Daily Dose Of Jazz..

Benny de Weille was born on March 6, 1915 in Lübeck, Germany. He studied clarinet under Hans Helmke and was heavily influenced by Benny Goodman, whom he often emulated in his own ensembles.

Benny made recordings with Teddy Stauffer, Hans Rehmstedt, and Willy Berking in the 1930s and 1940s. In 1940 he led his own Bar Trio. Following World War II he worked at Radio Frankfurt and conducted the Nordwestdeutscher Rundfunk Orchestra.

Clarinetist and bandleader Benny de Weille, whose last recordings were in a Dixieland style in 1951,  died on December 17, 1977 in Westerland, Germany.

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Daily Dose Of Jazz…

Harry Charles Prime was born on March 5, 1920 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. He graduated from St. Bridget’s Elementary and Roman Catholic High School. In the fall of 1944, he entered and won a singing contest at the 400 Club in Washington, D.C. and was offered a week’s engagement at the Club.

From there he proceeded to perform with big bands such as Randy Brooks, Tommy Dorsey, Jack Fina and Ralph Flanagan throughout the 1940’s and 50’s. Prime’s recording of the song Until with Tommy Dorsey sold a million records, but recording most of his hit songs with the Flanagan band.recording most of his hit songs with the latter.

In 1945, the Nations Disc Jockeys voted the Ralph Flanagan Band as the #1 band in the country and Prime was voted 20th best singer ahead of Dennis Day, Eddie Fisher and Dean Martin.

In the years following his tenure with the big bands, Prime never strayed far from the music business and worked as a disc jockey and radio host in various cities including WCAU in Philadelphia and WNPV in Lansdale.

His impeccable phrasing and vocal prowess led him to record Dear Hearts and Gentle People, Oh, What a Beautiful Morning, Nevertheless and Just One More Chance. He sits among the likes of Bob Eberle, Billy Eckstine, Dick Haymes, Frank Sinatra and Perry Como.

Prime recorded nearly 100 songs in the 1940s and 1950s, including Until, a million-seller with the Tommy Dorsey Orchestra. The song peaked at number four in the US chart.

Big band vocalist Harry Prime died on June 15, 2017 in Chalfont, Pennsylvania at age 97.

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Daily Dose Of jazz…

David Darling was born March 4, 1941 in Elkhart, Indiana. Interested in music from an early age, he began piano when he was four, cello at ten, and string bass in high school. He studied classical cello at Indiana State University and after graduating remained there another four years as a teacher.

Working as a studio musician in Nashville, Tennessee he was a member of the Paul Winter Consort until 1978. During the following year Gus was part of the chamber jazz group Gallery with Ralph Towner and released his first solo album, Journal October. His performance and composition draw on a wide range of styles, including classical, jazz, Brazilian, African, and Indian music.

He has written and performed music for more than a dozen major motion pictures from 1988 to 2004 and recorded a collaboration with the Wulu Bunun, a group of Taiwanese aborigines. In 2007 he recorded The Darling Conversations, with Julie Weber discussing his music philosophy. He followed this in 2009 with the release of the Grammy-winning Prayer for Compassion. 

In the Eighties he began his life as an educator of young children by joining Young Audiences, founded Music for People, which seeks to encourage self-expression through musical improvisation. He became part of a collaboration of music teachers and performers offering a training program in holistic and intercultural approaches to healing with sound and music at the New York Open Center Sound and Music School.

Cellist and composer David Darling died in his sleep on January 8, 2021.

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Daily Dose Of Jazz…

Booker Pittman was born on March 3, 1909 in Fairmount Heights, Maryland, was the son of Portia Pittman and a grandson of Booker T. Washington. He became an accomplished jazz clarinetist and played with greats like Louis Armstrong and Count Basie in the US and Europe in the 1920s and 1930s.

Leaving the States for the first time in 1933, he went with Lucky Millinder’s orchestra to France and stayed there for four years. During that period, he met a Brazilian musician named Romeo Silva, who took him on a tour of Brazil along with other musicians. They sailed to Bahia aboard the Siqueira Campos.

In 1937, Booker moved to Brazil, where he was known by the nickname “Buca“, and continued his musical career there, playing at the Urca Casino. He lived in Copacabana and befriended Jorge Guinle and Pixinguinha. He also played in Argentina and other countries.

He performed and recorded with his singer/actress stepdaughter Eliana Pittman. On October 19, 1969 clarinetist and saxophonist Booker Pittman, sometimes spelled Pitman, transitioned in his home in the São Paulo quarter of Vila Nova Conceição of laryngeal cancer at the age of 60. On behest of his wife Ofélia he was transferred to Rio de Janeiro and there laid to rest at the Cemitério São João Batista in the quarter of Botafogo.

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Daily Dose Of Jazz…

Minor Hall was born in Sellers, Louisiana on March 2, 1897 and was the younger brother of Tubby Hall. He studied at New Orleans University until 1914, then began playing with Kid Ory in the middle of the decade. He played in various New Orleans ensembles, including the Superior Band, then moved to Chicago, Illinois in 1918. He briefly took his brother’s spot in Lawrence Duhe’s band before serving in the U.S. Army during World War I. By the time he returned, King Oliver was leading Duhe’s band, which Hall rejoined in 1921.

In 1926 he played with Jimmie Noone, then moved to California for an extended run with Mutt Carey’s Jeffersonians from 1927 to 1932. He played in the Winslow Allen Band during the Thirties, but took a hiatus from music for part of the decade. He served briefly in the Army again in 1942.

In 1945 he rejoined Ory in his Creole Jazz Band, becoming one of his most long standing members. He remained with Ory’s ensemble until 1956, when he retired on account of poor health, having never led his own recording date, though he recorded extensively with Ory and with Louis Armstrong in the 1940s.

Drummer Minor Hall, better known as Ram Hall, died in Sawtelle, California at the age of 61 on October 16, 1959.

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