Daily Dose Of Jazz…

Geoff Simkins was born on October 13, 1948 in London Borough of Ealing, England. He started playing jazz in his early teens and his first instrument was drums, but he quickly changed to the alto saxophone.

In 1977 Geoff turned professional and his early work included time with the Harry Strutters Hot Rhythm Orchestra and the Temperance Seven. His principal stylistic influences have been the altoist Lee Konitz and tenor saxman Warne Marsh.

Simkins has played at concerts, clubs and festivals in all parts of the UK, in Europe and beyond. Often working with visiting American musicians his list has included Art Farmer, Bobby Shew, Al Cohn, Tal Farlow, Slide Hampton, Warren Vache, Al Grey, Howard Alden, Ruby Braff, Bill Coleman and Conte Candoli, among others. He has recorded with UK tenor saxophonist Danny Moss and US trumpeters Billy Butterfield and Yank Lawson. Since the 1980s he has worked regularly with UK guitarist Dave Cliff.

As an educator Geoff is a respected teacher, and runs improvisation courses in Brighton, UK. He has been a regular tutor at the famous Glamorgan Jazz Summer School in Wales before moving it to Trinity College of Music in London. Since 2012 he has taught at the Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama in Cardiff.

Alto saxophonist Geoff Simkins, who has recorded as a leader also eight albums as a sideman with Nikki Iies, Dave Cliff, Allan Ganley and Howard Alden, continues to perform, record and teach.

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Daily Dose Of Jazz…

Hidehiko “Sleepy” Matsumoto (松本英彦) was born on October 12, 1926 in Okayama, Japan. He attended Fuchu High School where he learned the saxophone followed by matriculation through the University of Electro-Communications.

In the late 1940s he played bebop in Japan with the group CB Nine, then joined The Six Josés and The Big Four, a group which included George Kawaguchi, Hachidai Nakamura, and Mitsuru Ono.

In 1959 he became a member of Hideo Shiraki’s small ensemble, and played with Gerald Wilson at the 1963 Monterey Jazz Festival and Toshiko Akiyoshi in 1964. Starting in 1964 Hidehiko led his own ensembles, which included sidemen Takeshi Inomata, Akira Miyazawa, George Otsuka, and Isao Suzuki.

On July 22 and 24, 1966, he played with the John Coltrane quintet in Tokyo, Japan while the group toured Japan. Tenor saxophonist and bandleader Hidehiko “Sleepy” Matsumoto passed away on February 29, 2000 in Tokyo, Japan.

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Daily Dose Of Jazz…

Tony Kinsey was born Cyril Anthony Kinsey on October 11, 1927 in Sutton Coldfield, Birmingham, England. Holding down jobs on trans-Atlantic ships during his youth, he studied while at port with Bill West in New York City and Birmingham with Tommy Webster. He had a close association with Ronnie Ball early in his life.

Kinsey led his own ensemble at the Flamingo Club in London, England through the 1950s, and recorded on more than 80 sessions between 1950 and 1977, including with Tubby Hayes, Bill Le Sage, Ronnie Scott, Johnny Dankworth, Tommy Whittle, Joe Harriott, Lena Horne, Frank Holder, Ella Fitzgerald, Ben Webster, Clark Terry, Harry Edison, Buddy DeFranco, Billie Holiday, Oscar Peterson, and Sarah Vaughan.

He performed at European jazz festivals both as a drummer and as a poet. He did some work as a session musician in the 1950s and 1960s, playing on records by Eddie Calvert, Cliff Richard, and Ronnie Aldrich. Kinsey was also a founder member of the group, The John Dankworth Seven in 1950.

He was a resident at the Florida Club, Leicester Square, in the 1950s and had his own trio in the mid~Sixties. By the mid 1980s Tony performed regularly with vibraphone player Lennie Best at venues in the London area including the South Hill Park Cellar Bar in Bracknell.

Kinsey also branched into composition; a string quartet composition of his is used in the short film On the Bridge, and he wrote arrangements for big bands in addition to music for over 100 commercials. Later in his life he wrote music for a musical based on the life of George Eliot.

In 2012, he appeared in the documentary film, No One But Me, discussing jazz vocalist Annie Ross. Drummer and composer Tony Kinsey continues to remain active as  drummer.

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Daily Dose Of Jazz…

Roy Kral was born on October 10, 1921 in Cicero, Illinois. His sister was the renowned vocalist Irene Kral. Urged by his mother, he took classical piano lessons as a young boy but by the 1930s abandoned them to teach himself to play jazz piano by mimicking what he heard while listening to the radio under his blanket after bedtime.

During World War II, Kral served in the Army as an arranger for the Army band. After service he moved to Chicago, Illinois and joined the George Davis Quartet. As a pianist and singer for Charlie Ventura’s band, Bop for the People, in 1948 ç Kral agreed to write a new arrangement of the 1919 pop song I’m Forever Blowing Bubbles. He added a bebop sensibility and scat singing to a rather insipid pop standard, transforming it into a cool, jazzy tune and their first hit.

Meeting Jackie Cain at eighteen and just out of high school and his initial impression was not her singing until he heard her. Their voices were an octave apart and their partnership was cemented when they married in 1949 and became the duo Jackie and Roy, recording nearly 40 albums in 56 years. Coming to prominence during the bebop era they combined bebop singing with cabaret creating a very polished sound of pop, jazz and Latin music, all inflected with a jazz sensibility. The duo produced hits like Spring Can Really Hang You Up the Most, You Inspire Me, and It’s A Lovely Day Today.

Pianist and vocalist Roy Kral, one half of one of the most important vocal groups in jazz, passed away at 80 of congestive heart failure on August 2, 2002 in Montclair, New Jersey. 

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Daily Dose Of Jazz…

Lee Wiley was born in Fort Gibson, Oklahoma on October 9, 1908. At fifteen, she left home to pursue a singing career, moving to New York City to perform on radio stations. However, her career was interrupted by a horseback riding fall that temporarily sidelined her due to blindness but recovered. At 19 she became a member of the Leo Reisman Orchestra, with whom in 1931 she recorded three songs: Take It From Me, Time On My Hands, and her composition Got The South In My Soul.

Lee began her radio career at KVOO in Tulsa, Oklahoma on the Mrs. Eleanor Roosevelt program on NBC in 1932, and was featured on Victor Young’s radio show in 1933. Throughout the summer of 1936, she had her own show, Lee Wiley, on CBS.

In 1939 she recorded eight Gershwin songs on 78s with a small group for Liberty Music Shop Records. The set sold well and was followed the next year by the music of Cole Porter, Richard Rodgers & Lorenz Hart, Harold Arlen, and the music of Vincent Youmans and Irving Berlin.

She sang with Paul Whiteman, and the Casa Loma Orchestra. A collaboration with composer Victor Young resulted in several songs for which Wiley wrote the lyrics, including Got The South In My Soul and Anytime, Anyday, Anywhere. In 1963, Bob Hope Theater on NBC-TV presented “Something About Lee Wiley, where Piper Laurie portrayed her in the episode, which was produced by Revue Studios.

Vocalist Lee Wiley, active from the 1930 through the 1950s, passed away on December 11, 1975.

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