Daily Dose Of Jazz…

Johnny Smith was born John Henry Smith on June 25, 1922 in Birmingham, Alabama but his family moved north during the Depression living in several cities before their final destination ending in Portland, Maine.

Smith taught himself to play guitar in pawnshops, which let him play in exchange for keeping the guitars in tune. At thirteen years of age he was teaching others to play the guitar. He got his first guitar after one of his students bought a new guitar and gave him his old guitar becoming the first guitar Smith owned.

Dropping out of high school, Johnny joined a local hillbilly band, Uncle Lem and the Mountain Boys, and travelled around Maine earning four dollars a night. His interest in jazz peaked after hearing jazz bands on the radio, started practicing playing jazz, left The Mountain Boys at eighteen and founded a jazz trio called The Airport Boys.

Equally at home playing Birdland or sight-reading scores in the orchestral pit of the New York Philharmonic and was one of the most versatile guitarists of the 1950s. He recorded for Roost Records, with his most critically acclaimed Moonlight In Vermont was named one of Down Beat magazine’s top jazz albums in 1952. His most famous musical composition is the tune “Walk Don’t Run” in 1955. Johnny Smith stepped out of the public eye/ear in the 1960s, having moved to Colorado in 1958 to teach and run a music store and to raise his daughter after the death of his second wife. The cool jazz and mainstream guitarist who actively participated in the jazz scene from 1935 to 1960 passed away on June 11, 2013.

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Daily Dose Of Jazz…

George Gruntz was born in Basel, Switzerland on June 24, 1932. The young pianist won prizes at Zurich Jazz Festivals and in 1958 was pianist with the International Youth Band at the Newport Jazz Festival. While there he accompanied, among others Louis Armstrong and in an instant became famous.

George went on to work with jazz musicians Phil Woods, Roland Kirk, Don Cherry, Chet Baker, Art Farmer, Dexter Gordon, Johnny Griffin and Mel Lewis to name a few. From 1972 to 1994 he served as artistic director for the JazzFest Berlin, composed his first opera, founded the Piano Conclave and the George Gruntz Concert Jazz Band and moderated the TV music series “All You Need Is Love”.

An accomplished arranger and composer, having been commissioned by many orchestra and symphonies, he is also an organist, harpsichordist and keyboardist with more that three dozen albums to his credit. He continued to compose, arrange, record and perform until his death on January 10, 2013.

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Daily Dose Of Jazz…

Donald Harrison, Jr. was born June 23, 1960 in New Orleans, Louisiana. He studied at the New Orleans Center for Creative Arts, and then went on to study at Berklee College of Music. In the 80s he became a Jazz Messenger, played with Roy Haynes, Jack McDuff, Terence Blanchard and Don Pullen, and was part of the re-formed Headhunters band in the Nineties.

By1991 Don had recorded “Indian Blues” capturing the sound and culture of New Orleans’ Congo Square in a jazz context and by mid-decade created the “Nouveau Swing” jazz style, merging the swing beat with many of today’s popular dance styles of music as well as those prominent from his cultural experiences in his hometown.

Harrison has performed in the smooth jazz arena, is a producer, singer and rapper in the traditional Afro-New Orleans Culture and hip-hop genres with his group, The New Sounds of Mardi Gras and is the Big Chief of the Congo Nation Afro-New Orleans Cultural Group that keeps alive the traditions of Congo Square.

Not limited by his music crossing genres in his compositions and playing, Don has created large orchestral pieces, was featured in Spike Lee’s HBO documentary “When The Levees Broke”, directed the New Jazz School for the Isidore Newman School, is the director of Tipitina’s Intern Program and has nurtured a number of young musicians including his nephew and Grammy-nominated trumpeter Christian Scott, Mark Whitfield, Cyrus Chestnut, Christian McBride and the Notorious B.I.G.

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Daily Dose Of Jazz…

Benny Payne was born on June 18, 1907 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania and began playing piano when he was 12, working as an organist at a Philadelphia church as a teenager. His professional career started in 1926, working locally and with Wilbur Sweatman’s band for six months in 1928.

Fats Waller gave him some unofficial lessons; they recorded two piano duets in 1929. Payne worked as accompanist for singer Elizabeth Welch, was a member of the Blackbirds of 1929 show and toured Europe, appeared in Hot Chocolates and accompanied Gladys Bentley.

His foremost claim to fame was as Cab Calloway’s regular pianist during the singer’s prime years from 1931 until he had to join the Army in late 1943, then again after the war until ’46. Although he did not solo much, he was a major asset to the group and gave the big band stability in addition to contributing to the solid rhythm section.

He worked with Pearl Bailey, led his own trio and then started working in 1950 started a long relationship as pianist and musical director for lounge signer Billy Daniels until the singer’s death. In 1964, Payne appeared on Broadway in a revival of “Golden Boy” with Daniels and Sammy Davis, Jr.

He primarily performed in the cabaret world, led only one recording session as a leader for Kapp Records in 1955. Pianist Benny Payne retired and settled in Los Angeles, passing away on January 2, 1986.

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Daily Dose Of Jazz…

Tony Scott was born Anthony Joseph Sciacca June 17, 1921 in Morristown, New Jersey. He attended Julliard School in the early Forties and by the 50s was working with Sarah Vaughan, Billie Holiday and had a young Bill Evans as a sideman. Late in the decade he won on four occasions the Down Beat critics poll for clarinetist in 1955, 1957, 1958 and 1959 and was known for a more “cool” style than Buddy DeFranco.

For most of his career he was held in some esteem in New Age music circles because of his decades-long involvement in music linked to Asian cultures and to meditation. Despite this he remained relatively little known as the clarinet had been in eclipse in jazz since the emergence of bebop. In 1959 he left New York City and the United States touring South America, Europe, Africa and Southeast Asia. This led to his playing in a Hindu temple, spending time in Japan, and releasing Music for Zen Meditation and capturing Japan’s Down Beat poll for best clarinetist.

He settled in Italy in the 1980s, working with Italian jazz musicians such as Franco D’Andrea and Roman Mussolini, followed by an interest in electronica in his later years. Italian director Franco Maresco produced a documentary on the life of Tony Scott, released three years after his death on March 28, 2007. It was titled Tony Scott: The Story of How Italy Got Rid of the Greatest Jazz Clarinetists.

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