Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Michael Abene ( was born July 2, 1942 in Brooklyn, New York. Growing up in a musical family he was influenced and inspired by his father, grandfather, and aunt who were musicians. He studied composition at the Manhattan School of Music
His reputation for accompanying singers and for arranging music led Michael to accompany Susannah McCorkle, Julius La Rosa, and others. His debut album was a solo piano project recorded in 1984 and released in 1986 titled You Must Have Been a Beautiful Baby.
He recorded with Maynard Ferguson, Dizzy Gillespie, Cal Tjader during the Sixties and Urbie Green in the Seventies. Abene co-produced the album Avant Gershwin, which won the Grammy Award for Best Jazz Vocal Album in 2007.
Pianist Michael Abene continues to perform, produce and conduct.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Eddie Blair was born into a musical family in Johnstone, Renfrewshire, Scotland on June 25, 1927. His father played cornet and violin and as the ten year old took after his father picking up the cornet. Playing with the Johnstone Silver Band gave him the musical grounding that facilitated dance band work before he joined the Royal Signals in 1945.
After demobilization in 1948 Blair attended Glasgow College of Technology, playing with jazz and dance bands in the evenings. He got his first brief taste of London, England with the Ken Mackintosh Band before returning to college. By 1951 his work with Mackintosh and Glasgow pianist George Scott Henderson, whose quintet won the runner-up 1949 Melody Maker ‘All Britain’ contest, had come to the notice of Johnny Dankworth, who invited Blair to replace the Germany-bound Deuchar.
After four years with Dankworth’s Seven and Orchestra, Eddie joined Ted Heath for 11 years, recording regularly and touring the US in 1956 but also recording with Johnny Keating, the Swinging Scots big band, Vic Lewis, Tubby Hayes, Stan Tracey and Ronnie Scott.
Along with Jimmy Deuchar and Aberdonian Bobby Pratt they formed the all-Scottish trumpet section on Hayes’ Jazz for Moderns and his absolute dependability made him a natural for session work. TV programs including The Avengers, Jimmy Rushing, Sacha Distel, blues band Savoy Brown and Mike Oldfield’s sister, Sally all figured in his performing and subsequent session recordings.
At sixty-five in 1992, he retired to concentrate on skiing and golf. Trumpeter Eddie Blair, who in the late 1940s and 1950s became absorbed into the London jazz scene and whose style influenced Deuchar and Kenny Wheeler, transitioned on Boxer Day, December 26, 2020 at age 93 in Rustington, West Sussex, England.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Joseph A. Venuto, Jr. was born on June 20, 1929 in Bronx, New York into an Italian immigrant family where he received his first drum kit from his grandfather. Having had lessons with Henry Adler, he moved on to Phil Kraus to learn mallet percussion. After earning a master’s degree from the Manhattan School of Music, he became a member of the Sauter-Finegan Orchestra, with whom he made his first recordings Doodletown Races on the RCA label in 1953. He was a featured soloist with the orchestra on Solo for Joe and Swingcussion. The DownBeat Reader’s Poll voted him the best vibraphonist that year.
From the mid-1950s, Venuto worked with Billy Byers in the Westchester Workshop, the Kent Harian Orchestra, Bobby Dukoff, and the Johnny Richards Orchestra before joining Radio City Music Hall as a session musician in the recording and television studios. By 1959 he recorded his debut album for Everest Records under his own name.
Between 1953 and 1975 Joe was involved in 104 recording sessions with Jack Teagarden, Kenyon Hopkins, Rex Stewart, The Creed Taylor Orchestra, Irene Kral/Al Cohn Orchestra, Mary Ann McCall, Don Costa, Hal Mooney, Ruth Brown, Gene Krupa and His Orchestra, LaVern Baker, Budd Johnson, Marion Montgomery, Benny Goodman, Shirley Scott, Solomon Burke, Gary McFarland, Johnny Hodges, Hank Jones/Oliver Nelson, and numerous more.
the early 1970s when he was in his Forties, he left New York City and moved to Reno, Nevada. He met, married, performed and recorded with his wife, harpist Bev Colgan, in a harp/vibes duo. Percussionist Joe Venuto, who also played the vibraphone, marimba, bongos and drums, transitioned on Feb. 14, 2019 at age 89.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Thore Swanerud was born June 18, 1919 in Stockholm, Sweden. He started out his professional career playing extensively with major Swedish dance bands in the 1940s, such as those of Simon Brehm, Miff Görling, and Stan Hasselgård.
In 1949-1951 Thore led his own six-piece ensemble, then led smaller groups in the 1950s and 1960s. His associations include work with Ernestine Anderson and James Moody.
He is best remembered for an eight-bar improvised solo he made during a 1949 recording of I’m In The Mood For Love, in a quintet headed by Moody while touring Sweden. Eddie Jefferson created the 1952 song Moody’s Mood For Love in vocalese style by adapting lyrics to Moody’s song. The song later became a jazz standard, covered by many singers.
Pianist, vibraphonist, arranger, conductor, and composer Thore Swanerud, who scored three films, appeared in two and recorded five albums and five singles, transitioned in Stockholm on December 8, 1988.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Dominick Buono was born on June 17, 1917 in North Park, California and started playing trumpet at age 11 with the music group at Nazareth Home, near to the North Park Mission. He would go on to play as a member of the 110-piece Bonham Brothers Greater North Park Boys Music Group, which performed concerts at Balboa Recreation area.
In his early professional career Buono performed trumpet in a variety of west coast-based dance and golf swing rings, including those led by Ken Baker, Cally Holden, Bobby Grain and Vido Musso. In 1939 he experienced fellow trumpeter Harry Wayne. At that time, Musso’s music group was fronted by well-known entertainer Johnny ‘Scat’ Davis and playing engagements at Chicago’s Blackhawk cafe. Buono joined Wayne and remained with the group until the innovator’s death more than 40 years later.
During the 1940s, Harry James, while working the Sherman Resort’s Panther Space with his first music group, invited Nick to be his lead trumpeter. He loved the obvious sound and stage presence of the trumpeter and hired him.
Over the years, Nick recorded and toured with Wayne, playing all over America with extended residencies in Nevada, where he and Wayne both had homes. They toured internationally to the United Kingdom and several other European countries. Happy with his anonymity, he sometimes played solos on radio broadcasts, on songs such as Ciribiribin and Sing, Sing, Sing.
The lead trumpeter inside a big music group is vital, certainly, he could well be considered the key guy. Trumpeter Nick Buono, whose charisma and skill often led to solos in the Wayne group, transitioned on October 14, 1993 in his hometown of North Park.
Bestow upon an inquiring mind a dose of a North Park trumpeter to motivate the perusal of the genius of jazz musicians worldwide whose gifts contribute to the canon…
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