Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Art Anton was born on September 8, 1926 in New York City. In the early 40’s he was a private student of Irving Torgman, and was a music major at New York University from 1943 through 1944. He returned for further studies from 1946 through 1947. In between, the Navy grabbed him to play its own military paradiddles. From the late ’40s onward, he began working with leaders such as Herbie Fields, Sonny Dunham, Bobby Byrne, Tommy Reynolds, and Art Wall.
In 1952, he got into the combo of saxophonist Bud Freeman, moving to pianist Ralph Flanagan’s band the following year. Anton’s drumming style stuck closely to straight-ahead jazz swinging or whatever other beat was required. After gigs in 1954 with Jerry Gray and Charlie Barnet, he relocated to the west coast and began freelancing. He performed and recorded with the big band of Stan Kenton to multi-instrumentalist Jimmy Giuffre’s smaller units.
Maintaining steady employment as a jazzman on the stingy Los Angeles, California scene was difficult, and Artie looked for other types of employment. During the ’60s, he turned to selling vacuum cleaners, worked as a private detective, while remaining a highly respected West Coast percussionist.
Drummer and percussionist Art Anton, who is also listed as Artie or Arthur, died on July 27, 2003 in Yakima, Washington.
More Posts: drums,history,instrumental,jazz,music,percussion
Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Graeme Emerson Bell was born on September 7, 1914 in Richmond, Victoria, Australia. His father performed musical comedy and music hall on the early Australian Broadcasting Commission radio, and his mother was a contralto recitalist in Dame Nellie Melba’s company.
From the age of 12, Bell had weekly piano lessons in classical music by Jesse Stewart Young, a contemporary of his mother. He attended Scotch College in 1929 and 1930, leaving school at sixteen during the Great Depression and worked for T & G Insurance as a clerk for over nine years, and had a stint as a farm hand. He paid for his own piano lessons for two further years, and in later years he supplemented his income by teaching.
Graeme was converted to jazz by Roger, a drummer, who later became a singer and trumpete. Roger would play 78s on the family’s record player, including Fats Waller’s Handful of Keys. It was in 1935 that he started playing jazz with Roger at Melbourne dances and clubs. By 1941 he fronted his own Graeme Bell Jazz Gang. Unfit for active duty during World War II, he entertained Australian troops, including travelling to Mackay, Queensland in early 1943. After his return to Melbourne, Bell became a full-time professional with the Dixieland Jazz Band.
His first recordings were for William Miller’s Ampersand label in 1943, after which he became leader of the house band for the Eureka Youth League and established a cabaret, the Uptown Club, in 1946. After playing at the inaugural Australian Jazz Convention, Bell’s band was renamed Australian Jazz Band and became the first such band to tour Europe.
The Australian Jazz Band travelled to the United Kingdom in early 1948 and Graeme started the Leicester Square Jazz Club, playing music specifically for dancing, which continued into the 1950s. Many future and contemporary bands were to be influenced by his music. During the early 1950s he periodically returned to UK and Europe to perform, and in 1951 they appeared at Oxford Town Hall with the performance ultimately released as Big Bill Broonzy in Concert with Graeme Bell & his Australian Jazz Band.
Upon returning to Australia he settled in Sydney and became one of the leading promoters of jazz in the country, bringing American performers such as trumpeter Rex Stewart. He played commercial music and taught piano to supplement his income.
Pianist Graeme Bell, wrote Graeme Bell, Australian Jazzman, was inducted into the Australian Recording Industry Association Hall of Fame in 1997 and made over 1,500 recordings, died on June 13, 2012 after suffering from a stroke at 97.
More Posts: bandleader,history,instrumental,jazz,music,piano
Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Sol Schlinger was born on September 6, 1926 in the Bronx, New York. His father was an unsuccessful entrepreneur who booked concerts in Europe, his mother a successful cook who earned the family money. He grew up with Stan Getz, Bernie Glow and Lenny Hambro. His first instrument was the tenor saxophone and took lessons from the saxophonist in the band at a small resort in the Catskill Mountains north of New York City. His dedication did not go unnoticed and his father got him a C-melody saxophone and began lessons with Bill Sheiner on a tenor that he sold him for $75.
He began his professional career at the age of sixteen with Henry Jerome & His Stepping Stones at the Pelham Heath Inn. World War II saw Sol touring wit.h Shep Fields, including a trip to Europe to play for the troops. After the war ended he took up the baritone saxophone and went out on the road with Charlie Barnett’s band. He then joined Buddy Rich’s outfit.
