Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Hank Duncan was born Henry James Duncan on October 26, 1894 in Bowling Green, Kentucky. Little is written about his childhood, however he is better known for his work with Fess Williams, King Oliver, Tommy Ladnier, Sidney Bechet, Charles “Fat Man” Turner, and many others.
He toured extensively with Fats Waller. Duncan was sometimes referred to as The Little Man From Memory Lane.
Pianist Hank Duncan transitioned on June 7,1968 in Long Island, New York.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Edmond “Doc” Souchon was born October 25, 1897 in New Orleans, Louisiana and received schooling to become a physician in Chicago, Illinois. During this period he was playing regularly in groups such as the Six and Seven Eighths Band in the 1910s.
Souchon was involved early on in the management of the New Orleans Jazz Club, and served as president of the organization early in its existence. He helped oversee a reconstitution of the Six and Seven Eighths Band in 1945 as a four-piece, and made many recordings of early string band tunes through the early 1960s. Alongside this, Souchon recorded with many noted New Orleans jazz mainstays, such as Johnny Wiggs, Sherwood Mangiapane, Papa Jack Laine, Raymond Burke, and Paul Barbarin.
He had his own radio program on WWL, and edited the journal Second Line from 1951 until his death in 1968. Aside from his contributions to jazz journals such as Jazz and Jazz Report, Souchon compiled a photo book with Al Rose entitled New Orleans Jazz: A Family Album, first published in 1967 and subsequently revised in 1978 and 1984.
He helped establish the National Jazz Foundation in 1942, as well as the New Orleans Jazz Museum about a decade later. His record collection, which included some 2,000 recordings of New Orleans jazz, was bequeathed to the New Orleans Public Library, and many other music-related materials he collected are now in the possession of the William Ransom Hogan Jazz Archive at Tulane University.
Guitarist and writer Doc Souchon, who was a pivotal figure in the historical preservation of New Orleans jazz in the middle of the 20th century, transitioned on August 24, 1968.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Lawrence Henry Marrero was born on October 24, 1900 in New Orleans, Louisiana, on October 24, 1900. He grew up in a musical family with three brothers who became musicians, bassist Eddie, banjoist John and Simon who played tuba and bass, and their bassist father Billy. He was taught music by his father, and by 1918 he became a professional player.
In 1919 he got his first regular job on banjo with Wooden Joe Nicholas’s Camelia Brass Band and from 1920 he joined on bass drum the Young Tuxedo Brass Band. Marrero was one of the musicians who took part in the first recordings made by Bunk Johnson In 1942, and continued playing and recording in the New Orleans jazz revival. He was featured on many recordings and was a regular member of the George Lewis band from the late 1930s until ill health caused him to quit full-time performance in 1954. He occasionally played with his own band after that.
Marrero was considered to be a steady player with a good tone, however, he never recorded as a leader and rarely did he take solos. Banjoist Lawrence Marrero, who altered the spelling of his name to Laurence, transitioned on June 6, 1959.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Patrick Cairns “Spike” Hughes was born October 19, 1908 in London, England and spent his childhood mostly with his mother, a psychiatrist who was involved in extensive travel in France and Italy, as well as a more settled period of education at Perse School in Cambridge. By 1923 when he was 15 he spent an extended period in Vienna, Austria studying composition with Egon Wellesz.
He began writing his first music criticism for The Times of London and heard his first jazz at the Weinberg Bar, Weihburggasse, a band led by trumpeter Arthur Briggs. Returning to the UK in 1926, Hughes had a solo cello sonata performed in London and wrote the incidental music for two theatre productions in Cambridge.
His interest in jazz was stimulated by the London revue Blackbirds, starring Florence Mills and Edith Wilson in 1926. It was an enthusiasm he shared with his friends, the composers Constant Lambert and William Walton and the conductor Hyam Greenbaum. He taught himself double bass using a German string bass made of tin, the spike of which led to his nickname. He formed his own jazz group in 1930 and was one of the earliest artists signed to Decca Records in England and recorded over 30 sessions between 1930 and 1933.
Originally billed as Spike Hughes and his Decca-Dents, but it was changed either to his Dance Orchestra or Three Blind Mice for smaller sessions. From 1931, he played regularly with the Jack Hylton Band and his career in jazz culminated in 1933 with a visit to New York, where he arranged three recording sessions involving members of Benny Carter’s and Luis Russell’s orchestras with Coleman Hawkins and Henry “Red” Allen from Fletcher Henderson’s band.
After the New York recordings, Spike ceased performing jazz and orchestrated and conducted shows for C B Cochran and using the pseudonym Mike wrote jazz reviews for Melody Maker, Daily Herald and The Times from 19531 to 1967. He established performance and recording opportunities for American bands in England.
He wrote radio plays accompanied by his own musical scores for the BBC, writing and broadcasting, conducting the BBC Theatre Orchestra, and for BBC Television. As a writer, regular BBC broadcaster and critic his subjects also included food and travel. He wrote sixteen composition, five film scores, fifteen books and recorded four albums,
Composer, arranger and double bassist Spike Hughes, who became better known as a broadcaster and humorous author, transitioned on February 2, 1987.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
George Washington was born October 18, 1907 in Brunswick, Georgia and raised in Jacksonville, Florida. He began playing trombone at age ten and attended Edward Waters College in the early-1920s.
Washington relocated to Philadelphia in 1925 and played with J.W. Pepper before moving to New York City shortly thereafter. In New York, he studied under Walter Damrosch at the New York Conservatory, playing with various ensembles in the late 1920s.
In 1931, he began playing with Don Redman, and gigged with Benny Carter in 1932 and Spike Hughes in 1933. In the mid-1930s, he played and arranged for the Mills Blue Rhythm Band and worked with Red Allen and Fletcher Henderson. From 1937 to 1943, he played in Louis Armstrong’s orchestra. After his tenure with Armstrong he moved to the West Coast, and played with Horace Henderson, Carter again, and Count Basie.
From 1947 he led his own ensemble, playing in California and the Las Vegas Strip in Nevada. He and drummer Johnny Otis collaborated often, and in 1960 Washington worked with Joe Darensbourg. He did freelance work as a player and arranger later in his life. To date there is no record of his death
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