Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Robert Havens was born May 3, 1930 to a musical family in Quincy, Illinois and began studying violin and trombone at age seven and played both instruments throughout his school years. Landing his first professional job with a local dance band at age 12, by 16 his talent as a trombonist was recognized earning him a scholarship from the Interlochen Music Camp in Michigan and he held the first trombone chair in the school’s 250 piece concert band. He later held the first trombone chair in the Quincy Symphony while also playing in many popular dance groups in Illinois.
Leaving Quincy in 1955 after serving in the Illinois National Guard as a bandsman during the Korean War, Bob toured with the Ralph Flanagan Orchestra. In 1956, he joined George Girard’s Dixieland Band at the Famous Door in New Orleans, Louisiana where he met his idol, Jack Teagarden.
In 1957, Bob joined Al Hirt at Dan’s Pier 600 on Bourbon Street when Hirt formed his very first band. The front line consisted of Hirt, Havens and Pete Fountain. During his time in New Orleans, he recorded albums for Good Times Jazz and Vic labels with the Girard band, and on Verve and Audio Fidelity with Hirt. He also recorded about a dozen albums for the Southland label with many other New Orleans musicians.
Bob stayed with this group until 1960 when he was persuaded to move to the West Coast and join the Lawrence Welk Orchestra as a featured soloist on their weekly TV series. His tenure with this show lasted for 23 years until the show ended in 1982.
Following Welk, he continued as a freelance professional, working often with the Bob Crosby Bob Cats and the Benny Goodman Orchestra, then led by clarinetist Peanuts Hucko. From 1985 to 1995, Havens played with the Great Pacific Jazz Band along with Bob Ringwald (lead vocals/piano), Don Nelson (saxophone), and Zeke Zarchy (trumpet).
In 2005, he performed with the North Carolina Pops Orchestra at Campbell University with fellow Welk star Ava Barber in a benefit concert raising money for victims of Hurricane Katrina. Trombonist Bob Havens returned home to Quincy, and continued to record and appear at jazz festivals and concerts throughout the world.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Julian Clifton Matlock was born on April 27, 1907 in Paducah, Kentucky and raised in Nashville from the age of ten. He began playing clarinet when he was 12.
From 1929 to 1934, Matlock replaced Benny Goodman in the Ben Pollack band doing arrangements and performing on clarinet. He was one of the main arrangers for Bob Crosby’s band and joined Crosby’s group in 1935 as clarinettist, playing with both the main Crosby band and the smaller Bobcats group. However, he was often seconded to write full-time for the orchestra and the Bobcats. He stayed with Crosby until the band broke up in 1942.
After the dissolution of Crosby’s group, Matty worked in Los Angeles, California playing for recordings made by a variety of Dixieland groups. In 1955, he appeared in the film Pete Kelly’s Blues, playing clarinet for a band that is seen in a scene in a Kansas City speakeasy in 1927. He would go on to play with Bing Crosby, Ella Fitzgerald, Ray Heindorf, Ben Pollack and Beverly Jenkins.
Dixieland clarinettist, saxophonist and arranger Matty Matlock, who recorded three albums as a leader, passed away on June 14, 1978 in Los Angeles, California.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Alton Purnell was born in New Orleans, Louisiana on April 16, 1911. He sang before playing piano professionally, beginning to do so locally in New Orleans in 1928. He played in the 1930s with Isaiah Morgan, Alphonse Picou, Big Eye Louis Nelson, Sidney Desvigne, and Cousin Joe, and with Bunk Johnson in the middle of the 1940s.
Purnell joined George Lewis’s band after Johnson’s broke up in 1946, and remained there well into the 1950s, including for international tours. In 1957 Purnell relocated to Los Angeles. There he worked with Teddy Buckner, Young Men from New Orleans, Joe Darensbourg, Kid Ory, Barney Bigard, and Ben Pollack. He also recorded extensively as a leader, including for Warner Bros. Records, GHB, and Alligator Jazz. He toured internationally as a guest soloist from 1964.
