Daily Dose Of Jazz…

Quin Davis was born Quinn Hall Davis on March 12, 1944 in Artesia, California. He toured and recorded with Buddy Rich in 19966 to 1967 and again from 1969 to 1970.

Leaving Rich in 1970, Quin was the solo alto saxophonist with Stan Kenton for three years followed by another three year residency with Harry James until 1976.

Little is known or written about alto saxophonist and flutist Quin Davis after this point in his life.

More Posts: history,instrumental,jazz,music,saxophone

Daily Dose Of Jazz…

Richard Hyman was born in New York City on March 8, 1927 and grew up in suburban Mount Vernon, New York. His older brother, Arthur, owned a jazz record collection and introduced him to the music of Bix Beiderbecke and Art Tatum. Trained classically by his uncle, concert pianist Anton Rovinsky, who taught him touch and a certain amount of repertoire while he pursued Chopin on his own.

Enlisting in the U.S. Army in 1945, Dick was transferred to the U.S. Navy band department. After leaving the Navy he attended Columbia University where he won a piano competition with the prize being 12 free lessons with swing-era pianist Teddy Wilson. It was during this period Hyman fell in love with jazz.

During the 1950s Relax Records released his first two solo piano versions of All the Things You Are and You Couldn’t Be Cuter. Hyman recorded two honky-tonk piano albums under the pseudonym Knuckles O’Toole and recorded more as Willie the Rock Knox and Slugger Ryan.

In the 1950s and early 1960s Dick worked as a studio musician and performed with Tony Bennett, Perry Como, Guy Mitchell, LaVern Baker, Ruth Brown, Mitch Miller and many more. He played with Charlie Parker for Parker’s only film appearance and had a stint as music director for Arthur Godfrey’s television show from 1959 to 1961.

As a composer, arranger, conductor, and pianist he worked on eleven Woody Allen films as well as other films like Moonstruck and Scott Joplin. Hyman composed and performed scores for ballet and dance companies. In the 1960s, Hyman recorded several pop albums on Enoch Light’s Command Records       using the Lowrey organ and then the Moog synthesizer.

Between 1970    and 2014 he recorded 112 albums as a leader, sixty-two as a sideman, and arranged four albums for Count Basie, Trigger Alpert and Flip Phillips. He has been a guest performer at jazz festivals and concert venues around the world. In 1995 pianist and composer Dick Hyman moved his wife Julia permanently to Venice, Florida.

More Posts: arranger,bandleader,composer,history,instrumental,jazz,music,piano

Daily Dose Of Jazz..

Benny de Weille was born on March 6, 1915 in Lübeck, Germany. He studied clarinet under Hans Helmke and was heavily influenced by Benny Goodman, whom he often emulated in his own ensembles.

Benny made recordings with Teddy Stauffer, Hans Rehmstedt, and Willy Berking in the 1930s and 1940s. In 1940 he led his own Bar Trio. Following World War II he worked at Radio Frankfurt and conducted the Nordwestdeutscher Rundfunk Orchestra.

Clarinetist and bandleader Benny de Weille, whose last recordings were in a Dixieland style in 1951,  died on December 17, 1977 in Westerland, Germany.

More Posts: bandleader,clarinet,history,instrumental,jazz,music

Daily Dose Of Jazz…

Booker Pittman was born on March 3, 1909 in Fairmount Heights, Maryland, was the son of Portia Pittman and a grandson of Booker T. Washington. He became an accomplished jazz clarinetist and played with greats like Louis Armstrong and Count Basie in the US and Europe in the 1920s and 1930s.

Leaving the States for the first time in 1933, he went with Lucky Millinder’s orchestra to France and stayed there for four years. During that period, he met a Brazilian musician named Romeo Silva, who took him on a tour of Brazil along with other musicians. They sailed to Bahia aboard the Siqueira Campos.

In 1937, Booker moved to Brazil, where he was known by the nickname “Buca“, and continued his musical career there, playing at the Urca Casino. He lived in Copacabana and befriended Jorge Guinle and Pixinguinha. He also played in Argentina and other countries.

He performed and recorded with his singer/actress stepdaughter Eliana Pittman. On October 19, 1969 clarinetist and saxophonist Booker Pittman, sometimes spelled Pitman, transitioned in his home in the São Paulo quarter of Vila Nova Conceição of laryngeal cancer at the age of 60. On behest of his wife Ofélia he was transferred to Rio de Janeiro and there laid to rest at the Cemitério São João Batista in the quarter of Botafogo.

More Posts: clarinet,history,instrumental,jazz,music,saxophone

Daily Dose Of Jazz…

Kenny Baker was born on March 1, 1921 in Withernsea, East Riding of Yorkshire, England. Joining a brass band, by the age of 17 he had already become a professional musician. After leaving his home town for London, he met and began performing with George Chisholm. He was first heard on record in a British public jam session in 1941 and quickly established a strong reputation in London clubs.

After serving in the Royal Air Force during WWII, the young Baker was lead trumpeter with Ted Heath’s post war orchestra, with Bakerloo Non-Stop recorded for the Decca record label in 1946. He played a tenor saxophone solo on Johnny Gray, the piece recorded by both Baker and the drummer Jack Parnell. During the 1950s, he led his own group called Baker’s Dozen and performed on the first regular jazz show, the BBC Light Programme series Let’s Settle For Music.

During this period he regularly recorded as a quartet for Parlophone, and in the Sixties and Seventies, he was on call for film and studio work. He shared top billing with comedy variety acts, continued to appear on BBC shows, and formed the Best of British Jazz show with Don Lusher and Betty Smith. He went on to play with Frank Sinatra, Petula Clark, Sammy Davis, Jr. and Tony Bennett, as well as performing on James Bond soundtracks, with The Beatles and The Muppet Show among numerous other television shows.

Trumpeter, cornetist, flugelhornist and composer Kenny Baker, who was titled three times as best trumpet player and awarded the MBE title, died in Felpham, West Sussex on December 7, 1999 after suffering from a viral infection. He was 78.

More Posts: bandleader,composer,cornet,flugelhorn,history,instrumental,jazz,music,trumpet