Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Gérard Badini was born April 16, 1931 in Paris, France to an opera singing father. He began playing professionally in the early 1950s, playing clarinet in New Orleans jazz-style ensembles with Michel Attenoux, Jimmy Archey, Lil Armstrong, Sidney Bechet, Bill Coleman, and Peanuts Holland.
In 1955, he joined Claude Bolling’s ensemble and then joined him on a worldwide tour as members of Jack Diéval’s orchestra. He switched principally to tenor sax beginning in 1958, continuing to work with Roger Guérin and Geo Daly in the late 1950s. In the 1960s he worked with Alice Babs, Duke Ellington, Jean-Claude Naude, Cat Anderson, Paul Gonsalves, Jef Gilson, and François Guin.
He founded his own group, Swing Machine, in 1973, working in this group with Bobby Durham, Raymond Fol, Michel Gaudry, Helen Humes, Sonny Payne, and Sam Woodyard. From 1977 to 1979, Badini lived in New York City, performing with Roy Eldridge, Major Holley, Oliver Jackson, Dick Katz, Clark Terry, Gerald Wiggins, and Reggie Workman.
In 1984, he formed a new big-band ensemble, Super Swing Machine, which he led and played piano in through the late 1990s. Known as Mr. Swing, bandleader, composer, reedist, and pianist Gérard Badini continues to .
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Simon Spang-Hanssen was born on April 13, 1955 in Copenhagen, Denmark andstarted playing alto saxophone but later added tenor and soprano. Receiving the annual Ben Webster Prize he created his own quartet Spacetrain with Ben Besiakov, Jesper Lundgaard and Alex Riel in 1979. He played in several groups before joining the sextet of Brazilian drummer and composer Nenê, and touring Denmark and France with Hermeto Pascoal e Grupo.
A move to Paris, France saw him playing with among others Denis Badault, Andy Emler, Nguyên Lê, Quintet Moutin, Ramuntcho Matta, Edouard Ferlet and with his own projects including musicians such as Richard Bona, Billy Hart, Niels Lan Doky, J.F. Jenny-Clarke, Bojan Z., and others. Returning to Copenhagen he created the tentet Central Earth and recorded Wondering with Maaneklar for Dacapo. Concerts and recording followed with a new quartet and quintet into the new millennium. He has had several iterations
Simon started the record label Alisio and released Rainbow Spirit and Coexistence with a quintet. These were followed with several other releases including The Riddle with Ear Witness, a live-recording in Copenhagen Jazzhouse with Maneklar XL, and two nominations for Danish Jazz Awards: Composer of the Year, Album of the year.
He has played and toured with the Aliso Ensemble South America, Scandinavia, and Zanzibar with Ear Witness. He released a new recording with the Epistrophy Septet with trombonist Peter Dahlgren. Saxophonist Simon Spang-Hanssen continues to perform and tour with a variety of musicians.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Derek Hogg was born April 8, 1928 in Oldham, England and started playing early in his career with marching bands. He began working in professional ensembles in the Fifties, including those of Freddy Randall, Don Rendell, Joe Saye, Ken Moule, Buddy Featherstonhaugh, Kenny Baker, Sandy Brown and Al Fairweather’s All Stars group.
He played with Vic Lewis in 1959-1960, then with The Squadronaires and Dudley Moore in the first few years of the decade. In 1962 he began working with Danny Moss, with whom he would continue to perform until the end of his career. Hogg went on to perform with Rosemary Clooney, Tony Coe, Digby Fairweather, Budd Johnson, Colin Purbrook, Benny Waters and Teddy Wilson.
Drummer Derek Hogg retired from active performance in 1987.
Confer a dose of an Oldham drummer to those seeking a greater insight about the musicians around the world who are members of the pantheon of jazz…
Derek Hogg: 1928 | DrumsMore Posts: drums,history,instrumental,jazz,music
Daily Dose Of jazz…
Peanuts Hucko was born Michael Andrew Hucko in Syracuse, New York on April 7, 1918. He moved to New York City in 1939 where he played tenor saxophone with Will Bradley, Tommy Reynolds, and Joe Marsala until 1940.
After a brief time with Charlie Spivak, he joined the Glenn Miller Army Air Force Band while serving in Europe during World War II. During this time, Peanuts began to concentrate on the clarinet. He was featured in Miller’s hard-driving versions of Stealin’ Apples and Mission to Moscow. Post-war, he played in the bands of Benny Goodman, Ray McKinley, Eddie Condon and Jack Teagarden. From 1950 to 1955, he was busy in New York as a studio musician for CBS and ABC.
He continued working with Goodman and Teagarden, When he visited Tokyo, Japan in 1951 as the lead alto saxophonist in Benny Goodman’s Orchestra, he listened to clarinetist Shoji Suzuki and his Rhythm Aces. With Suzuki and his band, they recorded the song Suzukake No Michi, which broke sales records in Japan. He then joined the Louis Armstrong All-Stars for two years from 1958 to 1960.
Hucko led his own group at Eddie Condon’s Club from 1964 to 1966. He became known for his work with Frank Sinatra as the clarinet soloist on Cole Porter’s What Is This Thing Called Love?, which was featured on Sinatra’s album In the Wee Small Hours. In 1964, he opened his own nightclub Peanuts Hucko’s Navarre, in Denver, Colorado which featured his singer wife Louise Tobin and Ralph Sutton. From 1966, he was featured regularly at Dick Gibson’s Colorado jazz parties where he appeared with the Ten Greats of Jazz, later called the World’s Greatest Jazz Band.
The Seventies saw Peanuts leading the Glenn Miller Orchestra and toured across the U.S. and abroad. He also toured with the Million Airs Orchestra, and appeared with the Lawrence Welk Orchestra. The next decade he toured with his Pied Piper Quintet before going into semi-retirement with his wife in Denton, Texas. He recorded his last session Swing That Music in 1992 featuring Tobin, trumpeter Randy Sandke, and pianist Johnny Varro.
As a composer he wrote or co-wrote See You Again, A Bientot, Peanut Butter, Blintzes Bagel Boogie, Falling Tears, First Friday, Tremont Place, and Sweet Home Suite. Big band clarinetist Peanuts Hucko, who sometimes played saxophone, transitioned in Fort Worth, Texas on June 19, 2003 at the age of 85.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Manfred Schoof was born April 6, 1936 in Magdeburg, Germany and studied music in Kassel and Cologne, Germany where one of his teachers was the big band leader Kurt Edelhagen.
Schoof performed on Edelhagen’s radio program and toured with Gunter Hampel In the 1960s he started a free jazz band with Alexander von Schlippenbach and Gerd Dudek which became the basis for Manfred Schoof Orchestra. From 1969 to 1971 he was a member of the George Russell Orchestra.He has also worked with Jasper Van’t Hof and the Globe Unity Orchestra.
He composed classical music for the Berlin Philharmonic. His group has participated in performances of Die Soldaten, an operatic work by the contemporary composer Bernd Alois Zimmermann. He was featured in a profile on composer Graham Collier in the 1985 Channel 4 documentary Hoarded Dreams.
Since 2007 he has been chairman of the Union Deutscher Jazzmusiker. Trumpeter and composer Manfred Schoof has been a professor in Cologne since 1990.
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