Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Gustave Joseph Viseur was born on May 17, 1915 was born in Lessines, Belgium and because his father was a bargeman, the family moved around a lot until 1920, when they settled in Paris, France. He was given basic instruction in how to play the accordion by his father from the age of eight, then received lessons from a music professor. Father and son played together in an amateur band from 1929. After his father died he began performing on the streets of Paris in fairs and markets.
In the early 1930s, Viseur played second accordion under bandleader Médard Ferrero. In 1933 he met René “Charley” Bazin and the two accordionists started improvising, inspired by hearing jazz. This led to him forming his own band in 1935. It played in a variety of styles and recorded four tunes that year.
Gus was a member of the Boris Sarbek Orchestra, then worked in France and Belgium with Philippe Brun, Joseph Reinhardt, and his own quintet. Together with guitarist Baro Ferret, he added elements of swing to traditional musettes that they played from 1938 and into World War II. He had more public attention after recording L’Accordéoniste with singer Édith Piaf in 1940.
He toured the United States in 1963, then stopped playing and opened a record shop in Le Havre. He started performing again around 1970, and recorded the album Swing Accordéon the following year.
Accordionist Gus Viseur died in Le Havre on August 25, 1974.
More Posts: accordion,bandleader,history,instrumental,jazz,music
Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Vic Berton was born Victor Cohen on May 7, 1896 in Chicago, Illinois. His father was a violinist who began his son on string instruments around age five. He was hired as a percussionist at the Alhambra Theater in Milwaukee, Wisconsin in 1903 when he was only seven years old. By 16, he was playing with the Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra and the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. While serving in World War I he played drums for John Philip Sousa’s Navy band.
In the early 1920s, Berton played in the Chicago bands of Art Kahn, Paul Beise, and Arnold Johnson. He led his own ensemble which played at the Merry Gardens club. 1924 saw him become the manager of The Wolverines, and occasionally played alongside Bix Beiderbecke in the ensemble. Later in the decade, he played with Roger Wolfe Kahn, Don Voorhees, Red Nichols and Paul Whiteman. He worked extensively as a session musicianbefore moving to Los Angeles, California in 1927.
During his time in Los Angeles he played with Abe Lyman and recorded in studios for film soundtracks. Vic served as director of Paramount Films’s music division for a period and worked in the Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra. In the 1940s, he worked as a percussionist in the studios for 20th Century Fox.
Drummer Vic Berton died on December 26, 1951 in Hollywood, California from lung cancer.
More Posts: bandleader,drums,history,instrumental,jazz,music
Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Glenn Paul Zottola was born in Port Chester, New York on April 28, 1947. He started playing jazz professionally in 1960.
Glenn is known for his work with Lionel Hampton, Benny Goodman, and Bob Wilber, and has accompanied a broad range of vocalists, including Mel Tormé, Frank Sinatra, Peggy Lee, Ella Fitzgerald, and Joe Williams.
He has recorded over 50 albums with Butch Miles, Bob Wilber, Mousey Alexander, Steve Allen, Phil Bodner, George Kelly, Peggy Lee, George Masso, George Masso, and Maxine Sullivan, among numerous others.
In 1988, was a featured soloist at the 50th anniversary of Benny Goodman’s Carnegie Hall Concert. In 1995, Zottola was bandleader on the Suzanne Somers daytime TV talk show at Universal Studios.
Trumpeter and saxophonist Glenn Zottola, who has recorded twenty-two albums as a leader, continues to perform and record.
More Posts: bandleader,history,instrumental,jazz,music,saxophone,trumpet
Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Tale Ognenovski was born April 27, 1922 in Brusnik, Bitola, Kingdom of Yugoslavia. He inherited his talent from his reed pipe great-grandfather Ognen and grandfather Risto and his father Jovan who played bagpipes. When he was seven he began playing on the reed pipe. With his father passing away in 1937 and when he was fifteen his grandmother gave him some money to buy his first clarinet.
During WWII he served as a Macedonian Partisan, Tale began playing clarinet at celebrations and concerts in villages and the town of Bitola with numerous musicians. For three years beginning in 1951 he worked as a member of the Police Wind Orchestra and from 1954 till 1956 he worked with the Public Town Skopje Orchestra.
1956 saw him performing to a capacity audienceat Carnegie Hall in New York City as a clarinet and reed pipe/recorder soloist of the Macedonian State Ensemble of Folk Dances and Songs. A seven year residency starting in 1960 had Ognenovski working with Radio Television Skopje. He went on to play in orchestras and ensembles that toured North America, and Europe.
HIs recordings were not singularly jazz, but included the works of Benny Goodman and Artie Shaw. Tale also recorded classical and folk dances, often interlinking the three genres. Alongside his son Stevan, they arranged for two clarinets the music of Mozart. He was the recipient of twenty-one prestigious awards, had several articles and was recognized as one of the top 100 clarinetists of all time.
Clarinetist Tale Ognenovski, who authored a book on Macedonia dance and was biographed by his son Stevan, died in Skopje, Macedonia on June 19, 2012.
More Posts: arranger,bandleader,clarinet,history,instrumental,jazz,music,recorder
Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Nino Frasio was born April 26, 1950 in Milan, Italy and his introduction in music was taken in 1964 as a guitarist and banjoist. He graduated in 1976 from the Universitá degli Studi of Milano and studied with professor Enea Vallesi. Like most eenage players of the time he followed the Beatles craze, playing lead guitar where he also disastrously attempted to sing somewhat understandable English.
In 1969 he joined the Italian cast of Up With People! and played many performances on lead guitar and tenor banjo. Leaving the show in 1971, when he started his day job career, and since then has dedicated himself exclusively to classic jazz. His banjo studies had him discovering the other four string tuning and soon was doubling on tenor and plectrum banjo.
After performing on the national Italian TV network on a broadcast of Musica Insieme, he founded the New Orleans styled Olympia Ragtime Band in 1972. a pure New Orleans style band in which he played banjo. Frasio left the band in the early ’80s and started a busy musical career as a free-lance performer with the many jazz bands active in Northern Italy. By 1973 he was enlisted in the Italian Air Force where he began the study of cornet and tuba. Post discharged he chose to play the tuba.
In 1984 Nino joined the Ambrosia Brass Band as a sousaphonist which gained a wide popularity all over Europe playing marches in the style of the great brass bands of New Orleans. He continued freelancing gigs on banjo and guitar, and participated in a long-lasting series of weekly live radio broadcasts.
In the mid-Nineties Frasio went back to playing classic jazz with a new project called the Odd Fellows New Orleans Quartet & Band. Three years later he joined the Jumpin’ Jazz Ballroom Orchestra on banjo and guitar and the ten piece band played a repertory of classic jazz tunes of the ’20s, ’30s and ’40s.
As he aged Nino slowed down his freelance playing and started to look for his old music pals again to play his banjo in a strict New Orleans style. He went on to become a founding member of the Pegasus Brass Band, which performed at several European jazz festivals. He played regularly with the Milano Rhythm Kings led by Giorgio Alberti, then with the Savannah Serenaders, before joining on guitar the Prefisso02 Orchestra, with its beautiful repertoire of early ’40s Italian swing.
Banjoist Nino Frasio, who also plays guitar, tuba and sousaphone, continues to perform with a series of brass bands and orchestras.
More Posts: banjo,guitar,history,instrumental,jazz,music,sousaphone,tuba