Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Darnell Howard was born on July 25, 1895 in Chicago, Illinois and began playing violin at age seven, picking up clarinet and saxophone later in his youth. He began playing professionally with John H. Wickcliffe’s Ginger Orchestra from 1913 to 1916.
Moving to New York City in 1917, Darnell played and recorded as a violinist with W. C. Handy, then headed back to Chicago, where he led his own band, played with Charlie Elgar before joining James P. Johnson’s Plantation Days Band, which toured London, England in 1923. The following year he toured Europe again as a member of the Singing Syncopators that also played in Shanghai later in the decade.
His Chicago years saw him playing with Carroll Dickerson, King Oliver, and Erskine Tate, Jerome Carrington, Dave Peyton and Earl Hines. He led a quartet in 1928, but his jazz violin is featured on the Hines band’s February, 1933 recording of the Earl Hines/Jimmy Mundy swing composition Cavernism.
In the late 1930s, Howard was freelancing into the Forties and playing with Fletcher Henderson and Coleman Hawkins, and putting together another band in Chicago from 1943 to 1945. He would go on to play with Kid Ory in California for part of 1945, then returned to Chicago and back again in 1948 with Muggsy Spanier until 1953. His only recordings as a leader were done while he worked with Bob Scobey in 1950, amounting to only four sides.
Through the 1950s he played with Jimmy Archey, rejoined Earl Hines to play Dixieland in San Francisco, California and recorded with Don Ewell on his 1956–1957 albums. Sometime after 1962 Darnell suffered a prolonged illness and after recuperating he played with Elmer Snowden, Burt Bales, and his own groups. His final tour in 1966, was in Europe as a member of the New Orleans All-Stars, then he fell ill again. Clarinetist, violinist and alto saxophonist Darnell Howard transitioned on September 2, 1966 in San Francisco.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Ronnie Lang was born July 24, 1929 in Chicago, Illinois. Sometimes spelled Ronny, his professional début was with Hoagy Carmichael’s Teenagers. He went on to play for a year with Earle Spencer in 1946, then with Ike Carpenter, and Skinnay Ennis the following year.
Gained attention during his two tenures with Les Brown’s Orchestra between 1949–50 and 1953 to 1956, he recorded with the Dave Pell Octet in the mid-1950s. During this time he moved to California and attended Los Angeles State College of Applied Arts and Sciences studying music and woodwinds.
By 1958 he had become a prolific and busy studio musician in Los Angeles, often employed by Henry Mancini. Ronnie played the iconic sax melodic line in Bernard Herrmann’s score for the 1976 movie Taxi Driver. He also recorded with Pete Rugolo, Bob Thiele, and Peggy Lee.
Alto saxophonist Ronnie Lang, who also played flute and clarinet in the bop, progressive, big band, swing idioms, is now retired at 92.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Lou McGarity was born Robert Louis McGarity on July 22, 1917 in Athens, Georgia. He started out playing violin when he was seven and didn’t switch to trombone until he was 17. He studied at the University of Georgia from 1934-36, gigged locally around the South and toured with Ben Bernie from 1938-40
He hit the big time with Benny Goodman from 1940-42, becoming the first trombonist to play both with the big band and his smaller groups. During the war years 1942-44 he worked with Raymond Scott’s Orchestra at CBS, and after military service teamed up with his friend and fellow trombonist Cutty Cutshall and rejoined Goodman in ‘46.
Lou was a busy studio musician in New York City beginning in 1947 while performing in clubs at night with Eddie Condon and playing Dixieland with the Lawson/Haggard band. He worked with Bob Crosby in the mid-’60s andwas a member of the World’s Greatest Jazz Band at the end of the 1960s. He recorded with Urbie Green, J.J. Johnson, Kenny Davern, Jimmy McPartland, Charlie Parker, Cootie Williams and Bobby Hackett among others.
Trombonist Lou McGarity, who recorded as a leader and played in the big band, swing and Dixieland genres until bad health shortened his life, transitioned on August 28, 1971 in Alexandria, Virginia.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Dick Collins was born Richard Harrison Collins on July 19, 1924 in Seattle, Washington into a musical family where several of his parents and grandparents were professional musicians. He attended Mills College in 1946–47, where he studied music formally under Darius Milhaud, and moved with Milhaud to Paris, France for the next academic year. As a student at Mills, he first met Dave Brubeck, and while in Paris he played with Hubert Fol and Kenny Clarke.
Returning to the States he landed in San Francisco, California where he began playing with Brubeck in his Bay Area-based octet, then completed his bachelor’s degree in music at San Francisco State College. In the 1950s he performed and recorded with Charlie Barnet, Charlie Mariano, Nat Pierce, Paul Desmond, Cal Tjader, and Woody Herman. By 1957 Dick was working with Les Brown, an association that continued for nearly a decade that included worldwide tours.
In 1965, Collins took a position as a music librarian, which he held through 1967, and took a second position from 1971 to 1986, mostly receding from active performance. In later years, he still occasionally performed live or recorded, including with Nat Pierce, Mary Ann McCall, and Woody Herman.
Trumpeter Dick Collins transitioned on April 19, 2016 in Hesperia, California, at the age of 91.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Milton Brent Buckner was born July 10, 1915 in St. Louis, Missouri to parents who encouraged him to learn to play piano, but they both died when he was nine years old. Milt and his younger brother Ted were sent to Detroit where they were adopted by members of the Earl Walton band, trombonist John Tobias, drummer George Robinson fostered Milt and reedplayer Fred Kewley fostered Ted. He studied piano for three years from the age 10, then at 15 began writing arrangements for the band. He and his brother went on to become active in the Detroit jazz world in the 1930s.
He first played in Detroit with the McKinney’s Cotton Pickers and then with Cab Calloway. In 1941, he joined Lionel Hampton’s big band, and for the next seven years served as its pianist and staff arranger. Buckner was part of a Variety Revue of 1950 organized by Lionel Hampton at the Cavalcade of Jazz concert held at Wrigley Field in Los Angeles, California. He led a short-lived big band of his own for two years, but then returned to Hampton’s in 1950.
In 1952, Milt formed his own trio and pioneered the use of the electric Hammond organ. He often played in Europe in the late 1960s. His last studio session took place in Paris. France on July 4, 1977. He is also known for the use of his song The Beast in the title menu of the video game, Battlefield: Bad Company.
Pianist and Hammond B3 organist Milt Buckner, who pioneered the parallel chords style that influenced Red Garland, George Shearing, Bill Evans, and Oscar Peterson, transitioned from a heart attack on July 27, 1977, in Chicago, Illinois, at the age of 62.
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