Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Lavere “Buster” Harding was born on March 19, 1917 to Benjamin and Ada Harding in North Buxton, Ontario, Canada. Raised in Cleveland, Ohio as a teenager he started on his own band.
In 1939 Buster went to work for the Teddy Wilson big band, and then in the early 1940s joined the Coleman Hawkins band. This was followed by his playing with Cab Calloway. He became a freelance arranger and worked with Benny Goodman, Artie Shaw, Roy Eldridge, Dizzy Gillespie, and Count Basie, among others.
In 1949 he became the musical director for Billie Holiday recording sessions. In the early 1960s Harding played with Jonah Jones, though he was known primarily as an arranger and composer.
Pianist, composer and arranger Buster Harding, who never recorded as a leader, passed away on November 14, 1965, in New York City.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Robert Deane Kincaide was born on March 18, 1911 in Houston, Texas but raised in Decatur, Illinois. He began playing professionally and working as an arranger in the early 1930s, working with Wingy Manone in 1932, then took a job with Ben Pollack from 1933 to 1935.
He arranged for Benny Goodman on the side before joining Bob Crosby’s group in 1935. Deane went on to work with Woody Herman and Manone again and by the end of the decade he worked briefly with Tommy Dorsey. In the first half of the 1940s he worked with Joe Marsala, Glenn Miller, Ray Noble, and Muggsy Spanier.
Serving in the United States Navy during World War II, he played in a ship’s band on the USS Franklin. He joined Ray McKinley’s band in 1946, working with him until 1950. From the 1950s until the early 1980s Kincaide worked primarily as an arranger for television. Arranger and saxophonist Deane Kincaide passed away at the age of 91 in St. Cloud, Florida on August 14, 1992.
Share a dose of a Houston arranger to inspire inquisitive minds to learn about musicians whose legacy lends their genius to the jazz catalog…
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Vinnie Burke, born Vincenzo Bucci on March 15, 1921 in Newark, New Jersey, played violin and guitar early in life, but he lost the use of his little finger in a munitions factory accident and switched to double bass.
In the second half of the 1940s he played with Joe Mooney, Tony Scott, and Cy Coleman. He would go on to play with the Sauter-Finegan Orchestra, Tal Farlow, Marian McPartland, Don Elliott, Vic Dickenson, Gil Mellé, Bucky Pizzarelli, John Mehegan, Chris Connor, Eddie Costa, and Bobby Hackett.
From 1956 into the 1980s he led his own band and led small combos. Bassist Vinnie Burke, who recorded four albums as a leader, passed away on February 1, 2001.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Stuff Combe was born Etienne Stephen Jean Gustave Combe in Bern, Switzerland on March 12, 1924 and initially pursued schooling in art during World War II, but ultimately decided on a career in music instead.
During the 1940s Combe played in Switzerland in the 1940s with Philippe Brun, Eddie Brunner, Ernst Hollerhagen, and Hazy Osterwald. In the 1950s he traveled extensively throughout Europe and played frequently with visiting American musicians. Near the end of the decade he recorded with Paul Kuhn and Fats Sadi. In 1957 he began playing with Kurt Edelhagen, an association that would continue into the mid-1960s.
Stuff formed his own large ensemble in Geneva, Switzerland in 1966, and the following year worked with the Radio Suisse Romande jazz band. He was Lucky Thompson’s drummer during Thompson’s 1969 Swiss tour. In the 1970s he worked with Francy Boland and Benny Bailey, and played in the western United States with Groupe Instrumental Romand.
Drummer Stuff Combe, who wrote a treatise on percussion improvisation, passed away on December 27, 1986 in Morges, Switzerland.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Norman Burns was born in London, England on March 11, 1920. Closely associated with the pianist George Shearing, together they worked the West End nightclub circuit in the mid 1940s, before Shearing made his fame and fortune in the USA.
Though he recorded with Alan Dean Beboppers and others in 1948, he never was a bop musician. He was a regular figure on the modern jazz scene and from 1951, he led a quintet whose format and repertoire were based on the successful George Shearing Quintet formula. From the time of their first gig they were an instant hit and for two and a half years the quintet toured the UK jazz venues with great success. They added vocalists Eileen Draper and Johnny Green in 1954 but the group disbanded in 1955.
Esquire decided to record the quintet in 1952 by which time a number of personnel changes had taken place. Victor Feldman, the highest profile jazz musician working with the group had left prior to the recordings. A later move to Australia, saw drummer Norman Burns residing for many years until he passed away in June 1994.
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