Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Artie Shaw was born Arthur Jacob Arshawsky on May 23, 1910 in New York City to Austrian and Russian Jewish parents Sarah and Harold Arshawsky, a dressmaker and photographer. He grew up in New Haven, Connecticut, where his natural introversion was deepened by local antisemitism. Buying a saxophone by working in a grocery store and began learning the saxophone at 13. At 16, he switched to the clarinet and left home to tour with a band.
From 1925 to 1936 Shaw performed with many bands and orchestras, working in Cleveland, Ohio and establishing a lasting reputation as music director and arranger for an orchestra led by violinist Austin Wylie. Exposed to symphonic music while playing with Irving Aaronson’s Commanders, which he later incorporated in his arrangements. In 1932 he joined the Roger Wolfe Kahn Orchestra and made several recordings. Three years later he gained attention with his “Interlude in B-flat” at a swing concert at the Imperial Theater in New York. During the swing era, his big bands had numerous popular hits with Begin the Beguine, Stardust and others.
In addition to hiring Buddy Rich, he signed Billie Holiday as his band’s vocalist in 1938, becoming the first white band leader to hire a full-time black female singer to tour the segregated South. However, after recording Any Old Time, Holiday left the band due to hostility from Southern audiences, as well as from music company executives who wanted a more mainstream singer.
He fashioned a smaller band within the orchestra in 1940, naming it Artie Shaw and the Gramercy Five after his home telephone exchange. Over time members of the band were pianist Johnny Guarnieri, electric guitarist Al Hendrickson, trumpeter Roy Eldridge succeeded Billy Butterfield, Oran “Hot Lips” Page, Max Kaminsky, Georgie Auld, Dave Tough, Jack Jenney, and Ray Conniff. In 1940, the original Gramercy Five cut eight sides, then Shaw dissolved the band in early 1941.
The long series of musical groups Shaw subsequently formed included Lena Horne, Helen Forrest, Mel Tormé, Buddy Rich, Dave Tough, Barney Kessel, Jimmy Raney, Tal Farlow, Dodo Marmarosa, and Ray Conniff.
Throughout his career, Shaw formed big bands for his radio broadcasts, made several musical shorts for Vitaphone and Paramount Pictures, and played with Navy personnel during World War II. Active until 1954, his music was used in several films, he had numerous talk show appearances, came out of retirement in 1983 and put together one last band.
Clarinetist Artie Shaw, who received a Lifetime Grammy Award in 2004, died on December 30, 2004, aged 94.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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