Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Stanley Mackay Greig was born on August 12, 1930 in Joppa, Edinburgh, Scotland to a father who was a drummer and piano tuner. While still in high school he played with Sandy Brown in 1945, then played piano and drums with him from 1948 to 1954. Moving to London, England in the mid-Fifties he played with Ken Colyer, Humphrey Lyttelton, and Bruce Turner, then with the Fairweather-Brown All-Stars in 1958-59.
He played with Turner again briefly before becoming a member of Acker Bilk’s Paramount Jazz Band from 1960 to 1968. After 1969 Greig made piano his primary instrument, leading his own small groups and playing boogie woogie and blues piano. He played with Dave Shepherd and Johnny Hawksworth as a sideman in the early 1970s, then formed the London Jazz Big Band in 1975.
From 1977-80 he played with George Melly, then toured as a bandleader in Europe in the early Eighties. He worked again with Lyttelton for a decade beginning in 1985, then worked with Wally Fawkes later in the 1990s. The Stan Greig Trio played many gigs in and around London, with the Rolling Stones’s Charlie Watts sometimes turning out on drums.
Pianist, drummer, and bandleader Stan Greig transitioned on November 18, 2012 after suffering from Parkinson’s disease.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Peter John King was born on August 11, 1940 in Kingston upon Thames, Surrey, England. He took up the clarinet and saxophone as a teenager, entirely self-taught. His first public appearances were in 1957, playing alto in a trad jazz group at the Swan Public House in a group organized by trumpeter Alan Rosewell. After the performance he chose to be a professional musician. He came under the strong musical influence of Charlie Parker developing a bebop style inspired by Parker.
In 1959, at the age of 19, he was booked by Ronnie Scott to perform at the opening of Scott’s club in Gerrard Street, London, England. In the same year, he received the Melody Maker New Star award. He worked with Johnny Dankworth’s orchestra from 1960 to 1961, and went on to work with the big bands of Maynard Ferguson, Tubby Hayes, Harry South, and Stan Tracey, the Brussels Big Band, and the Ray Charles band on a European tour.
He played in small groups with musicians such as Philly Joe Jones, Zoot Sims, Al Cohn, Red Rodney, Hampton Hawes, Nat Adderley, Al Haig, John Burch, Bill Watrous, and Dick Morrissey, Tony Kinsey, Bill Le Sage, Jimmy Witherspoon, Joe Williams, Jon Hendricks, and Anita O’Day. His musical curiosity led him to associate with freer idioms in John Stevens’ ‘Freebop’ group in the 1980s. He appeared on the soundtrack of the 1969 film The Italian Job. He was a member of the Charlie Watts Tentet.
From the early 1990s, his style matured and flourished as an improviser and a composer. He found ways to combine jazz and classical techniques without diluting either and he recorded the results on his albums Tamburello, Lush Life and Janus with the Lyric String Quartet.
He won the BBC ‘Musician of the Year’ award, appeared in the documentary film, No One But Me, discussing jazz vocalist Annie Ross and appeared in the movies Blue Ice and The Talented Mr. Ripley. His autobiography Flying High was widely praised for its candour and honesty about his musical career and personal life, his international associations in the jazz world, and the many years in which he battled addiction. Saxophonist, clarinetist and composer Peter King transitioned on August 23, 2020 in Putney, South London, England at 80.
Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Nat Towles was born August 10, 1905 in New Orleans, Louisiana, the son of string bassist Phil “Charlie” Towles. He started his musical career as a guitarist and violinist at the age of eleven but switched to the bass at 13. Performing in his hometown through his teenage years with Gus Metcalf’s Melody Jazz Band, he eventually played with a number of bands, including Buddie Petit, Henry “Red” Allen, Jack Carey, and the Original Tuxedo Jazz Orchestra.
In 1923 he formed The Nat Towles’ Creole Harmony Kings. This jazz band became one of the prominent territory bands in Texas, Oklahoma, Kansas, and Nebraska. By 1925 he was playing bass for Fate Marable, and reformed his own band the next year. 1934 saw Towles organizing a band of young musicians studying music at Wiley College in Austin, Texas. He also worked the club circuit in Dallas, Texas during this period, when T-Bone Walker and Buddy Tate worked for him.
