Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Gene Schroeder was born on February 5, 1915 in Madison, Wisconsin to a pianist mother and a father who was a trumpeter. He studied at the Wisconsin School of Music, and when he was 11 he was playing now and then with his father’s band, and doubling on clarinet in his high school orchestra a few years later.
After a year at the University of Wisconsin Music School, Schroeder moved to Milwaukee, Wisconsin. He led his own band and played with local musicians including Wild Bill Davison. His next move was to New York City in 1939 and was briefly with the Wes Westerfield Trio, then headed a combo. Gene went on to spend a year apiece as a member of the groups of Joe Marsala and Marty Marsala.
By the summer of 1942, Schroeder was working again with Wild Bill Davison then beginning in 1943 at Nick’s with Miff Mole. After becoming Eddie Condon’s regular pianist, he played at the opening of the club Condon’s in 12 1945. He was with Condon most of the time from then on up to 1962 appearing on many recordings. During his long association with Condon’s Chicago jazz bands his talent was continually overshadowed, most likely due to his being a subtle player.
He had a three year stint with the Dukes of Dixieland from 1961 to 1964 and then worked in the late ’60s with Tony Parenti. Despite his busy activity, he only led one recording session in his career, four songs cut in 1944 for the Black & White label with a trio.
Pianist Gene Schroeder died at the age of 60 on February 16, 1975 in his hometown of Madison.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Stanley William Tracey was born on December 30, 1926 in Denmark Hill, South London, England. The Second World War disrupted his formal education, and he became a professional musician at the age of sixteen as a member of an Entertainments National Service Association touring group playing the accordion, his first instrument. He joined Ralph Reader’s Gang Shows at the age of nineteen, while in the RAF and formed a brief acquaintance with the comedian Tony Hancock.
Later, in the early 1950s, he worked in groups on the transatlantic liners Queen Mary and Caronia and toured the UK with Cab Calloway. By the mid-1950s, he had also taken up the vibraphone, but later ceased playing it. During the decade he worked widely with leading British modernists, including drummer Tony Crombie, clarinettist Vic Ash, the saxophonist-arranger Kenny Graham and trumpeter Dizzy Reece.
1957 saw Tracey touring the United States with Ronnie Scott’s group, and then became the pianist with Ted Heath’s Orchestra for two years at the end of the Fifties, including a US tour with singer Carmen McRae. Although he disliked Heath’s music, he gained a regular income and was well featured as a soloist on both piano and vibes. He contributed compositions and arrangements that stayed in the Heath book for many years.
He first recorded in 1952 with the trumpeter Kenny Baker, then recorded his first album as leader in 1958, Showcase, for English Decca label and Little Klunk in 1959. From 1960 until about 1967 Stan was the house pianist at Ronnie Scott’s Jazz Club in Soho, London, which gave him the opportunity to accompany many of the leading musicians from the US who visited the club. It is Tracey on piano that film viewers hear behind Rollins on the soundtrack of the Michael Caine version of Alfie. At the same time, he became active in Michael Horovitz’s New Departures project, mixing poetry performances with jazz, where the musicians interacted spontaneously with the words.
The early 1970s were a bleak time for Tracey. He began to work with musicians of a later generation, who worked in a free or avant-garde style. He continued to work in this idiom with Evan Parker at the UK’s Appleby Jazz Festival for several years, but this was always more of a sideline for Tracey, lasting 18 years that the festival existed. Stan formed his own label In the mid-1970s titled Steam, and a number of commissioned suites. These included The Salisbury Suite, The Crompton Suite and The Poets Suite.
He led his own octet from 1976 to 1985 and formed a sextet in 1979 and toured widely in the Middle East and India. He had a longstanding performance partnership from 1978 with saxophonist Art Themen, and his own son, drummer Clark Tracey. He shared the billing with arranger Gil Evans, Sal Nistico and Charlie Rouse. He went on to record over four dozen albums as a leader or co~leader, thirty as a sideman and on two soundtracks over the course of his career.
