Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Albert King was born on June 19, 1912 in Panama and raised in Kingston, Jamaica where he attended Alpha Boys School. During the 1930s he led his own band, Bertie King and his Rhythm Aces, one of Jamaica’s foremost dance orchestras.
Leaving the island in 1936, he sailed to England on the same ship as his friend Jiver Hutchinson. Once in London he joined Ken Snakehips Johnson’s West Indian Dance Band, then played with Leslie Hutchinson’s band. He also worked with visiting American musicians including Benny Carter, George Shearing and Coleman Hawkins.
In 1937, while in the Netherlands he recorded four sides in the Netherlands with Benny Carter, and the next year he recorded with Django Reinhardt in Paris, France. In 1939 he joined the Royal Navy. He left the Navy in 1943 and formed his own band, also working and recording with Nat Gonella.
Returning to Jamaica in 1951, he assembled his own band, the Casa Blanca Orchestra, playing in the mento style. With no Jamaican record labels at this time, he arranged for his recordings to be pressed in a plant in Lewisham, England, owned by Decca Records. Bertie returned a number of times to the United Kingdom, working and recording with Kenny Baker, George Chisholm, Chris Barber, Kenny Graham and Humphrey Lyttelton. During this period in his career he toured Asia and Africa with his own band and played and recorded in London with some of the leading Trinidadian calypsonians.
King went on to lead the Jamaica Broadcasting Corporation house band in the 1950s. His sidemen included Ernest Ranglin and Tommy Mowatt. He recorded extensively with this outfit, until 1965 when he moved to the USA. His last known public performance was in New York City in 1967. Clarinetist and saxophonist Bertie King passed away in 1981.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz
Sid Phillips was born Isador Simon Phillips on June 14, 1907 in London, England into a Jewish family. He learned violin and piano as a child, and played reeds in his teens as a member of his brother’s European band. He got his start in the music business as a publisher and director for Edison Bell.
In 1930, Phillips began writing arrangements for Bert Ambrose, and joined Ambrose’s ensemble in 1933, remaining there until 1937. Towards the end of the decade he was playing in the United States on radio and freelancing in clubs.
During World War II, Sid served in the Royal Air Force, then put together his own quartet in 1946 and wrote several pieces for the BBC Symphony Orchestra. He led a Dixieland jazz band of his own formation from 1949, and his sidemen variously included George Shearing, Colin Bailey, Tommy Whittle, and Kenny Ball.
Phillips’s first recordings under his own name were made in 1928. In 1937 through 1938, a number of his recordings were issued in the United States, through a contract he signed with Irving Mills and issued on Mills’ Variety label, as well as Vocalion, Brunswick and Columbia labels, though most of his recordings were made in England.
Clarinetist, arranger and bandleader Sid Phillips, who continued to record as a leader well into the 1970s, passed away on May 23, 1973 at aged 65 in Chertsey, Surrey, England.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Born Garland Lorenzo Wilson on June 13, 1909 in Martinsburg, West Virginia. He attended Howard University in Washington, D.C. and in the 1930s worked in New York City nightclubs.
In 1932 the pianist joined Nina Mae McKinney on a European tour, worked extensively in England with local groups, and recorded with trumpeter Nat Gonella.
In the liner notes of the CD box l’intégrale Django Reinhardt ~ Vol 2 he is quoted as being accompanist of French singer Jean Sablon together with guitarist Django Reinhardt on two sides recorded on November 1, 1935 in Paris, France.
Returning to the United States in 1939, he remained there until 1951, when he moved to Paris, France. Pianist Garland Wilson remained in Paris until he passed away on May 31, 1954.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Leonard Walter Bush was born in London, England on June 6, 1927 and contracted polio as a child which left him with a limp for the rest of his life. He studied and played violin before switching to bass at sixteen. By 17 he was playing professionally in a variety show called The Rolling Stones and Dawn. He played with Nat Gonella in the middle of the 1940s but turned to bebop later in the decade.
From 1950 onwards Lennie did a lot of freelance work and worked with Roy Fox in 1951. He was one of the founding members of London’s Club Eleven, the first London jazz club to offer performers a paid gig. He played there from 1952-1956 in a band with Ronnie Scott, trumpeter Hank Shaw, pianist Tommy Pollard, and drummer Tony Crombie.
He studied with James Merrett at the Guildhall School of Music and participated in the European tours of Benny Goodman, Louis Armstrong, Zoot Sims, and Roy Eldridge. Becoming a member of Jack Parnell’s ATV Orchestra in 1957, he recorded with Stephane Grappelli, Anita O’Day, and Eddie Vinson. He continued to play in the 1990s as part of the Ralph Sharon Trio with Jack Parnell. During that decade he also appeared with Don Lusher’s Ted Heath tribute band and played in the final Ted Heath concert in 2000.
Double bassist Lennie Bush continued to freelance into the 2000s until his death on June 15, 2004.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Marc Steckar was born on June 1, 1935 in Cherbourg, France. He began learning the cello from age eight, then played the trumpet. During his studies at the Paris National Conservatory, he switched to the trombone in 1953, which he studied with André Lafosse. After an interruption due to his military service in the Algerian War, he completed his training and in 1959 he received the second prize for trombone.
In the next few years he worked in the big band of Benny Bennet, in the Aimé Barelli orchestra in the Monte Carlo casinos and in Olympia where he played Marlene Dietrich and Nat King Cole, with whom he toured Europe. He played in the orchestra of Paul Mauriat accompanying Charles Aznavour, then in the big band of Daniel Janin who played behind Édith Piaf, Jacques Brel, Gilbert Bécaud and Sammy Davis Jr. in 1961.
Over the next few years he worked as a studio musician, among others for Michel Legrand , Vladimir Cosma and for various television shows, but also again at the Olympia for Roland Petit and Zizi Jeanmaire. Between 1973 and 1983, Marc accompanied Claude Nougaro with Eddy Louiss and Maurice Vander before becoming a member of Martial Solal’s big band. He recorded film music with Vander.
He went on to form Steckar TUBAPACK, and the Elephant Tuba Horde Big Band. Steckar is also on albums by François Jeanneau, Illinois Jacquet and Sonny Rhodes. Tubist Marc Stekar, who played trombone, bass trombone, euphonium, and was a composer, passed away on June 27, 2015 in Bessancourt, Val-d’Oise, France.
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