Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Murray McEachern was born in Toronto, Ontario, Canada on August 16, 1915 and studied the violin at the Toronto Conservatory of Music as a boy, and played his first concert recital at Massey Hall at age 12. As a teenager he studied both the saxophone and clarinet, playing with Lucio Agostini and also appearing on CRBC with Percy Faith. Over time he became proficient on several instruments, including the trombone, bass and trumpet.
In 1936, he went to Chicago, Illinois in search of work and got a break as soloist on trombone for Benny Goodman’s big band. He also worked with the Jack Hylton orchestra and then with the Casa Loma Orchestra led by Glen Gray from 1937-41. In 1941, McEachern joined the Paul Whiteman orchestra and shortly after began entertaining U.S. troops during World War II. Two years after the end of the war he went to work with the Phil Moore orchestra.
Murray did studio work in his later career for Hollywood films, including solo performances in The Glenn Miller Story, Paris Blues and The Benny Goodman Story. In the 1960s he was in the Morey Amsterdam Orchestra for the Morey Amsterdam Show on Television Station KTLA in Los Angeles.
A successful recording artist as leader, McEachern toured Europe in 1972 and briefly worked with the Duke Ellington orchestra the following year. He was owner/director of the Tommy Dorsey orchestra from 1974-77.
Trombonist and alto saxophonist Murray McEachern transitioned on April 28, 1982.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
George Morrow was born on August 15, 1925 in Pasadena, California. After leaving the military he played with Charlie Parker, Sonny Criss, Teddy Edwards, Hampton Hawes and other musicians who were in Los Anegles, California. He then spent five years from 1948 to 1953 in San Francisco, California often appearing at the Bop City jazz club and working with Dexter Gordon, Wardell Gray, Billie Holiday and Sonny Clark, among others.
During the mid~1950s he recorded five albums with Sonny Rollins and at the end of the decade two with Sonny Stitt. He had been free-lancing around San Francisco clubs when Max Roach and Clifford Brown hired him to play with them after having rejected two other bassists. He appeared on all of the studio albums made by the Clifford Brown-Max Roach Quintet.
After the band dissolved due to the deaths of Brown and Richie Powell in a car accident, Morrow continued recording with Max Roach’s band. He also worked with Anita O’Day in the 1970s before joining the Disney World house band in 1976.
Bassist George Morrow, who never led his own recording date, transitioned on May 26, 1992 in Orlando, Florida.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Jeannie Cheatham was born Jean E. Evans on August 14, 1927 and grew up in Akron, Ohio. At the age of five, she started having lessons on her aunt’s newly-acquired piano, which was soon moved to her home when it transpired that she had a talent for music her aunt lacked. Not long after, she began playing for services at the church her family attended. Throughout her school years, her piano teacher also took her to play at weddings and social events, as well as giving recitals
She first played jazz music at age 14 when she was requested to join a local 15-piece rehearsal orchestra. Still in high school Jeannie began playing in smaller groups and found herself in demand professionally as most younger male musicians were drafted into the US Army during World War II. In 1944, she was accepted as a student at the University of Akron but was unable to complete more than one year for financial reasons.
She met and married Jimmy Cheatham, with whom she formed the Sweet Baby Blues Band in 1984. Her autobiography, Meet Me With Your Black Drawers On: My Life In Music, was published in 2006, the same year they received a lifetime achievement award at the San Diego Music Awards, and in 2022, were inducted into the San Diego Music Hall of Fame.
It was noted by Los Angeles Times contributor Dirk Sutro that Jeannie Cheatham remains one of the under-appreciated greats of jazz and blues, both for her spare, tasteful piano playing, which ranges from boogie-woogie to Monk‑ish surprises, and for her earthy but sensuous voice.
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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.