Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Turk Mauro was born Mauro Turso on June 11, 1944 in New York City into a family of first-generation Italian-Americans and he first experienced jazz when his father who played in local swing bands and began playing alto saxophone at 14. He soon met his mentor, trumpeter Henry Allen, who started getting him gigs around the city until he graduated from high school in 1962.
Mauro worked in a mailroom while playing jazz, got married, had two children, hit the road and his marriage fell apart by the mid-70s. While touring he met Billy Mitchell, a member of Dizzy Gillespie’s band, that led to a few hits with Gillespie but a permanent spot in Buddy Rich’s band. His reputation as a perfectionist made him a popular sideman in the New York area, and in 1977 he release his debut album, The Underdog.
He would go on to play the Blue Note, release his sophomore project The Heavyweight, which unfortunately flopped. This began a dry period for Turk through the ’80s and he abandoned jazz for taxi and limo driving. However, in 1987 after running into Sonny Rollins who suggested Europe, Mauro packed up and moved to France. He found work as a sideman and renewed success in Paris. But success was fleeting and with work drying up in Paris and another failed marriage, his second dry spell ensued by the Nineties.
By 1994 Mauro was back in the States with his new wife taking care of his father in Florida. He managed to play at the few jazz clubs in South Florida at the time but also began to gamble in attempt to regain the good times of Paris. Health problems came by the end of the decade and a burst colon hospitalized the saxophonist. An physical altercation in which he punched local singer Beverly Barkley in the early 2000s sidelined the musician after being arrested for battery. This incident put a halt to his career and with a year probation and 50 hours of community service, since the turn of the century the hard bop saxophonist Turk Mauro has only been able to get the occasional gig around the Florida area.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Bill Watrous was born William Russell Watrous III on June 8, 1939 in Middletown, Connecticut. Introduced to the jazz trombone at an early age by his trombonist father, it was while serving in the Navy that he studied with jazz pianist and composer Herbie Nichols. His first professional performances were in Billy Butterfield’s band.
Bill’s career blossomed in the 1960s, playing and recording with many Maynard Ferguson, Woody Herman, Quincy Jones, Johnny Richards and fellow trombonist Kai Winding. From 1965 – 68 he was a member of the house band on the Merv Griffin Show.
In the Seventies he played with the jazz-fusion group Ten Wheel Drive, formed his own band – The Manhattan Wildlife Refugee Big Band, recorded two albums for Columbia, and relocated to southern California.
He worked actively since the 1980s as a bandleader, studio musician, and performing at various jazz clubs. He is most known for his rendition of Johnny Mandel’s “A Time For Love”. Bill Watrous continued to perform and record as a solo artist, bandleader and in various small ensembles for a number of different labels until his passing on July 2, 2018 at age 79. He published an instructional manual Trombonisms and was on the faculty of the University of Southern California Thornton School of Music.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Nelson Riddle was born Nelson Smock Riddle, Jr. on June 1, 1921 in Oradell, New Jersey and later moved with his family to Ridgewood. He began taking piano lessons at age eight and trombone lessons by age fourteen. After his graduation from high school Nelson spent his late teens and early 20s playing trombone in and occasionally arranging for various local dance bands, culminating in his association with the Charlie Spivak Orchestra.
In 1943, Riddle joined the Merchant Marines, studied orchestration under Alan Shuman, joined Tommy Dorsey in 1941, drafted into WWII shortly before the end of the war. Upon discharge he moved to Hollywood and started his arranging career for radio and record projects.
In 1950, Riddle was hired by composer Les Baxter to write arrangements for a recording session with Nat King Cole, becoming his first association with Capitol Records. He would go on to work with Ella Fitzgerald, Oscar Peterson, Kate Smith, Judy Garland, Dean Martin, Keely Smith, Sue Raney, Linda Ronstadt, Johnny Mathis, Rosemary Clooney, Ed Townsend and Frank Sinatra, who reluctantly but successfully re-launched his career with the Riddle arrangement of “I’ve Got The World On A String”.
Riddle would arrange for such films as High Society with Bing Crosby and Paint Your Wagon with Lee Marvin, Clint Eastwood and Jean Seberg, in conjunction to leading his successful orchestra.
Arranger, composer, bandleader and orchestrator Nelson Riddle, whose career spanned over four decades, passed away on October 6, 1985 of cardiac and kidney failure at age 64.
Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Herbie Fields was born May 24, 1919 in Asbury Park, New Jersey and attended Juilliard School of Music. He served two years in the Army during WWII until 1943. He began recording in 1944 with two sides for Bob Thiele’s Signature label and over the next year and a half he recorded for Savoy, and shared a date with “Rubberlegs” Williams that featured teenaged Miles Davis’ recording debut.
Fields replaced Earl Bostic as alto saxophonist in Lionel Hampton’s band and was fluent in a variety of reed instruments, from clarinet to baritone saxophone. In 1945, he won Esquire Magazine’s New Star Award on the Alto Sax. In 1946, RCA Victor signed Fields as leader of his own big band.
Herbie would lead the big band with sidemen Neal Hefti, Bill Evans, Eddie Bert, Manny Albam, Marty Napoleon and Serge Chaloff among others and Dardanella was their biggest hit. He formed a septet in 1949 based in Chicago that backed numerous stage shows and in 1950 accompanied Billie Holiday 3-month East Coast tour.
Fields gravitated toward an R& B conception in the Fifties without success and recorded sporadically. He moved to Miami, Florida, opened a restaurant an on September 17, 1958 alto saxophonist Herbie Fields died of an overdose of sleeping pills at his home.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Eddie Bert was born May 16, 1922 in Yonkers, New York and learned to lay the trombone as a child. Among his early teachers were Benny Morton and Trummy Young and by age 18 he was a member of the Sam Donahue Orchestra.
Bert would leave Donahue and join up with Red Norvo in 1941, cutting his first recorded solo on Jersey Bounce. Through the Forties he played with the bands of Charlie Barnet, Woody Herman, Herbie Fields, Benny Goodman and Stan Kenton, rejoining Norvo for the legendary Town Hall concert. By the Fifties he was performing briefly again with Stan Kenton before becoming a leader and recording for Discovery, Savoy, Jazztone and Trans-world record labels.
He has performed and recorded with Charles Mingus, various Miles Davis/Gil Evans projects, Thelonious Monks big bands, and was a part of the Dick Cavett TV big band in the Sixties. He has toured Europe with the Mel Lewis/Thad Jones Orchestra, recorded for several obscure labels, worked extensively as a sideman with Michel Legrand, Nat Pierce, Stan Getz, Gene Harris, Ken Peplowski, Loren Schoenberg and others. When performing, trombonist Eddie Bert continuously played to sold-out shows.
Eddie received a Musician of the Year award from Metronome magazine, a Grammy for Musician of the Year, Jazz at the Kennedy Center honors and is inducted into the Rugers University Jazz Hall of Fame.
Trombonist Eddie Bert, whose photography can be seen on Jazz Giants, To Bird With Love (Chan Parker and F. Pandras) and The Band That Never Was (Spotlight Records album cover and liner notes), passed away on September 27, 2012 at age 90 in Danbury, Connecticut.
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