Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Roger Wolfe Kahn was born on October 19, 1907 in Morristown, New Jersey, into a wealthy German Jewish banking family. He began studying the violin aged six and is said to have learned to play eighteen musical instruments before starting to lead his own orchestra in 1923, at the age of only 16. His interest in music led the ten year old to buy a ukulele with instructions on how to play. The ukulele turned his mind toward violins, pianos, banjos and jazz orchestras.
By sixteen he rejected college, formed his own booking agency and organized a paying band. He installed it at the Knickerbocker Grill in New York. Self-taught, he could play every instrument in the outfit, and his favorite instruments were the piano and saxophone. By the time he reached nineteen, he had eleven orchestras on his books that played in resorts and hotels from Newport, Rhode Island to Florida. His success enabled him to pursue his passion for composing music and aviation.
Kahn appeared in a short film, hired many famous jazz musicians and singers of the day to play and sing in his band, especially during recording sessions. They were Tommy Dorsey, Morton Downey, Joe Venuti, Eddie Lang, Artie Shaw, Jack Teagarden, Red Nichols, Libby Holman, Gertrude Niesen, Franklyn Baur, Dick Robertson, Elmer Feldkamp and Gene Krupa.
Early on in his career he made several recordings under the name Roger Wolfe Kahn and His Hotel Biltmore Orchestra. He and his Orchestra recorded four takes of the song Rhythm Of The Day for Victor Records and for some reason Victor chose not to release any of them. Undeterred, he wrote the song Following You Around, and arranged the score of his stage musical Rhapsurdity and Hearts and Flowers.
During his career Roger made recordings for Victor, Brunswick and Colubia records, fronted several fashionable New York night clubs and owned several clubs, one beingLe Perroquet de Paris, opened in New York in November 1926 with a five-dollar cover charge. In 1938, the Kahn Orchestra reformed to perform a special one-off concert, in what could have been the Kahn Orchestra’s last concert.
Roger Wolfe Kahn, who was a composer, bandleader and an aviator, died of a heart attack in New York City on July 12, 1962.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Albert Killian was born in Birmingham, Alabama, on October 15, 1916 and got his start playing with Charlie Turner’s Arcadians in the mid-1930s. He went on to play with big bands led by Baron Lee, Teddy Hill, Don Redman, and Claude Hopkins. The early to mid-1940s saw him swapping between bands led by Count Basie and Charlie Barnet, as well as being with Lionel Hampton for a period in 1945.
He appeared on film several times, played with Norman Granz’s Jazz at the Philharmonic concert series, and his interest in bebop led to Albert forming his own band to play the new music in 1947, but this was short-lived. Following this he briefly toured with bands led by Earle Spencer and Boyd Raeburn, before landing a the year residency in Duke Ellington’s band.
Trumpeter and bandleader Al Killian who was prominent during the big band era, died, murdered in his home at the hands of a psychopathic landlord on September 5, 1950 in Los Angeles, California.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
George Letellier was born October 11, 1957 in the United States. After attending Berklee College of Music in Boston, Massachusetts in 1975, the following year he wrote his first compositions and arrangements. He began as a pianist playing in warm-up bands for artists such as Phil Woods, Gary Burton, and Steve Swallow. Returning to Berklee in 1983, he graduated two years later with a Superior Prix in Film Music Composition.
Moving to San Francisco, California he worked as a freelance pianist in the jazz and salsa genre from 1986 until 1990. His successful session work attracted film executives and he was hired to compose music for films and corporate videos. In 1987 George served as a music editor on the Academy Award-nominated short film Liru, and in 1988 in Oakland, California, established a film production company where he worked not only as a composer but a producer.
In 1991, Letellier moved to Portugal, accepting a job offer as a professor of composition in Porto, Portugal. There he composed two ballets and was a session musician. He collaborated with saxophonist Mario Santos and formed the George Letellier Quartet which toured all across Portugal.
By 1995 he relocated to Luxembourg and began working as a music composer, session musician and taught private lessons. With the Opus 78 Big Band, he collaborated in arranging the tunes of Frank Sinatra and turning them into large philharmonic ensembles for performing.
From 1997 until 2003, he went into education serving as Director of Jazz Studies at the Esch Conservatoire, wrote three publications on jazz theory and formed the original Consabora Salsa Orchestra with Harri Jokiharra. Since 2001, Letellier has taught jazz at L’Ecole de Musique in Echternach, Luxembourg.
Pianist, composer, and educator George Letellier continues to function as a session pianist, and has performed in hundreds of jazz concerts and theatrical productions in Luxembourg, the United States, Europe, and India.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Gregory Charles Royal was born on October 10, 1961 IN Washington, D.C. As a student at Howard University he received the 1982 DownBeat Magazine Student Music Award for Jazz Vocal Group and Graduate College Outstanding Performance in the Jazz Instrumental Soloist Category. He graduated from Howard University with a Master of Music in Jazz Studies.
Royal went on to play with the Duke Ellington Orchestra for a decade beginning in 1989, then with Art Blakey and The Jazz Messengers, Slide Hampton and his World of Trombones, and Howard University Jazz Ensemble. He has appeared onstage as a trombonist with the Broadway shows Five Guys Named Moe and Jelly’s Last Jam.
He has written and appeared in a play God Doesn’t Mean You Get To Live Forever, which was presented at the Baruch Performing Arts Center. and at Theatre Row on 42nd Street in New York. Royal also wrote and appeared in the short film World’s Not for Me. The film won the Harlem Spotlight Best Narrative Short Award at the Harlem International Film Festival in 2016.
Trombonist, composer, writer Chuck Royal, who is the co-founder of The BeBop Channel Corporation, the former parent owner of JazzTimes, continues to pursue his career in music.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Anthony K. Wright was born October 9, 1959 in London, England and began playing brass at school, before moving to clarinet at the age of 12, and later picked up the tenor saxophone. Turning professional in the early 1980s he played as a session musician and ran various rock bands in night clubs and on the gig circuit in London and South Wales. He maintained his interest in the clarinet, and in the early Nineties began playing jazz on the West Country ciecuit, whilst teaching Performing Arts at North Devon College.
Moving to Surrey late in the decade he is now widely known as a reeds teacher, with students ranging from adult beginners to advanced Grade 8 and Diploma-level specialists. His forte is improvisational jazz. leads a cool jazz band, Anthony’s AllStars, which features both clarinet and saxophone. He also plays with Riverside Shuffle Band and Vic Cracknell’s Swing Band, and other local bands.’
Tenor saxophonist Anthony Wright continues to perform and spends much of his time composing, arranging and creating his own recordings of what he has labeled intelligent pop..
Get a dose of the musicians and vocalists who were members of a global society integral in the making and preservation of jazz for over a hundred and twenty-five years…
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