He sang before playing piano professionally, beginning to do so locally in New Orleans in 1928. He played in the 1930s with Isaiah Morgan, Alphonse Picou, Big Eye Louis Nelson, Sidney Desvigne, and Cousin Joe, and with Bunk Johnson in the middle of the 1940s. Purnell joined George Lewis’s band after Johnson’s broke up in 1946, and remained there well into the 1950s, including for international tours.
Pianist Alton Purnell, who was a longtime Dixieland performer, passed away January 14, 1987 in Inglewood, California.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Morty Corb was born Mortimer Gerald Corb on April 10, 1917 in San Antonio, Texas. He played four years with Bob Crosby’s television program, Morty also worked extensifly as a studio session musician in studios, appearing on some 300 recordings. He worked in Disneyland bands after moving to California in 1947.
Particularly interested in scary, haunted house stuff, in 1973 Morty developed the “Hallowed Haunting Grounds”, a trick or treating evening with a special flair for theatrical effects that made his homemade shenanigan impressive even to the Tinsel Town crowd.
His name has been mentioned alongside Wrecking Crew studio bassist Carol Kaye, he curbed his session availability as the rock and roll era progressed or perhaps regressed. The bassist instead went to work at Disneyland, playing in the attraction’s bands but also mingling with special effects folk.
Corb’s long career began in 1946 and lasted until his death. He performed and recorded with Pete Fountain, Ella Fitzgerald, Nat King Cole, Pearl Bailey, Louis Armstrong, Claude Thornhill, Kid Ory, Jack Teagarden, Benny Goodman, Pete Kelly, Barney Kessel, Claire Austin, George Van Eps, Eartha Kitt, Mel Lewis, Earl Grant, Red Nichols, Wild Bill Davison, Muggsy Spanier, Plas Johnson, Gene Krupa, Louie Bellson, Jonah Jones, and Billy May among numerous others.
Double bassist Morty Corb, whose only album as a leader recorded in Los Angeles, California was his 1957 Strictly From Dixie featuring His Dixie All Stars, passed away on January 13, 1996 Las Vegas, Nevada..
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Joseph Robichaux was born on March 8, 1900 in New Orleans, Louisiana and played piano from a young age and studied at New Orleans University. After working in the O.J. Beatty Carnival, he played with Tig Chambers briefly in 1918, then returned to New Orleans where he played with Oscar Celestin, Earl Humphrey, Lee Collins, and The Black Eagles.
Arranging for the Jones-Collins Astoria Hot Eight in 1929, Joe also recorded with them. He accompanied Christina Gray on record that year. In 1931 he formed his own ensemble, which featured Eugene Ware on trumpet, Alfred Guichard on clarinet and alto saxophone, Gene Porter on tenor sax, and Ward Crosby on drums.
The group journeyed to New York City to record for Vocalion in August 1933, laying down twenty-two mostly stomping, uptempo sides and two alternate takes in a marathon five day recording schedule which included Rene Hall on tenor banjo. Vocalion issued ten records over the next year and two tracks with Chick Bullock vocals were issued under his name on Banner, Domino, Oriole, Perfect, and Romeo.
Working and recording during the height of Jim Crow, problems arose with the musicians’ union in New York that prevented the group from playing live there, so they returned to New Orleans not long after recording. Robichaux expanded the size of his ensemble over the course of the 1930s, with Earl Bostic was among those who joined its ranks.
Touring Cuba in the mid-1930s, the band also recorded for Decca Records in 1936, recording 4 sides in New Orleans, but unfortunately they were all rejected. By 1939 Robichaux’s ensemble disbanded and he found work as a solo performer, mostly in New Orleans. During the 1950s he recorded on R&B recordings and played with Lizzie Miles.
From the late 1950s to the mid Sixties he played with George Lewis, Peter Bocage; and performed at Preservation Hall. Pianist Joe Robichaux passed away of a heart attack at the age of 64 on January 17, 1965 in his hometown.
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