Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Kenny Ball was born Kenneth Daniel Ball on May 22, 1930 in Ilford, Essex, England. At the age of 14 he left school to work as a clerk in an advertising agency, but also started taking trumpet lessons. He began his career as a semi-professional sideman in bands in addition to being a salesman and continued working at the ad agency.
Turning professional in 1953 Kenny played the trumpet in bands led by Sid Phillips, Eric Delaney, Charlie Galbraith and Terry Lightfoot before forming his own trad jazz band, Kenny Ball and his Jazzmen in 1958. His Dixieland band was at the forefront of the early 1960s UK jazz revival.
Ball’s 1961 recording of Cole Porter’s Samantha became a hit and they reached No. 2 by the end of the year on the UK Singles Chart. The following year they hit the Hot 100 with Midnight In Moscow, selling over a million copies, earning them a gold record. Further hits followed such as March of the Siamese Children from the King and I, however crossing to the U.S. though making the cover of New Musical Express along with Cliff Richards, Brenda Lee, Joe Brown, Craig Douglas and Frank Ifield, they remained a one-hit wonder.
By 1963 Ball became the first British jazzman to become an honorary citizen of New Orleans and appeared in the film Live It Up!, featuring Gene Vincent. In 1968 the band appeared with Louis Armstrong during his last European tour and later appeared on BBC Television’s review of the 1960s music scene Pop Go the Sixties. His continued success was aided by guest appearances on every edition of the first six series of the BBC’s Morecambe and Wise Show and performed at the wedding of Prince Charles and Lady Diana.
Kenny enjoyed one of the longest unbroken spells of success for trad bands and over the course of his career he charted fourteen Top 50 it singles, reached Number 1 collaborating with Acker Bilk and Chris Barber on a joint album, The Best of Ball, Barber and Bilk. In 2001 he recorded on the album British Jazz Legends Together that also featured Bilk, Don Lusher, John Chilton & The Feetwarmers, John Dankworth, Humphrey Littleton and George Melly.
Trumpeter Kenny Ball continued to tour until shortly before his death, performing his last concert with Bilk and Barber at Manchester’s Bridgewater Hall on February 21st, two weeks before he passed away on March 7, 2013 at age 82 in Basildon Hospital in Essex, where he was being treated for pneumonia.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Born Arthur James Singleton on May 14, 1898 in Bunkie, Louisiana, Zutty” Singleton was raised in New Orleans. By the time he was seventeen he was working professionally with Steve Lewis in 1915. He served with the Navy during World War I and after returning to New Orleans he worked with Papa Celestin, Big Eye Louis Nelson, John Robichaux and Fate Marable.
Leaving for St. Lois, Missouri, he played in Charlie Creath’s band before moving on to Chicago, Illinois. There he played with Doc Cooke, Dave Peyton, Jimmy Noone as well as theater bands. He joined Louis Armstrong’s band with Earl Hines and between 1928-1929 performed on the landmark recordings Louis Armstrong and His Hot Five. He then moved to New York City with Armstrong.
During the next decade he would play with Armstrong and also Bubber Miley, Tommy Ladnier, Fats Waller, Jelly Roll Morton and Otto Hardwick. He also played in the band that backed Bill Robinson. In 1934, Singleton returned to Chicago but by 1937 was back in New York playing with Mezz Mezzrow and Sidney Bechet.
1943 saw Zutty moving to Los Angeles, where he led his own band, played for motion pictures, and in 1944 was featured on Orson Welles’s CBS radio series, The Orson Welles Almanac. He later worked with Slim Gaillard, Wingy Manone, Eddie Condon, Nappy Lamare, Art Hodes, Oran “Hot Lips” Page and Max Kaminsky.
Between 1943 and 1950 he appeared in the films Stormy Weather, New Orleans and Young Man With A Horn. Retiring after suffering a stroke in 1970, drummer Zutty Singleton passed away in New York City on July 14, 1975, aged 77.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
King Oliver was born Joseph Nathan Oliver on May 11, 1885 in Aben, Louisiana. He was also known as Joe Oliver and moved to New Orleans in his youth. He first studied the trombone and then changed to cornet. From 1908 to 1917 he played cornet in New Orleans brass and dance bands, and also in the city’s red-light district known as Storyville.
Oliver co-led a band with trombonist Kid Ory that was considered to be New Orleans’ hottest and best in the late 1910s. He gained great popularity in New Orleans across economic and racial lines, and was in demand for music jobs from rough working-class black dance halls to white society debutante parties.
With the closing of Storyville, Joe packed up his wife and child and moved to Chicago, Illinois in 1918. There he found work with clarinetist Lawrence Duhé, bassist Bill Johnson, trombonist Roy Palmer and drummer Paul Barbarin, eventually becoming the leader. By 1922 he was billing himself as King Oliver and his Creole Jazz Band at the Royal Gardens cabaret. His band included Louis Armstrong, Baby Dodds, Johnny Dodds, Lil Hardin, Honoré Dutrey and William Manuel Johnson. The following year they recorded for Gennett, Okeh, Paramount and Columbia record labels, bringing Dixieland to the attention of a much wider audience.
The mid-Twenties saw King enlarging his band to nine musicians, began performing more written arrangements with jazz solos, disbanding to do more freelance work in New York, Over the course of his career Oliver pioneered the use of mutes, including the rubber plumber’s plunger, derby hat, bottles and cups but his favorite mute was a small metal mute made by the C.G. Conn Instrument Company. He performed mostly on cornet, but like many cornet players he switched to trumpet in the late 1920s.
