Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Oliver Edward Mitchell was born April 8, 1927 in Los Angeles, California. He was the son of Harold Mitchell, lead trumpeter for MGM Studios, who taught him to play the trumpet.
Mitchell would go on to play in big bands for Harry James, Buddy Rich and Pérez Prado, among others, as well as the NBC Symphony Orchestra. In the 1960s, he joined The Wrecking Crew, a group of studio and session musicians who played anonymously on many records for popular singers of the time, as well as theme songs for television, film scores, and advertising jingles.
Mitchell was an original member of Herb Alpert’s Tijuana Brass. He would go on to have his own bands, Ollie Mitchell’s Sunday Band, and the Olliephonic Horns
Moving to Puako, Hawaii in 1995 he founded the Horns. In 2010, he published his memoir, Lost, But Making Good Time: A View from the Back Row of the Band. He stopped playing the trumpet toward the end of his life, due to macular degeneration and hand problems from an automobile accident.
Trumpeter Ollie Mitchell, who recorded with Chet Baker, Harry James, Stan Kenton, Irene Kral, Shorty Rogers, Pete Rugolo, Dan terry and Gerry Wilson among others, suffered from cancer and passed away on May 11, 2013.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Pat La Barbera, born Pascel Emmanuel LaBarbera on April 7, 1944 in Mt. Morris, New York. He moved to Toronto, Ontario, Canada in 1974, and is a member of the faculty at Humber College.
La Barbera began working with Elvin Jones in 1975, touring Europe with him in 1979. While working with Buddy Rich, he also worked in groups led by Woody Herman and Louie Bellson.
Playing with Carlos Santana, Pat has played a major role in the development of a generation of Canadian saxophonists. In 2000, he won a Juno Award for Best Traditional Instrumental Jazz Album for Deep in a Dream.
Tenor, alto and soprano saxophonist, clarinetist, and flautist Pat LaBarbera, most notable for his work as a soloist in Buddy Rich bands from 1967 to 1973, continues to perform and educate.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Ola Onabulé was born in Islington, London, England on March 30, 1964 and at the age of seven he was sent to Lagos, Nigeria, where he spent the next ten years in school. When he was seventeen he returned to the UK to study at Millfield School, then attended law school, almost completing a three-year degree before deciding to enroll at Middlesex Polytechnic for an arts degree. While studying, he began to perform in London clubs and venues, writing and performing his own material.
Onabulé’s career spans nearly two decades, releasing his music on his own label, Rugged Ram Records, after recording for Elektra and Warner Bros. His debut album, More Soul Than Sense, was released in 1995.
He has performed internationally, performed with Germany’s WDR Big Band and the SWR Big Band and appeared with the German Film Orchestra Babelsberg in Potsdam for a concert. Ola has played the main stages of the Montreal Jazz Festival and Vancouver Jazz Festival. A return to Canada in 2010 he performed at Victoria Jazz Festival, Vancouver Jazz Festival, and the Edmonton Jazz Festival. His list of credits reads like a who’s who of bog bands and small combos and continues to grow.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Maurice James Simon was born March 26, 1929 in Houston, Texas. Studying the saxophone in high school he was a classmate of Eric Dolphy during the 1945-46 school year. He appeared on an early 1945 Los Angeles, California recording led by Russell Jacquet along with Teddy Edwards, Charles Mingus, Bill Davis and Chico Hamilton.
1948 saw him again with Jacquet as leader, in an all-star band recording in Detroit, Michigan along with Sonny Stitt, Leo Parker, Sir Charles Thompson, Al Lucas and Shadow Wilson.
He went on to join the Gerald Wilson Orchestra that also had Snooky Young, Red Kelly and Melba Liston as members. In 1950 he recorded for Savoy Records backing Helen Humes in a big band with Dexter Gordon, Ernie Freeman, Red Callender and J.C. Heard.
He also played with Fats Domino, Papa John Creach, Big Maybelle, Faye Adams, Bumble Bee Slim, Percy Mayfield and B. B. King. In the 1970s he worked with the Duke Ellington orchestra. Baritone and tenor saxophonist Maurice Simon passed away on August 6, 2019.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Austin Percy Brice Jr. was born on March 25, 1923 in New York City. He started his professional career began around the end of World War II, when he played with Benny Carter, Mercer Ellington, Luis Russell, and Eddie Cleanhead Vinson. Playing frequently in Harlem during the early 1950s he worked with Tiny Grimes, Oscar Pettiford, Tab Smith, Lucky Thompson, and Cootie Williams. In addition to leading sessions at Minton’s Playhouse, he also played with Billy Taylor from 1954 to 1956, George Shearing between 1956 to 1958, sharing screen time in the film The Big Beat, and Kenny Burrell 1958–59.
He played behind Sarah Vaughan on tour from 1959 to 1961, then became Harry Belafonte’s drummer for most of the 1960s, but he also worked with Ahmad Jamal, Carmen McRae and Mary Lou Williams in that decade. He led a group called the New Sounds in the early 1970s, and worked with Sy Oliver and Illinois Jacquet.
Though he led a group that was active in the ’70s, the somewhat anti-jazz vibe lent to the drummer’s decision to concentrate on Broadway orchestra work, settling in for long runs on two hot shows, Eubie and Bubbling Brown Sugar. He was also active accompanying the tap group the Copasetics. He was a first~ call musician for jazz festivals and recording sessions.
The repertoire of the Percy Brice Duo with Tom Smith features songcraft from the ’20s through the ’50s. Drummer and bandleader Percy Brice, also known by his nickname Big P, passed away in November 2020 at the age of 97.
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