Daily Dose Of Jazz…

Warren Bernhardt was born on November 13, 1938 in Wausau, Wisconsin. His early childhood exposure to piano was due to his pianist father and he learned some rudiments of keyboarding from his friends. At five his parents moved to New York City, where he began studying seriously under varied instructors. After his father’s death he suffered a period of depression and quit music opting to study chemistry and physics at the University of Chicago. However, exposure to blues and jazz influenced the rest of his career.

From 1961 to 1964 he worked in Paul Winter’s sextet, which led to his return to New York. He would go on to work with George Benson, Gerry Mulligan, Jeremy Steig among others. He developed a close relationship with the pianist Bill Evans, who served as his mentor. Bernhardt released several solo albums in the Seventies, and eventually became a member of the jazz fusion group Steps Ahead. In 1971, he provided the piano accompaniment on the Don McLean song Crossroads.

Warren has toured as the musical director with Steely Dan and can be heard on their Alive in America album. He has performed on Simon and Garfunkel’s Old Friends tour, on Art Garfunkel’s solo tours, and on the latter’s presentation Across America.

In 2009 he reunited with his 1973 band L’Image, featuring Mike Mainieri, David Spinozza, Tony Levin and Steve Gadd. They released the album L ‘Image 2.0. Pianist Warren Bernhardt transitioned on August 19, 2022 of natural causes.

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Daily Dose Of Jazz…

Brian Leake was born November 9, 1934 in South Wales, Wales. He first played the clarinet in Mike Harris’ jazz band while studying architecture. After completing his military service, he moved to London, England where he worked full-time as a salesman. He was also active in the British trad jazz scene from the early 1960s and his first recordings were made in 1962 with Mick Mulligan and George Melly on At the Jazz Band Ball.

He also played with Dick Charlesworth on P&O ships and in 1964 he appeared on the BBC program Jazz Club with Charlesworth and His City Gents. By the end of the decade it was owned by Alan Elsdon & His Jazz Band. Leake led a mainstream jazz sextet called Sweet & Sour with the bassists Paul Bridge and Ron Rubin were members. He led the Al Fresco Marching Band, in which he played alto saxophone.

He was involved in recordings by The Nottingham Barbers’ Shop Quartet and singer Clinton Ford. Recordings of Leake’s BBC radio appearances from 1979 to 1990 appear on the album Benign Jazz. As a pub pianist, he appeared in an episode of the television series Nick Lewis, Chief Inspector .

Pianist, saxophonist, clarinetist Brian Leake, who composed traditional jazz, transitioned on  November 10, 1992.

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Daily Dose Of Jazz…

Lawrence Benjamin Bunker was born November 4, 1928 in Long Beach, California. At first he played primarily drums, but increasingly he focused on vibraphone. He was later highly regarded for his playing of timpani and various percussion instruments.

Bunker is a dependable and in-demand studio drummer and vibist who achieved distinction recording with Billie Holiday, Ella Fitzgerald, Peggy Lee, Diana Krall, and many other jazz greats. In 1952, he was the drummer in one of Art Pepper’s first groups. The next two years he played drums in some of the earliest of Gerry Mulligan’s groups.

In the 1950s and 1960s he appeared at Howard Rumsey’s Lighthouse in Hermosa Beach, and performed with Shorty Rogers and His Giants and others. The Sixties had him intermittently drumming in the Bill Evans trio and played timpani with the Los Angeles Philharmonic orchestra.

His work in movie soundtracks spanned over fifty years, from Stalag 17 in 1953 and Glengarry Glen Ross in ‘92) to The Incredibles in 2004. Larry’s work included soundtracks by John Williams, Henry Mancini, Quincy Jones, Miklós Rózsa, Jerry Goldsmith, Johnny Mandel, Lalo Schifrin and many other composers.

Drummer, vibraphonist, and percussionist Larry Bunker, who was a central figure on the West Coast jazz scene, transitioned from complications of a stroke in Los Angeles, California at age 76 on March 8, 2005.

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Daily Dose Of Jazz…

Edgar Melvin Sampson was born on October 31, 1907 in New York City, New York. He began playing violin aged six and picked up the saxophone in high school, then started his professional career in 1924 in a violin piano duo with Joe Colman. Through the rest of the 1920s and early 1930s, he played with many big bands, including those of Charlie “Fess” Johnson, Duke Ellington, Rex Stewart and Fletcher Henderson.

In 1934, Sampson joined the Chick Webb outfit and during his period he created his most enduring work as a composer, writing Stompin’ at the Savoy and Don’t Be That Way. Leaving Webb in 1936, his reputation as a composer and arranger led to freelance work with Benny Goodman, Artie Shaw, Red Norvo, Teddy Hill, Teddy Wilson and Webb.

Becoming a student of the Schillinger System in the early 1940s, Edgar continued to play saxophone through the late 1940s and started his own band at the end of the decade. He worked with Latin performers such as Marcelino Guerra, Tito Rodríguez and Tito Puente as an arranger.

He recorded one album under his own name, Swing Softly Sweet Sampson, in 1956. Due to illness, he stopped working in the late Sixties. Composer, arranger, saxophonist, and violinist Edgar Sampson, nicknamed The Lamb, transitioned on January 16, 1973.

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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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