Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Fletcher Smith was born on September 22, 1913 in Lincoln, Nebraska and was orphaned by the age of eight. He and his siblings moved in with their grandfather who had a nine-room house. When the Lloyd Hunter Serenaders came through Lincoln and there was a guitar player there named Finney. He asked Finney to teah him to play if he could get his uncle to buy him a banjo. He wrote out a chart of chords and gave him lessons when he came back.
Smith played for Cootie Williams in 1943 and in the following years with Slim Gaillard, King Perry, Varetta Dillard, Jimmy Rushing, Big Maybelle, Linda Hopkins, Sister Rosetta Tharpe, Stick McGhee, Mickey Baker, Percy Mayfield, and Geechie Smith. In the Fifties he performed with Earl Bostic, Percy Mayfield, Benny Carter, Billy Eckstine, Lionel Hampton, Les Hite, and the Ink Spots, among others.
Under his own name, Fletcher Smith’s Squares and Fletcher Smith’s band, he played in the 1950s and recorded several singles such as Mean Poor Gal, Ting Ting Boom Scat or Shout, Shout, Shout. He recorded extensively as a sideman and toured most of the United States with various organizations. During the early 1970s he was a popular artist in Paris, France performing with the Golden Gate Quartet. From 1981 to 1991 he was featured in Las Vegas, Nevada.
Upon his return to Los Angeles, he became one of the mainstays of the Southern California music scene, he continued playing and honing his book of tunes and arrangements until his death. Pianist and bandleader Fletcher Smith died on August 15, 1993 in Los Angeles, California.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Gerald Graham Valentine was born on September 13, 1914 and received formal training in music when he was young, learning piano, composition, and music theory. He learned to play the trombone on his own.
In the early 1940s Jerry composed and arranged for Earl Hines and worked in Chicago with Dallas Bartley, King Kolax and he booked shows for the Club DeLisa. He then joined Billy Eckstine’s band from 1944 to 1947 and worked later in the decade with Wynonie Harris and Buddy DeFranco.
From 1950 to 1952 Valentine was an artist and repertory man for National Records. He played with Gene Ammons in 1954, and in 1958-1959 wrote arrangements for Pepper Adams, Art Farmer, and Coleman Hawkins in the group Prestige Blues Swingers.
Trombonist, composer and arranger Jerry Valentine died in October 1983.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Putte Wickman was born Hans Olof Wickman on September 10, 1924 in Falun, Sweden and grew up in Borlänge, Sweden where his parents hoped he would become a lawyer. He nagged them to allow him to go to high school in Stockholm, Sweden and when he arrived in the capital he still did not know what jazz was and probably the only 15 year-old who did not.
Not having access to a piano in Stockholm, he was given a clarinet by his mother as a Christmas present. As it turned out, he started to hang out with the worst elements in the class, those with jazz records. Wickman considered himself self-taught, having never taken classes on the instrument.
Artie Shaw and Benny Goodman were the role models for the young Wickman, who, in 1944 had turned to music full-time. He was taken on as band leader at Stockholm’s Nalen. He led a band at Nalen for eleven years, and during the 1960s he ran the big band at Gröna Lund and at Puttes, the club he co-owned, at Hornstull in Stockholm.
In 1994, Wickman received the Illis Quorum gold medal, today the highest award that can be conferred upon a private Swedish citizen by the government of Sweden.
Clarinetist Putte Wickman, who was a member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Music and active as a musician until shortly before his passing, died on February 14, 2006.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Art Anton was born on September 8, 1926 in New York City. In the early 40’s he was a private student of Irving Torgman, and was a music major at New York University from 1943 through 1944. He returned for further studies from 1946 through 1947. In between, the Navy grabbed him to play its own military paradiddles. From the late ’40s onward, he began working with leaders such as Herbie Fields, Sonny Dunham, Bobby Byrne, Tommy Reynolds, and Art Wall.
In 1952, he got into the combo of saxophonist Bud Freeman, moving to pianist Ralph Flanagan’s band the following year. Anton’s drumming style stuck closely to straight-ahead jazz swinging or whatever other beat was required. After gigs in 1954 with Jerry Gray and Charlie Barnet, he relocated to the west coast and began freelancing. He performed and recorded with the big band of Stan Kenton to multi-instrumentalist Jimmy Giuffre’s smaller units.
Maintaining steady employment as a jazzman on the stingy Los Angeles, California scene was difficult, and Artie looked for other types of employment. During the ’60s, he turned to selling vacuum cleaners, worked as a private detective, while remaining a highly respected West Coast percussionist.
Drummer and percussionist Art Anton, who is also listed as Artie or Arthur, died on July 27, 2003 in Yakima, Washington.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Sol Schlinger was born on September 6, 1926 in the Bronx, New York. His father was an unsuccessful entrepreneur who booked concerts in Europe, his mother a successful cook who earned the family money. He grew up with Stan Getz, Bernie Glow and Lenny Hambro. His first instrument was the tenor saxophone and took lessons from the saxophonist in the band at a small resort in the Catskill Mountains north of New York City. His dedication did not go unnoticed and his father got him a C-melody saxophone and began lessons with Bill Sheiner on a tenor that he sold him for $75.
He began his professional career at the age of sixteen with Henry Jerome & His Stepping Stones at the Pelham Heath Inn. World War II saw Sol touring wit.h Shep Fields, including a trip to Europe to play for the troops. After the war ended he took up the baritone saxophone and went out on the road with Charlie Barnett’s band. He then joined Buddy Rich’s outfit.
The late Forties saw Schlinger with Tommy Dorsey, recording with Sauter-Finegan, and became a member of the East Coast sax section with Hal McKusick, Gene Quill, Zoot Sims, Al Cohn and sometimes Phil Woods. He often recorded with trombonist-arranger Billy Byers, who was also a ghostwriter for Quincy Jones. Following this he joined Benny Goodman for a period. He would go on to work with Tony Bennett, Carmen McRae and others.
Baritone saxophonist Sol Schlinger, who was a first call and solid anchor in the reed section, died at 91 years old on November 1, 2017.
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