Oliver was also a talented composer, and wrote many tunes that are still regularly played, including Dippermouth Blues, Sweet Like This, Canal Street Blues, and Doctor Jazz. His recording Wa Wa Wa with the Dixie Syncopators can be credited with giving the name wah-wah to such techniques.
As an educator he influenced young New Orleans and Chicago players like Tommy Ladnier, Paul Mares, Muggsy Spanier, Johnny Wiggs Frank Guarente, Louis Panico and Louis Armstrong. The latter he taught, gave him his job in Kid Ory’s band and then summoned him to Chicago to play in his band.
As a businessman his acumen was often less than his musical ability losing jobs at the Savoy Ballroom and the Cotton Club by holding out for moe money than they were willing to pay. Ellington took the Cotton Club job and catapulted to fame
Oliver’s managers stole money from him and then the Great Depression hit losing his life savings to a failed Chicago bank, and bookings became lean.Oliver also had health problems, suffering from the gum disease pyorrhea, caused by his love of sugar sandwiches. He began employing younger musicians to play solos like up-and-coming trumpeter Henry “Red” Allen. Coupled with health problems suffering from periodontitis and his diminished capacity to play left him no choice but to stop playing by 1937.
Cornetist and bandleader King Oliver died in poverty of arteriosclerosis in a Savannah rooming house on April 10, 1938 at age 52, too broke to afford treatment. His sister spent her rent money to have his body brought to New York, where he was buried at Woodlawn Cemetery in the Bronx. In attendance were his friends Louis Armstrong, Clarence Williams, Coleman Hawkins, Lionel Hampton, W.C. Handy, Milt Jackson, and Max Roach. In 2007 he was inducted as a charter member of the Gennett Records Walk of Fame in Richmond, Indiana.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Papa Bue Jensen was born Arne Bue Jensen on May 8, 1930 in Copenhagen, Denmark, At an early age, he became fascinated with jazz, prompted by records from his brother with Harry James, Arte Shaw, Tommy Dorsey, Glenn Miller, Bert Ambrose, Bunk John and George Lewis in the stack.
After World War II, Jensen became a sailor for a few years, visiting ports all around the world, where he had an opportunity to listen to enjoy their music venues. It was around this time that he started to play jazz. He borrowed money to by a slide trombone, was taught the seven basic positions of the slide by a Royal Danish Orchestra musician, and the rest he taught himself. Soon he was playing with other young jazz musicians, performing in clubs and bars around Copenhagen.
He played in the Royal Jazzman band, that later became the Bohana Jazz Band, Henrik Johansen’s Jazz Band and recorded as a sideman with the Saint Peter Street Stompers in the 1950s. Papa Bue also worked with the Bonanza Jazz Band, Chris Barber, Adrian Bentzon and Johansen. During this period of his career he was immersed in the Nyhavn music scene jamming with other young jazz musicians. In 1956 he founded and led the New Orleans Jazz Band, and was given the nickname Papa Bue as he was the on father in the group.
In late 1957, after an article by Shel Silverstein was published in which he referred to them as the Danish Vikings, Jensen renamed the ensemble the Viking Jazz Band. They released their first album in 1958 and their sophomore project Schlafe Mein Prinzchen released in 1960, sold over one million copies, garnering them gold status.
Though bebop was in at the time he remained in the Dixieland style, but was influenced by early swing and is considered one of the most significant proponents of his genre. The group remained active into the 1990s, recording and/or performing with George Lewis, Champion Jack Dupree, Art Hodes, Wild Bill Davison, Wingy Manone, Edmond Hall, Albert Nicholas, Earl Hines, Stuff Smith and Ben Webster.
Papa Bue’s Viking Jazz Band recorded Bent Fabricius-Bjerre’s theme music for the Olsen Gang series, and was awarded the Golden Keys To The City in 1969 after performing at the 1969 New Orleans Jazz Festival. In 1989 he was awarded the Ben Webster Prize of Honor.
Trombonist Papa Bue Jensen, who released a large number of albums on Storyville, timeless and Music Mecca record labels though few are in print, passed away on November 2, 2011, at the age of 81.
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Dave Tough, born April 26, 1907 in Oak Park, Illinois was sometimes Davie or Davey Tough. His decision to become a drummer was not supported by his family or community, so he ventured from his upper-middle class world to the evolving jazz scene of Chicago’s Southside, breaking both cultural and musical boundaries.
Dave worked Bud Freeman, Woody Herman, Eddie Condon, Red Nichols, Red Norvo, Tommy Dorsey, Bunny Berigan and Benny Goodman. Appearing as the poet-drummer character Dick Rough in the Autobiographical Novel of Kenneth Rexroth, he played at Chicago’s legendary Green Mask,
In the later 1920s, Tough floated between Nice and Paris doing freelance work, touring and recording throughout Europe mostly on the Tri-Ergon label in the early Thirties. During this overseas period he worked loosely with George Carhart and while in Paris he had extensive sessions with Mezz Mezzrow.
Though without official record,he spent portions of 1942-44 in the Navy playing behind Shaw’s Naval Band. He only led one album, a small-sided release by the Jamboree label. Although he had varied successes, one being with the Artie Shaw band, Dave also had difficulties with alcoholism and illness that caused him to lose a number of prominent jobs.
Although he was not known as a bebop drummer, he was a fan and admired the drumming of Max Roach. He was not a flashy, crowd-pleasing drummer like Gene Krupa or Buddy Rich, he was widely admired by other musicians for his taste and subtle rhythmic drive. Dixieland and swing drummer Dave Tough, described as the most important of the drummers of the Chicago circle in the 1930s and 1940s, passed away from a cerebral trauma after falling down on a Newark, New Jersey street on December 9, 1948 at age 41. He was inducted into the Big Band and Jazz Hall of Fame in 2000.
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