In the 1930s he transformed his band into The Nat Towles Dance Orchestra, signed with the National Orchestra Service, and focused on swing music through the 1930s and 1940s. In 1934 Towles took up residence in North Omaha, Nebraska, where his band was stationed for the next 25 years. With this outfit Towles dueled with Lloyd Hunter for dominance over the much-contested Near North Side in North Omaha, where he was held over at the Dreamland Ballroom for several weeks. In 1936 and 1937 Towles’ band held residence at Omaha’s Krug Park.
Over the course of his career Billy Mitchell, Buster Cooper, Red Holloway, Buster Bennett, Preston Love, Paul Quinichette, Neal Hefti, Jimmy Heath, Duke Groner, Buddy McLewis and Oliver Nelson were members of his band at one time or another. He continued leading bands throughout the 1950s until retiring to California in 1959 where he opened a bar.
Never finding true national recognition and fearing the limelight would then steal away his best players, there are very few recordings of Nat Towles’ Band. Bassist, big band leader and educator Nat Towles, whose band is considered one of the greatest territory bands of all time by musicians who played in it and by others who heard it, transitioned in Berkeley, California of a heart attack in January 1963.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Matthew Mitchell was born in Hamilton, New Zealand on August 9, 1973 and didn’t start studying jazz until late in his teens, beginning on guitar at the age of 17. Four years later he attended what became the Massey University Wellington School of Music majoring in jazz. By 1998 he became a member of the New Zealand Youth Jazz Orchestra and toured with ex-Buddy Rich trumpeter John Hoffman.
First achieving prominence on the New Zealand jazz scene the following year when he won the Wellington Fringe Festival Music Award. His study of Indian classical music produced cohesive results and Matthew toured the country with Master Tabla drummer Dr. Tarlochan Singh from Delhi, India and then with New York vibraphonist Arthur Lipner. He then put together his own trio featuring Paul Dyne and Rick Cranson and they released two CDs, one of which was a big band work.
Moving to London, England in 2000 he continued work with his trio and rapidly became a prominent member of the jazz scene and joined Byron Wallen’s As Is project touring the UK and performing at a number of international festivals. He went on to perform and tour with German saxophonist Ingrid Laubrock, as well as Japanese electronic music artists Takagi Masakatsu and Ogorusu Norihide and with countryman electronics artist Signer.
Guitarist Mattewh Mitchell continues to tour regularly throughout Europe with his own groups and release recordings.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Thomas Mansergh Pickering was born on August 8. 1921 in Burra, South Australia, Australia. When the family moved to Australia’s island state of Tasmania from Burra in the mid-l930s and settled in the house next door to where Ian Pearce lived, the stage was set for the beginning of what was to become a significant part of Tasmania’s jazz history.
In his mid teens, he and Ian discovered British dance bands and over timethey embraced Benny Goodman, Louis Armstrong and the Swing Era musicians. Pee Wee Russell and Bud Freeman came later. At sixteen Tom received his first clarinet, doubling on saxophone and with his brother Cedri on drums, friend Ian playing cornet, pianist Rex Withers-Green, they gave birth to The Barrelhouse Four. He started playing in local bands and the four hit at local jam sessions. With the oncoming of WWII in 1939 they went their separate ways, reuniting in 1946 to record their first commercial pressing.
Pickering played traditional jazz in various parts of Australia during the late 30s and 40s. He continued working throughout succeeding decades, continuing his preference for older styles but also playing effective tenor saxophone in mainstream settings. His playing and recording career continued apace into the 80s, and his contribution to the musical life of his country has been rewarded with a number of honours.
Pickering went on to form his Good Time Jazz Band, which found success until the rising popularity of rock music led to the band’s eventual break up. A trio followed untilhe and Ian put together the Pearce- Pickering Ragtime Five. They had two very long and successful runs at the Tattersall’s Bar and Bistro, and then at Wrest Point Casino.
Ill-health led to Tom’s eventual retirement from music and the end of his playing career. Having qualified as a librarian in 1948, he would go on to work in the State Library of Tasmania, then became Parliamentary Librarian in 1974. He was made a member of the Order of Australia (AM), won the Australian Jazz Convention Composition Competition twice, and received the Satchmo Award.
Clarinetist Tom Pickering transitioned in Hobart, Tasmania on October 26, 2001.
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