Pianist and composer Stan Tracey, who received the honor of the Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) and appointed Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE), transitioned from cancer on December 6,
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Clyde Lee McCoy was born December 29, 1903 in Ashland, Kentucky to the family that feuded with the Hatfields. He began mastering the trumpet without formal instruction, after the family moved to Portsmouth, Ohio in 1912. This led him to perform regularly at church and school affairs. Five years later he was performing on the Cincinnati riverboats, and on the Mississippi River side-wheelers the Island Queen and the Bernard McSwain. He became one of the youngest musicians on the river at age 14.
In 1920, accepting an invitation for a small band to play at a Knoxville, Tennessee resort, his Chicago Orchestra rehearsed on the train and won the approval of George Whittle and the patrons of the Whittle Springs Hotel and Spa. After a two month engagement the band officially became known as the Clyde McCoy Orchestra.
In the late 1920s McCoy developed the signature “wah-wah” sound by fluttering a Harmon mute in the bell of his trumpet. In 1967, a similar effect was made for electric guitar with the introduction of the Vox Clyde McCoy Wah-Wah Pedal. Having nothing to do with the use or development of the pedal,Clyde’s name was only used for promotion.
Over the course of a seven decade career Clyde was based at various times in New York City, Los Angeles, California and Chicago, Illinois. He is best remembered for his theme song Sugar Blues, written by Clarence Williams and Lucy Fletcher, and also as a co-founder of Down Beat magazine in 1935. The song was performed with vocals by Bob Wills and his Texas Playboys, Fats Waller and Ella Fitzgerald.
Trumpeter and bandleader Clyde McCoy, who has a star on the Holywood Walk of Fame, transitioned on June 11, 1990 in Memphis, Tennessee.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Jay Corre was born on Nov 30, 1924 and grew up in Atlantic City, New Jersey. His interest in music began at five years old, when he started to experiment with various instruments, including the harmonica, violin and clarinet. He picked up the saxophone at age 14 and showed a natural ability for this instrument.
By the time he was sixteen he was playing dates at various clubs that made the shore area a virtual hot bed of fine jazz entertainment. Completing his music studies at the Atlantic City High School he played with the Alex Bartha Orchestra on the Steel Pier. After a stint in the US Navy Band, his discharge favored the opportunity to join the Raymond Scott Orchestra, featuring Dorothy Collins.
He joined the Buddy Rich Big Band before performing with Harry James, Benny Goodman, Dizzy Gillespie, Ella Fitzgerald, The Duke Ellington Band under Mercer Ellington, Ella Fitzgerald, Oscar Peterson, Frank Sinatra, Mel Torme, Tony Bennett, Sammy Davis Jr. and many more.
Tenor saxophonist, composer, arranger and jazz educator Jay Corre, whose influences were Coleman Hawkins, Lester Young and Charlie Parker, transitioned on Oct 26, 2014 in Stuart, Florida.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Ethel Smith was born Ethel Goldsmith on November 22, 1902 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania and began performing from a fairly young age. Traveling widely, after studying both music and several languages at Carnegie Institute of Technology, she became proficient in Latin music while staying in South America.
Smith performed in several Hollywood films such as George White’s Scandals and Melody Time. Her appearance in these films brought notoriety to her colorful, elaborate costumes, especially her hats.
Her rendition of Tico Tico became her best-known hit. She performed it in the MGM film Bathing Beauty in 1944, after which her recording reached the U.S. pop charts that November, peaking at #14 and selling nearly two million copies worldwide. Her other well known hits were Down Yonder and Monkey on a String.
Smith was a guitarist as well as an organist, and in her later years occasionally played the guitar live for audiences, but all her recordings were on the organ. She recorded dozens of albums, mostly for Decca Records.
Organist Ethel Smith, who became widely known as associated with Latin music, transitioned on May 10, 1996, at age 93 in Palm Beach, Florida.
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