Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Skip Martin was born Lloyd Vernon Martin on May 14, 1916 in Robinson, Illinois. He was an active arranger during the swing jazz band era of the 1930s and 1940s. working with Count Basie, Charlie Barnet, Benny Goodman and Glenn Miller. He doubled as a reedist with the latter three, and recorded with trumpeter Cootie Williams in the early 1940s as well.
Later in the 1940s Skip worked with Les Brown before moving to Los Angeles, California in the 1950s, where he did extensive work as a staff and freelance orchestrator, studio conductor and popular song arranger Tony Martin, The Pied Pipers, the Andrews and De Castro sister groups, and Barbara Ruick.
Martin recorded three albums as a leader and produced material for West Coast jazz and swing concept albums such as Scheherajazz in 1959 for Somerset Records. In 1963 he joined Nelson Riddle on a dream team of arrangers working on the Sinatra-Burke compilation albums for the ambitious Reprise Musical Repertory Theatre project, featuring the singing members of the Rat Pack, plus Bing Crosby, Rosemary Clooney and Jo Stafford.
In Hollywood, Skip was one of the team of orchestrators contributing to Singin’ in the Rain, Guys and Dolls, and shared arrangement credits with Conrad Salinger on Summer Stock, Kiss Me Kate and Funny Face, where a few songs of the Great American Songbook came from. He retained sole credit as orchestrator for Judy Garland’s comeback vehicle A Star Is Born, which gave us The Man That Got Away and It’s A New World.
Saxophonist, clarinetist, and music arranger Skip Martin transitioned on February 12, 1976, in Los Angeles, California.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Frank Carlson was born May 05, 1914 in New York City, New York. Starting to learn at an early age, there were occasional early rhythm sections that featured a form of sibling musical rivalry between him and his bassit brother Anthony that some bandleaders swear produces the tightest-possible timekeeping. Starting his career during the swing era of the big band, he held down the drums in the Woody Herman Orchestra from 1937 to 1942. During the Forties he was chosen by Fred Astaire to play drums on his movie soundtracks in the 40’s.
Coming out of the big band era Carlson became a busy studio-session drummer who played on a huge number of hit records, including those by Doris Day, Bing Crosby, and Elvis Presley. His cache with hipsters comes mostly from getting the studio call to back the brilliant actor, hellraiser, and occasional recording artist Robert Mitchum.
The drummer also collaborated early on with leaders such as Gene Kardos and Clyde McCoy. Tiring of the pounding required for his drums to be heard above the roaring stampede of Herman’s herd, Frank headed to the West Coast and a freelance career. His phone would ring with a variety of offers, from the aforementioned studio activity to percussion responsibilities with the Los Angeles Philharmonic.
He played on film soundtracks, and supposedly pointed out the chariot race in Ben Hur as one of the few experiences playing behind something that was louder than the Herman band. The height of his busy years were the ’50s and early ’60s. By the time pop groups began playing drums on their own records, drummer Frank Carlson retired to Hawaii. At present, there is no information as to the current status of his living or death.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
John Rhea “Yank” Lawson was born May 3, 1911 in Trenton, Missouri. He started playing music on saxophones and piano before settling on the trumpet as a teenager. He played in the University of Missouri Dance Band, and was soon offered a job with Slatz Randall’s group, with whom he made his recording debut on Mom in 1932. Dropping out of college he had a stint with Wingy Manone before being hired to join Ben Pollack in late 1933.
From 1933 to 1935 Yank worked in the Pollack orchestra, then became a founding member of the Bob Crosby Orchestra. He later worked with Benny Goodman and Tommy Dorsey, but also worked with Crosby again in 1941~1942. Later in the decade he became a studio musician leading his own Dixieland sessions.
By the 1950s he and Bob Haggart created the Lawson-Haggart band and they worked together in 1968 to form the World’s Greatest Jazz Band, a Dixieland group which performed for the next ten years. He recorded for Atlantic, Audiophile, Decca and Jazzology.
Trumpeter Yank Lawson, best known for Dixieland and swing music, transitioned on February 18, 1995 in Indianapolis, Indiana.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Ernst Heinrich “Teddy” Stauffer was born May 2, 1909 In Murten, Fribourg, Switzerland He was dubbed Germany’s “Swing-King” of the 1930s. He formed the band known as the Teddies, which is also billed as the Original Teddies or the International Teddies, which continued after he left in 1941.
Annual trips to the Swiss cities of St. Moritz, Arosa and also a guest appearance in London, England were responsible for the international fame of the Teddies band. Until 1939, he appeared with his Original Teddies-Band especially in Berlin and Hamburg, Germany. He enjoyed his popularity at the 1936 Olympics, had hits with Goody~Goody, and turned Horst Wessel Lied, the National Socialist’s anthem, into a jazz number in 1938. With his jazzy swing music, however, Stauffer increasingly got in trouble with the Reichsmusikkammer, a Nazi institution that promoted “good German music” which was composed by Aryans and seen as consistent with Nazi ideals.
Returning to Switzerland in 1939, he eventually emigrated to the United States and then to Mexico. His reputation as a playboy and a well~known womanizer who was married to Hedy Lamar, did not sway him from also having affairs with Rita Hayworth and Barbara Hutton.
Violinist, saxophonist and bandleader Teddy Stauffer who was also an actor, nightclub owner, and restaurateur transitioned on August 27, 1991 in Acapulco, Mexico at the age of 82.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Henderson Chambers was born on May 1, 1908 in Alexandria, Louisiana and studied at Leland College and Morehouse College before joining the Neil Montgomery band in 1931. He played in Nashville with Doc Banks in 1932, then with Jack Jackson’s Pullman Porters, Speed Webb, Zack Whyte, and Al Sears in Kentucky.
After two years with Tiny Bradshaw in the middle of the Thirties, Chambers moved to New York City where he played with Chris Columbus at the Savoy Ballroom in 1939-40. Following this he played for the next three years with Louis Armstrong.
Later in the 1940s, he worked with Don Redman, Sy Oliver, Lucky Millinder, and Count Basie. By the 1950s he would spend time with Cab Calloway, Doc Cheatham, Duke Ellington, and Mercer Ellington. For a period he worked as a studio musician, however, after joining Ray Charles’s band from 1961 to 1963, Henderson played with Basie again until 1966.
He recorded seven albums with Count Basie, five with Buck Clayton and ten with Gene Ammons, Cat Anderson, Sammy Davis Jr., Ella Fitzgerald, Edmond Hall, Arthur Prysock & Count Basie, Jimmy Rushing, Frank Sinatra & Count Basie, and Ernie Wilkins.
Trombonist Henderson Chambers’ final performances were with Edgar Battle, shortly before his transition from a heart attack on October 19, 1967 in New York City.
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