Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Eddie Lee McFadden was born on August 6, 1928 in Baltimore, Maryland and as a small child tried the piano but later settled on guitar. After his military service, he concentrated on jazz guitar. By the 1950s the guitarist was playing in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania clubs. From 1957-58 he was in organist Jimmy Smith’s band and recorded a dozen albums with Smith as part of a trio and sextet. The trio included Donald Bailey on drums.
Staying with organists he next joined Johnny “Hammond” Smith and during the period 1960–63 and one more in 1966, McFadden made eight recordings. Two further sideman appearances on albums came to fruition in the late 1970s.
In November 1967, the Al Grey & Eddie McFadden Quartet played at Count Basie’s Lounge in New York. During the late Seventies he recorded with Sonny Phillips and Don Patterson.
Guitarist Eddie McFadden, who also wrote music for some of his bands, passed away on September 23, 1992 in Philadelphia.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Roy Crimmins was born in London, England on August 2, 1929. Originally self-taught, he was later mentored by the American bass trombonist with the Philarmonia Orchestra, Ray Premru, and the then Ted Heath principal trombonist, Don Lusher. He turned professional when he joined the Mick Mulligan band in 1952.
Collaborating with Alex Welsh in 1954, the pair started their own band and recorded with American guest stars such as the clarinetist Pee Wee Russell and Wild Bill Davison. For the next decade they performed until Roy moved to Germany in 1965 where he kept a consistent line-up and a regular group. Residing in Switzerland from 1970 until 1977 he formed his own band under the pseudonym Roy King and recorded three albums.
Touring Europe extensively during this era, he had his own television show in Vienna, Austria for five years. The late 1970s saw Crimmins returning to England and working once again with Welsh until he died in 1982. In the mid-1980s he was approached to join his Benny Goodman and Duke Ellington orchestras,interpreting the original Lawrence Brown, Tricky Sam Nanton and Juan Tizol trombone solos. He performed at the Nice and North Sea Jazz Festivals.
As an advisor to the Mayor of Eilat, Israel, his involvement in this venture led to the renowned Red Sea Jazz Festival. Soon after, Roy and his family moved to Tel Aviv, Israel where he established the Israel Jazz Ensemble, and was commissioned by Musica Nova to write a concerto, which premiered in the Tel Aviv Museum of Art to great acclaim. His music is still broadcast regularly.
Trombonist, composer and arranger Roy Crimmins, whose career spanned over fifty years, passed away on August 27, 2014 at the age of 85. He is buried on a hill overlooking the Sea of Galilee.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Donald Neff Bagley was born on July 18, 1927 in Salt Lake City, Utah. He received formal training on the double bass, and studied in Los Angeles, California. He played in 1945 with Shorty Sherock and Wingy Manone, and in 1948 with Dick Pierce.
From 1950 to 1953, and sporadically thereafter, Bagley played with Stan Kenton and during his time with Kenton, A Study for Bass by Bill Russo and Bags by Bill Holman were written to feature his playing. Beginning in 1954, he fronted his own ensembles. Between 1950 and 1952, he worked extensively as a session musician with Nat King Cole, Maynard Ferguson, and Dexter Gordon. In the middle of the 1950s, he played in Europe with Zoot Sims, Lars Gullin, Frank Rosolino, and Åke Persson.
From 1956 to 1967, he returned to Kenton and worked with Les Brown. Toward the end of the 1950s he played with Jimmie Rowles, Shelly Manne, and Phil Woods. Don played with Pete Fountain, did a session with Ben Webster, and performed in Japan with Julie London. In the 1970s and 1980s, Bagley composed and arranged for film and television. Between 1976 and 1984, he worked with Burt Bacharach.
Double bassist Don Bagley, who recorded three albums under his own name, passed away on July 26, 2012 at the age of 85.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
John James Chilton was born on July 16, 1932 in London, England to working-class parents and was evacuated to Northamptonshire, where he began playing the cornet at the age of 12. Switching to trumpet at 17, after doing two years in the RAF, in 1952 he formed his own jazz band.
He worked in Bruce Turner’s Jump Band from 1958 to 1963 which also had a film of their exploits called Living Jazz in 1961. He went on to play in Alex Welsh’s Big Band. During the 1960s he played piano on some pop recordings, worked in Mike Daniels’ Big Band. He formed his own Swing Kings band which backed touring American jazz musicians including Buck Clayton, Ben Webster, Bill Coleman and Charlie Shavers. He also recorded The Song of a Road, one of the radio ballads by folk singers Ewan MacColl and Peggy Seeger in the 1950s for the BBC.
He would go on to work with cartoonist Wally Fawkes, form John Chilton’s Feetwarmers, and began accompanying jazz singer George Melly. Together they made records and toured the world for nearly 30 years. In 1983 and 1984 they had their own BBC television series called Good Time George, and appeared on countless other TV shows.
A songwriter and composer, one of his songs, “Give Her A Little Drop More”, was used in the film St Elmo’s Fire. John is one of the few European writers to win a Grammy Award for his album notes on Bunny Berigan and was nominated again in 2000. He won the British Jazz Award for Writer of the Year, his Who’s Who of Jazz was described as one of the essential jazz books, and he wrote award winning books on Coleman Hawkins, Louis Jordan Sidney Bechet and Louis Armstrong. Trumpeter John Chilton continued to play trumpet with the clarinetist Wally Fawkes in London until he passed away on February 25, 2016 in London.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Tommy Vig was born on July 14, 1938 in Budapest, Hungary. Internationally recognized as a child prodigy by the age of 6, he played drums with his father, clarinetist Gyorgy Vig and performed concerts on Budapest State Radio, at the City Theatre, the Academy of Music, and the National Circus. By age 8, he made the album The World Champion Kid Drummer with Austrian jazz players in Vienna, Austria including Hans Koller, Ernst Landl, and the Hot Club of Vienna for Elite Special. The following year his drumming won him the 1947 MGM-Jazz Competition in Budapest and as a result made several recordings with the Chappy’s Mopex Big Band for His Master’s Voice.
Completing his studies at the Bartók Conservatory in 1955 and the Ferenc Erkel Music High School in 1956, due to the crushing of the Hungarian Revolution of 1956, he fled to Vienna, where he played concerts with Fatty George and Joe Zawinul. A move to the United States saw him on scholarship at Juilliard School of Music. Since then he has been writing and conducting concerts.
In 1970 Vig relocated to Los Angeles, California where he worked in the studios of Warner Bros., Fox, Universal, CBS, Columbia, ABC, Disney, Goldwyn, MGM, and Paramount. He played on 1500 studio sessions in Hollywood, two Academy Awards, and produced, directed, and conducted the official 1984 Olympic Jazz Festival for the Los Angeles Olympic Organizing Committee. He wrote the music for 30 films and television shows, and added percussion on the recording of Quincy Jones’s soundtrack to Roots.
Vig has worked with Red Rodney, Don Ellis, Cat Anderson, Terry Gibbs, Art Pepper, Milcho Leviev, Joe Pass, the Miles Davis-Gil Evans Big Band. Frank Sinatra, Sammy Davis Jr., Tony Curtis, Woody Allen, Judy Garland, Tony Bennett and Rod Stewart.
Since 2006, vibraharpist, drummer, percussionist, xylophonist and marimba player Tommy Vig, who has won several awards, has been performing concerts with his wife, appearing on radio and television, and recording albums.
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