most important figures in jazz of the era, including Woody Herman, Howard McGhee, Thelonious Monk and Charlie Parker.
In the Gillespie big band, Jackson fell into a pattern that led to the founding of the Modern Jazz Quartet. He was part of Gillespie’s small group swing tradition within a big band, consisting of pianist John Lewis, bassist Ray Brown and drummer Kenny Clarke. They would become a working group in their own right around 1950 and became the Milt Jackson Quartet but by the time Percy Heath replaced Ray Brown, in 1952 they became the Modern Jazz Quartet.
After some twenty years the MJQ disbanded in 1974 and Jackson pursued more money and his longed for improvisational freedom. The group reformed in 1981, however, and continued until 1993, after which Jackson toured alone, performing in various small combos, although agreeing to periodic MJQ reunions.
He recorded prolifically, his tunes, “Bluesology”, “Bags & Trane”, “The Late, Late Blues” and “Bag’s Groove” are jazz standards. He has recorded with J.J. Johnson, Roy McCurdy, B.B. King, John Coltrane, Wes Montgomery, Hank Mobley, Oscar Peterson, Stanley Turrentine, Don Sebesky, Cannonball Adderley and Ray Charles on the very short list.
A very expressive player, Bags, as he was affectionately known and referring to the bags under his eyes from staying up all night, differentiated himself from other vibraphonists in his attention to variations on harmonics and rhythm. He became one of the most significant vibist and was at the top of his game for 50 years playing bop, blues, and ballads with equal skill and sensitivity. Vibraphonist Milt Jackson, thought of as a bebop player but equally remembered for his cool swinging solos, left the jazz world on October 9, 1999 in Manhattan, New York.
More Posts: vibraphone