Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Joseph Lucian Roccisano was born on October 15, 1939 in Springfield, Massachusetts. He received his bachelor’s degree in music education from SUNY-Potsdam in 1963. In 1964 he played in the Tommy Dorsey orchestra under Sam Donahue.
After moving to Los Angeles, California in the mid-Sixties he played with Don Ellis, Ray Charles, Louie Bellson, Lew Tabackin, Toshiko Akiyoshi, Terry Gibbs, Don Menza, Bill Holman, and Don Rader. He assembled the 15-piece ensemble Rocbop in 1976 and played in the Capp-Pierce Juggernaut in 1981.
He formed his own big band, the Joe Roccisano Orchestra, releasing two albums during the 1990s. The musicians joining him in this band included Bill Charlap, Bud Burridge, Jack Stuckey, Franck Amsallem, James E. Pugh, John Basile, Ken Hitchcock, Lou Marini, Matt Finders, Robert Millikan, Scott Lee, Terry Clarke, Tim Ries, Tom Harrell, Scott Robinson, and Greg Gisbert.
He became an arranger for Ellis, Bellson, Doc Severinsen, and Woody Herman. He scored the tune Green Earrings on the 1978 Herman album Chick, Donald, Walter, and Woodrow. Joe was nominated for a Grammy Award for the arrangement. He composed Tenors of the Time, a tune recorded by Pete Christlieb and Warne Marsh.
Saxophonist and arranger Joe Roccisano transitioned on November 9, 1997.
More Posts: arranger,bandleader,history,instrumental,jazz,music,saxophone
Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Loys Choquart was born on October 11, 1920 in Geneva, Switzerland. Leading his own ensemble by age 17, and at 19 had a position at Radio Geneva, remaining a broadcaster with the station for decades.
He first recorded with his ensemble the New Rhythm Kings in 1942, then with a new ensemble, the Dixie Dandies, in 1943 which included Henri Chaix and Wallace Bishop as sidemen.
According to jazz historian Rainer E. Lotz, by the end of World War II “he was considered the best Swiss saxophone and clarinet soloist”, playing in both Dixieland and swing idioms. His Creole Jazz ensemble won the Prix Jazz Hot in 1955 on the basis of recordings made in 1952.
He also led a larger ensemble with an orchestra, which included pianist and vibraphonist André Zumbach. During his later life he toured extensively throughout western Europe and owned a club in Geneva called La Tour. Unfortunately there are no recordings of his playing online.
Reedist, bandleader and broadcaster Loys Choquart transitioned on December 10, 1989 in Puplinge, Switzerland.
More Posts: bandleader,broadcaster,history,instrumental,jazz,music,reeds
Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Lee L. Blair was born on October 10, 1903 in Savannah, Georgia and was a left-handed autodidact on banjo, aside from a few lessons taken from Mike Pingitore, the banjoist for Paul Whiteman. He played and recorded in New York City, New York with Thomas Morris’s Seven Hot Babies in 1926, then played with Charlie Skeete in 1926-28, before playing and recording with Jelly Roll Morton’s Red Hot Peppers in 1928-30.
In the Thirties he went on to play with Billy Kato, then played and recorded with Luis Russell and Louis Armstrong from 1935 to the end of the decade. He worked part-time in music through the 1940s, then joined Wilbur De Paris’s New New Orleans Jazz Band in the 1950s at Jimmy Ryan’s Club on West 52nd Street in New York City.
The summer of 1957 had him touring Africa with the DeParis band for the State Department. During the 1960s he played less, concentrating on raising chickens on his farm in Belmore, Long Island, but appeared at the 1964 World’s Fair in a trio with Danny Barker and Eddie Gibbs. He freelanced around New York with Hank Duncan and others until his death.
He never recorded as a leader, but appears on record with Morris, Morton, Russell, Armstrong, and De Paris, as well as with Dick Cary, Pee Wee Erwin, and Leonard Gaskin among others. He is honored in the jazz section of the Georgia Music Hall of Fame in Macon, GA.
Banjoist and guitarist Lee Blair, who never recorded as a leader, transitioned on October 15, 1966 in New York City.
Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Alvin Stoller was born October 7, 1925 in New York City, New York and studied with drum teacher Henry Adler. He launched his career touring and recording with swing era big bands led by Benny Goodman, Tommy Dorsey, Harry James, and Charlie Barnet. He backed singers including Billie Holiday, Mel Tormé, and Frank Sinatra on some of their major recordings.
His drums may be heard on many of Ella Fitzgerald’s Songbook recordings; on Ella Fitzgerald Sings the Duke Ellington Songbook, having performed with the Duke Ellington orchestra itself, alongside Ellington’s own Sam Woodyard. From the moment Frank Sinatra started to record with Capitol Records in 1953, Stoller was the singer’s preferred percussionist and performed on nearly all Sinatra recordings until 1958.
He recorded with Art Tatum, Roy Eldridge, Oscar Peterson, Coleman Hawkins, Ben Webster, Benny Carter, Herb Ellis, and Erroll Garner among many other jazz musicians. The 1950s saw Stoller settlling in Los Angeles, California where he became respected for his work in the Hollywood studios which lasted for several decades.
Leonard Feather considered him a first-rate, swinging drummer. Buddy Rich, whom some consider to have been the greatest of all jazz drummers, chose Alvin to play drums on an album in which Rich sang suggests the esteem Stoller earned from his fellow musicians. He was the drummer on both Mitch Miller’s recording of The Yellow Rose of Texas and Stan Freberg’s parody of Miller’s recording.
Drummer Alvin Stoller, though an in-demand drummer during the Forties and Fifties and recorded more than five dozen albums, and eventually appeared to have been largely forgotten, transitioned on October 19, 1992.
More Posts: drums,history,instrumental,jazz,music
Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Frank Guarente was born Francisco Saverio Guarente on October 5, 1893 in Montemiletto, Italy and received formal training in music before emigrating to America in 1910. He settled in Allentown, Pennsylvania, where a brother of his lived.
Relocating to New Orleans, Louisiana in 1914, where he took a job in a bank and associated with ethnically Italian musicians such as Nick LaRocca and Tony Parenti. He met King Oliver and eventually started getting gigs with New Orleans brass bands. He played at Tom Anderson’s club and toured Texas under the name Ragtime Frank with his ensemble, the Alabama Five.
Serving in the United States Army during World War I in 1917, then played in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania with Charlie Kerr and Eddie Lang. Putting together his own group in 1921 in New York City, which included Arthur Schutt and Chauncey Morehouse. Soon after, Paul Specht picked his players up to join a larger orchestra, and Guarente played with Specht on European tours through 1924.
Leading a Specht side group called The Georgians, they recorded between 1922 and 1924 in the style of the Original Dixieland Jass Band. He left Specht in 1924, to form his own group, The New Georgians, that toured Europe and remained active until 1927. This he followed by working in England with the Savoy Orpheans and ensembles associated with Bert Firman.
Returning to the United States in 1928, he joined Specht’s orchestra again, playing until 1930. He joined Victor Young’s band in 1930, remaining there until 1936, and also played with Jimmy Dorsey, Tommy Dorsey, Jack Teagarden, Bing Crosby, and The Boswell Sisters on record and radio. In 1937 ill health forced him to stop performing and on July 21, 1942 in New York City, trumpeter, composer and bandleader Frank Guarente transitioned at the age of 48.
More Posts: history,instrumental,jazz,music,trumpet