Daily Dose Of Jazz…
John Daniel LaPorta was born on April 13, 1920 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania and started playing clarinet at the age of nine. He studied at the Mastbaum School in Philadelphia, alongside classmate Buddy DeFranco. As a teenager he played in local bands with Charlie Ventura and Bill Harris, and studied classically with Joseph Gigliotti of the Philadelphia Orchestra and Leon Russianoff at the Manhattan School of Music.
1942 saw him as a member of the Bob Chester big band for two years, then spent the following two years with the Woody Herman Orchestra. Beginning in 1947, he studied with Lennie Tristano, and with Teo Macero and Charles Mingus he was a member of the Jazz Composers Workshop, trying to combine jazz with classical music. Classically, he worked with Boston Pops, Leonard Bernstein, Leopold Stokowski, and Igor Stravinsky. In jazz he worked with Kenny Clarke, Miles Davis, Dizzy Gillespie, Charlie Parker, Buddy Rich, and Lester Young.
In 1956, La Porta played the first jazz concert in Venezuela at Caracas National Theater, where a selection of the repertoire performed was released under the title South American Brothers by Fantasy Records, becoming the first jazz recording in Venezuela.
As an educator he taught at Parkway Music School, then at public schools on Long Island, followed by the Manhattan School of Music and the Berklee College of Music. With guitarist Jack Petersen, he pioneered the use of Greek modes for teaching chord-scales.
In the 1990s, he retired to Sarasota, Florida, where he performed at the Sarasota Jazz Club and as a guest with the Fred Williams Trio. His autobiography is titled Playing It by Ear. Clarinetist and composer John LaPorta transitioned from complications of a stroke on May 12, 2004 in Sarasota.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Esther Miller was born on April 12, 1968 and raised in the east coastal motor city of Port Elizabeth, South Africa. It is here that she sang in church and school choirs and raided the family Nat King Cole albums for early inspiration.
Leaving Port Elizabeth to study medicine at Cape Town University, she soon gave in to the lure of jazz. Esther started her professional career as the vocalist with Gerry Spencer’s Jazz Cyclone, one of the leading bands on the South African jazz circuit at the time.
During this early apprenticeship Miller worked with some excellent players on both sides of the pond, Herb Ellis, Alan Skidmore, Johnny Fourie, Errol and Alvin Dyers, Winston Mankunku and Ezra Ngkukana, to name but a few.
Esther has honed her technique with classical singing lessons and delved into jazz history, gleaning inspiration from Sarah Vaughan, Billie Holiday, Shirley Horn, Blossom Dearie, Frank Sinatra, and of course, Nat King Cole.
She performed in South African jazz festivals, concert halls and jazz clubs before settling in the United Kingdom for 10 years. There she performed and recorded with some excellent musicians including Steve Melling, Steve Waterman, Zoltan Dekany, Karen Sharp, among others.
Possessing an outstanding technique and sensitive interpretation, with a half dozen albums under her belt, vocalist Esther Miller has moved to Denmark where she continues to add to her repertoire as she explores the Scandinavian jazz scene.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Jimmy Lewis was born April 11, 1918 in Nashville, Tennessee learned to play the bass and though little is known about his early years, he began working professionally with the Count Basie Orchestra and sextet in the 1950s. He went on to perform with Duke Ellington, Cootie Williams, Billie Holiday and Ivory Joe Hunter.
Moving to bass guitar during his time with King Curtis, Jimmy freelanced profusely, recording on over four dozen jazz, soul and R&B albums. He was a sideman and sessionplayer with Solomon Burke, Billy Butler, Al Casey, David Clayton-Thomas, Sam Cooke, Lou Donaldson, Byrdie Green, Grant Green, Tiny Grimes, John P. Hammond, Richard “Groove” Holmes, Alberta Hunter, Willis Jackson, Boogaloo Joe Jones, Charles Kynard, Johnny Lytle, Freddie McCoy, Galt MacDermot, Modern Jazz Quartet, Idris Muhammad, Mark Murphy, Houston Person, Sonny Phillips, Wilson Pickett, Otis Redding, Dave Pike, Arthur Prysock, Horace Silver, Johnny “Hammond” Smith, Buddy Terry, Charles Williams.
Continuing to perform and record up until the Eighties, double bassist Jimmy Lewis, who provided the basslines for the Broadway musical Hair, transitioned in New York City in 2000.
Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Joseph Anthony Livingston, better known by his peers as Fud, was born April 10, 1906 in Charleston, South Carolina and started out on accordion and piano before settling on saxophone. At seventeen he was playing with Tal Henry in Greensboro, North Carolina in 1923, then worked with Ben Pollack, the California Ramblers, Jean Goldkette, Nat Shilkret, Don Voorhees, and Jan Garber. He recorded freelance with musicians such as Joe Venuti, Red Nichols, and Miff Mole.
He did some arrangement work for Frankie Trumbauer and Bix Beiderbecke, including the nursery rhyme Humpty Dumpty. Livingston played on the 1928 Brunswick recording of “Room 1411” as a member of Bennie Goodman and His Boys, which also featured Glenn Miller, Jimmy McPartland, Bud Freeman, and Ben Pollack.
A stint in London,England in 1929 had him working with Fred Elizalde, then returned to New York City to play with Paul Whiteman. His time with Whiteman lasted from 1930 to 1933, and was mainly as an arranger, though he played occasionally. By the mid 1930s he worked with Benny Goodman, Jimmy Dorsey, Bob Zurke, and Pinky Tomlin as the country entered into the Forties. Essentially stopping his writing and arranging at this point, Fud would occasionally perform in small-time venues in New York in the 1950s.
His compositions included Feelin’ No Pain, Imagination, Humpty Dumpty, Harlem Twist, Sax Appeal, are well known but the jazz standard, I’m Thru With Love, written with Matty Malneck and Gus Kahn, has been recorded by over sixty musicians and vocalists, but a short list is Bing Crosby, Dizzy Gillespie, Arthur Prysock, Coleman Hawkins, Lorez Alexandria, John Pizzarelli, Joe Williams Marilyn Monroe, Maxine Sullivan and Steve Tyrell.
It has been sung in the films Everyone Says I Love You, Some Like It Hot, The Affairs Of Dobie Gillis and Spider~Man 3. Even Alfalfa from The Little Rascals had added it to his repertoire.
Clarinetist, saxophonist, arranger, and composer Fud Livingston, who never recorded as a leader, transitioned on March 25, 1957 in New York City.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Léon Clément Doucet was born on April 9, 1895 in Brussels, Belgium. For a time he studied at the city’s Conservatoire under Arthur De Greef, who had been a pupil of Franz Liszt.
His formal training was classical, though as he traveled to the United States where he gained some influence from jazz. Some of his arrangements are still played today, including Chopinata, a jazz tribute to several works by Frédéric Chopin.
After returning to Europe, Clément became the house pianist at the Parisian cabaret Le Boeuf sur le Toit, succeeding Jean Wiéner. He and Wiéner formed a piano duo that spanned 15 years from 1924 to 1939. They performed over 2000 concerts and made over 100 recordings of jazz, blues, and classical music.
They also made a small number of recordings in which they accompanied French chansonniers. These include ten sides with Maurice Chevalier, Édith Piaf, Yvonne George, Jean Sablon and Germaine Sablon and others.
Pianist Clément Doucet transitioned at the age of 55 on October 15, 1950 in his hometown.
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