Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Alfred Winters was born March 24, 1931 and raised in New York City, New York. He completed his Bachelors and Masters degrees from Hofstra University and began working professionly since 1957.
He studied with the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra principal trombonist Roger Smith. He went on to play with Bobby Hackett, Gene Krupa, Phil Napolean, Wild Bill Davison, Benny Goodman. Recorded with numerous artists including Gene Krupa and Bobby Hackett.
Relocating in 1966 to the Detroit, Michigan area he performed and recorded with the Austin-Moro Big Band and the New Mckinney’s Cottonpickers as well as local artists like Tom Saunders.
He led his own band beginning in 1988 and performed at numerous jazz festivals including Newport Jazz Festival, Montreaux Jazz Festival and the Sacramento Jazz Jubilee.
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The Jazz Voyager
No flights for the Jazz Voyager this week as I have been hanging in New York City for the past week because the next destination is just a couple of blocks from Carnegie Hall. I’ve been visiting the Guggenheim, Metropolitan Museum of Art, Natural History and City of New York museums. And the visit would not be complete without a trip to the Village and Harlem. But that will come this weekend.
For now, wandering around The Big Apple is momentarily paused as I am heading to Dizzy’s Club for an evening of music with The Diva Jazz Orchestra. A multigenerational outfit led by drummer, composer, and clinician Sherrie Maricle, it has garnered accolades from across the world. The 15-piece ensemble exudes the excitement and force found in the tradition of historic big bands, with an eye towards originality.
The venue is located at 10 Columbus Circle, New York City 10019. For those who want more info go to https://notoriousjazz.com/event/the-diva-jazz-orchestra.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Lawrence Joseph Elgart was born on March 20, 1922 in New London, Connecticut and grew up in Pompton Lakes, New Jersey. His mother was a concert pianist and his father also played piano, though not professionally. With his brother Les they attended Pompton Lakes High School.
Both brothers began playing in jazz ensembles in their teens, and young Larry played with jazz musicians such as Charlie Spivak, Woody Herman, Red Norvo, Freddie Slack and Tommy Dorsey. In the mid-1940s, Les and Larry started up their own ensemble, hiring Nelson Riddle, Bill Finegan and Ralph Flanagan to arrange tunes for them. Their ensemble was not successful, and after a few years, they scuttled the band and sold the arrangements they had commissioned to Tommy Dorsey. Both returned to sideman positions in various orchestras.
In 1953, Larry met Charles Albertine and recorded two of his experimental compositions, Impressions of Outer Space and Music for Barefoot Ballerinas. The recordings were not commercially successful but became collector items for fans of avant-garde jazz. With Albertine they put together an ensemble and using precise microphone placements produced what came to be known as the Elgart Sound. Proved to be very commercially successful, throughout the 1950s they enjoyed a run of successful albums and singles on the Columbia label.
Their initial LP, Sophisticated Swing, released in late 1953, was credited to The Les Elgart Orchestra, because, according to Larry, Les was more interested than his brother in fronting the band. In 1954, the Elgarts left their permanent mark on music history in recording Albertine’s Bandstand Boogie, for the legendary television show American Bandstand. In 1955, the band became The Les and Larry Elgart Orchestra, but the brothers split in 1959, each subsequently releasing his own series of albums.
Larry signed with RCA Victor and his 1959 album New Sounds At the Roosevelt was nominated for a Grammy. From 1960 to 1962, he released music on MGM Records. The brothers reunited in 1963 and recorded several more albums until 1967 they again went their separate ways.
In 1981 he departed from the Elgart Sound for jazz funk and fusion genres, producing Flight of the Condor for the RCA Victor. His biggest exposure came in 1982, with the success of Hooked on Swing. The instrumental was a medley of swing jazz hits In the Mood, Cherokee, Don’t Sit Under the Apple Tree, American Patrol, Sing, Sing, Sing, Don’t Be That Way, Little Brown Jug, Opus #1, “ake the A Train, Zing Went the Strings of My Heart and A String of Pearls.
Alto saxophonist and bandleader Larry Elgart, who was a resident of Longboat Key, Florida died on August 29, 2017 at a hospice center in Sarasota, Florida at the age of 95.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Michael Josef Longo was born in Cincinnati, Ohio on March 19, 1937 to parents who had a musical background. His father played bass, his mother played organ at church, and his music training began at a young age. Around four years old he heard Count Basie and Sugar Chile Mike, and the latter led him to begin researching boogie woogie bass lines. His parents took him for formal lessons at the Cincinnati Conservatory of Music at four. He moved to Fort Lauderdale, Florida soon after and by the age of 12, he won a local talent contest.
He received a scholarship from the Ft. Lauderdale Symphony Orchestra in 1955, a Downbeat Hall of Fame Scholarship in 1959 His career began in his father’s band, then Cannonball Adderley helped him get gigs of his own. Their working relationship pre-dated Adderley’s emergence as a band leader, having approached the white teenager to be the pianist at his black church in a town that was largely segregated. This led to recordings with Cannonball in the mid-1950s but he was too young to go to clubs with him. Longo played at Porky’s which was later portrayed in the movie of the same name. He would go on to receive his Bachelor of Music degree from Western Kentucky University.
He was a fan of Oscar Peterson from a young age and he studied with the pianist from 1961 to 1962. He received a National Endowment for the Arts Grant in 1972. During the 1960s he began to lead the Mike Longo Trio, which would remain active for the next 42 years. He would go on to play with Roy Eldridge, Paul Chambers and Dizzy Gillespie, who first heard him playing with Red Allen at the Metropole. He would become musical director for the Dizzy Gillespie Quintet and later the pianist for the Dizzy Gillespie All-Star Band. From 1966 until 1993 his music career would be linked to Gillespie who he was with on the night he died and later delivered a eulogy at his funeral.
Longo also taught a master class to upcoming jazz musicians, and his big band, the New York State of the Art Jazz Ensemble, would play and provide upcoming musicians a chance to learn on stage. A big part of his mission was to re-establish the apprenticeship relationship in teaching jazz.
He recorded two dozen albums as a leader, four with Dizzy and one with LeeKonitz. In 2002 he was inducted into Western Kentucky University’s Wall of Fame in 2002.
Pianist, composer, educator and author Mike Longo died in Manhattan from complications of Covid~19, three days after his 83 birthday on March 22, 2020.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Samuel Koontz Donahue was born on March 18, 1918 in Detroit, Michigan and put together his first band when he was only 15 years old. He played in the bands of Gene Krupa, Harry James, and Benny Goodman. During World War II, he took over the US Navy band of Artie Shaw. After the war, he assembled and led a group that recorded extensively for Capitol Records.
He went on to create a new band enlisting trumpeters Harry Gozzard, Doc Severinsen, Wayne Herdell, arranger Leo Reisman, vocalists Frances Wayne, Jo Stafford and where Frank Sinatra Jr. spent time learning how to sing before it was dissolved in 1951. Then he re-enlisted in the Navy to serve in the Korean War.
His compositions included Quiet and Roll ‘Em with Gene Krupa, Convoy, LST Party, Scuttlin’, Love Scene, Please Get Us Out, Root Toot, Constellation, Conversation at Lindy’s, Saxa-Boogie, and Saxophone Sam. He went on to record with RCA Victor, Acrobat, Arista record labels.
Saxophonist Sam Donahue died from pancreatic cancer on March 22, 1974.
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