The late Forties saw Schlinger with Tommy Dorsey, recording with Sauter-Finegan, and became a member of the East Coast sax section with Hal McKusick, Gene Quill, Zoot Sims, Al Cohn and sometimes Phil Woods. He often recorded with trombonist-arranger Billy Byers, who was also a ghostwriter for Quincy Jones. Following this he joined Benny Goodman for a period. He would go on to work with Tony Bennett, Carmen McRae and others.
Baritone saxophonist Sol Schlinger, who was a first call and solid anchor in the reed section, died at 91 years old on November 1, 2017.
More Posts: history,instrumental,jazz,music,saxophone
Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Samuel Quinto Feitosa was born Samuel Quinto Feitosa on September 5, 1973 in Belém, Pará, but grew up in Salvador, Bahia. From the age of seven, he developed his interest in piano from the gospel music performed in the Baptist Church during his childhood. An autodidact, he played at home without teachers, learning harmony, reading and writing music and orchestration, musical composition, arranging for the church choir, and started playing as a pianist at age 12.
Releasing his debut CD Latin Jazz Thrill in 2007 in Portugal, with his trio, Samuel followed it with Salsa ‘n Jazz, containing eight original compositions and a standard the following year. After a European tour he established the first course of Latin Jazz at Jazz School North, Porto. He also became the artistic director of one of the most traditional jazz Portuguese clubs, B-flat.
He returned to Brazil in 2012 to take the position of Music Minister at the Second Baptist Church in Mossoro, Rio Grande do Norte. During this period he wrote symphonies, opera, minuets and christmas rratorio for choir.
In 2015 he becames the newest piano representative of Fritz Dobbert pianos and returned to jazz performance. He published his first book called Improvisar é muito fácil in 2016. Quinto is a member of several organizations including the International Council for Traditional Music, the American Council of Piano Performers, the National Federation of Music Clubs and has a collaborative relationship with UNESCO.
Pianist Samuel Quinto, who is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts in London, continues to perform, compose and educate.
More Posts: bandleader,composer,history,instrumental,jazz,music,piano
Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Gene Ludwig was born on September 4, 1937 in Twin Rocks, Cambria County, Pennsylvania and raised in the boroughs of Wilkinsburg and Swissvale, near Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. He began studying the piano at age 6 and became interested in rhythm and blues after hearing Ruth Brown, Big Joe Turner and organists Bill Doggett and Wild Bill Davis.
Graduating from Swissvale High School in 1955, he studied physics and mathematics at Edinboro State Teachers College. He left due to his father going on strike at Westinghouse Electric, and returned to Pittsburgh to work in construction.
Ludwig began performing in local vocal groups before hearing organist Jimmy Smith perform at the Hurricane nightclub in Pittsburgh’s Hill District. That initial encounter inspired him to take up the Hammond organ. He bought several organs before settling on the B-3 after sharing a bill with Jimmy Smith in 1964 in Atlantic City, New Jersey.
Traveling along the East Coast and to Ohio, he performed jazz and rhythm and blues, and released numerous singles and albums as a leader and a sideman. Gene released a 45-rpm single of the Ray Charles song Sticks & Stones in 1963, then in 1967 he released Mother Blues on Johnny Nash’s Jocida record label. He went on to replace Don Patterson in saxophonist Sonny Stitt’s band in 1969, appearing on Stitt’s album, Night Letter.
Ludwig toured with bass-baritone vocalist Arthur Prysock and guitarist Pat Martino. He released the album, Now’s the Time, in 1980 on Muse Records, and continued to travel and work through the ’80s and ’90s, regularly performing at Pittsburgh’s Crawford Grill and James Street Tavern. He signed with Loose Leaf/Blues Leaf Records in 1997 and released the albums Back on the Track, Soul Serenade, The Groove ORGANization, Hands On, and Live in Las Vegas, for the label.
Hammond B-3 organist Gene Ludwig, who was a prominent figure on the Pittsburgh jazz scene, died in Monroeville, Pennsylvania on July 14, 2010. A posthumous album, Love Notes of Cole Porter, was released in 2011 by Jim Alfredson’s Big O Records.
More Posts: bandleader,history,instrumental,jazz,music,organ