Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Turk Murphy, born Melvin Edward Alton Murphy on December 16, 1915 in Palermo, California. Serving in the Navy during World War II, during which he played and recorded with Lu Watters and Bunk Johnson. In 1952, he headed Turk Murphy’s Jazz Band, which included pianist Wally Rose, clarinetist Bob Helm, banjoist Dick Lammi, and tubist Bob Short, and had a residency at San Francisco North Beach’s Italian Village. The band appeared twice on The Ed Sullivan Show, in 1959 and 1965.
1979 saw Robert Schulz joining the band for eight years with various members joining as others departed. They included trumpeters Don Kinch and Leon Oakley; pianists Pete Clute and Ray Skjelbred; banjoist Carl Lunsford, tubist and trombonist Bill Carroll, singers Pat Yankee and Jimmy Stanislaw.
Murphy was the singer for the 1971 Sesame Street cartoon shorts, The Alligator King and No. 9 Martian Beauty, animated and produced by his friend Bud Luckey. Murphy arranged and performed on many of Luckey’s other Sesame Street animated shorts.
Murphy’s band played his nightclub, Earthquake McGoons, which opened in 1960 and moved three times before closing in 1984. He got an opportunity to play Carnegie Hall in 1987. Trombonist and bandleader Turk Murphy, who played traditional and Dixieland jazz, passed away on May 30, 1987 in San Francisco, California.
Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Paul D. “Polo” Barnes was born on November 22, 1901 in New Orleans, Louisiana, the brother of Emile Barnes. He attended St. Paul Lutheran College and began playing alto saxophone in 1919. He and Lawrence Marrero formed the Original Diamond Band, later known as the Young Tuxedo Band.
In 1922 he was with Kid Rena, then the Maple Leaf Orchestra in 1923, and Papa Celestin’s Original Tuxedo Band. Later that year; Celestin’s group recorded his composition My Josephine, which became quite popular. He went on to play with Chick Webb in 1927 and with King Oliver three times between 1927 and 1935. He toured with Jelly Roll Morton in 1928-29.
In 1932-33 he led his own band then through that decade he played with Chester Zardis and Kid Howard. He played in Algiers, Louisiana in a Navy band during World War II, then returned to work with Celestin from 1946 to 1951. The Fifties saw him moving to California and left music, however, upon his return to New Orleans in 1959, he played with Paul Barbarin in 1960. but from 1962-65 joined the Young Men from New Orleans band that played on a riverboat at Disneyland.
Returning once again to New Orleans in 1964 he played at Preservation Hall and Dixieland Hall. While touring Europe in 1973-74, poor health ended his career in 1977. Clarinetist and saxophonist Polo Barnes, a mainstay of the New Orleans jazz scene of the 1920s and 1930s, passed away on April 3, 1981 in his hometown.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Achille Joseph Baquet was born on November 15, 1885 in New Orleans, Louisiana into a musical family whose patriarch, Théogène, led the Excelsior Brass Band. He learned the clarinet from Luis “Papa” Tio and was thought to have been a member of the Whiteway Jazz Band.
Moving to New York City in 1918, then ragtime pianist, vocalist, and leader Jimmy Durante, the only member not from New Orleans, hired him to play with the Original Dixieland Jazz Band that was founded by Johnny Stein. He would go on to work with Papa Jack Laine’s Reliance Brass Band and was part of the clarinet section of the Happy Schilling Dance Orchestra.
Baquet’s credits as a composer include Why Cry Blues, written with Jimmy Durante. According to Papa Jack Laine, he co-wrote Livery Stable Blues with Acide “Yellow” Nunez.
Clarinetist and saxophonist Achille Baquet, who was a light-skinned black man able to pass for white, passed away on November 20, 1956 in his hometown.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Donald Tyson Ewell was born in Baltimore, Maryland on November 14, 1916. He played with Bill Reinhardt’s Jazz, Ltd. band in Chicago, Illinois in 1947, 1948, and 1949. From 1956 to 1962, he was a member of the Jack Teagarden band and after Teagarden’s death, he went on tour in Europe.
Returning to New Orleans, Louisiana he performed in clubs and hotels. From 1976 to 1978 he performed in concert while battling alcoholism, he lived with his friend King Denton, the manager of a jazz club where Don was Artist in Residence.
He worked with Sidney Bechet, Kid Ory, George Lewis, George Brunis, Muggsy Spanier, and Bunk Johnson. He recorded twenty-one albums as a leader and seven as a sideman with Barbara Dane, Doc Evans, Bunk Johnson, Jack Teagarden. Moving back to Maryland. After his daughter’s death from cancer and after two strokes, stride pianist Don Ewell passed away on August 9, 1983.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
David Friedrich Dallwitz was born on October 25, 1914 in Freeling, South Australia. He studied violin as a child and after moving with his family to Adelaide, South Australia in 1930, he developed an aptitude for jazz piano. Beginning in 1933 for two years he studied concurrently at the South Australian School of Art and the North Adelaide School of Fine Art.
He led the Southern Jazz Group, a Dixieland band that performed at the first Australian Jazz Convention. Abandoning jazz for a period, he studied at the Elder Conservatorium of Music, composing symphonic and chamber music and taking up bassoon and cello. He became involved in composing and arranging music for revues, leading to the formation of the Flinders Street Revue Company, for which he also directed and played piano.
Returning to jazz in 1970, he resumed recording. He worked with Australian progressive musicians such as John Sangster, Bob Barnard, and Len Barnard. He led the Dave Dallwitz Ragtime Ensemble.
Pianist, bandleader, composer, and arranger, painter, and art teacher Dave Dallwitz, who led jazz, Dixieland and ragtime bands, passed away on March 24, 2003 in Adelaide after finishing the artwork for his album The Dave Dallwitz Big Band live at Wollongong, December 1984.
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