Daily Dose Of Jazz…

Charles Sumner Kennedy was born on July 2, 1927 in Staten Island, New York.  He played with Louis Prima’s big band orchestra in the 1940s, earning himself a solo on that band’s 1943 recording of The White Cliffs of Dover. He put together his own band and after a brief stint as a leader, he joined Gene Krupa’s big band.

Over the course of his career, he also played with Terry Gibbs’s Dream Band, as well as Charlie Ventura, Flip Phillips, Chico O’Farrill, and Bill Holman. In addition to live performances and recordings with big-name bands, he also was a frequent studio musician. He played in the orchestras for popular movies including My Fair Lady and West Side Story.

By the 1970s, he gave up his career as a full-time musician in order to support his family, but continued to perform in clubs near his home in southern California. Alto saxophonist Charlie Kennedy, who was a big band-era musician, passed away of pulmonary disease on April 3, 2009 in Ventura, California at the age of 81.

More Posts: ,,,,

Daily Dose Of Jazz…

Sameer Gupta was born July 1, 1976 in San Francisco, California. Now based in Brooklyn, New York he is a co-founder of Brooklyn Raga Massive, the jazz ensemble The Supplicants and drummer for the Marc Cary Focus Trio.

He has also worked with vidyA, Kosmic Renaissance, Grachan Moncur III, Victor Goines, Vincent Gardner, Sekou Sundiata, Sonny Simmons, Marcus Shelby, Calvin Keys, Richard Howell, Dayna Stephens, and Julian Lage.

Percussionist, tabla player, and composer Sameer Gupta continues to compose, perform and record.

More Posts: ,,,,,,

Daily Dose Of Jazz…

Harry Shields was born on June 30, 1899 at 2319 First Street in Uptown, New Orleans, Louisiana, two doors down from Buddy Bolden’s house. He spent almost his whole career in New Orleans. He played with the bands of Norman Brownlee, Sharkey Bonano, Tom Brown, Johnny Wiggs, and others.

Many of his fellow musicians regarded Harry as a superior clarinetist to his brother Larry, who became a noted musician. Wiggs had once commented that Harry was the only clarinetist he’d heard who could always play the right note without fail. He was a part of George Girard and His New Orleans Five, and Johnny Wiggs and His New Orleans Band.

Clarinetist Harry Shields passed away in his hometown on January 19, 1971.

More Posts: ,,,,

Daily Dose Of Jazz…

Ralph Jose P. Burns was born on June 29, 1922 in Newton, Massachusetts and began playing the piano as a child. Attending the New England Conservatory of Music, he learned the most about jazz by transcribing the works of Count Basie, Benny Goodman and Duke Ellington. While a student, he lived in the home of Frances Wayne, who was an established big band singer and her brother Nick Jerret was a bandleader who began working with him. He found himself in the company of performers as Nat King Cole and Art Tatum.

Moving to New York in the early 1940s, he met Charlie Barnet and the two men began working together. In 1944, he joined the Woody Herman band with members Neal Hefti, Bill Harris, Flip Phillips, Chubby Jackson and Dave Tough. Together, the group developed Herman’s sound. For 15 years, Burns wrote or arranged many of the band’s major hits including Bijou, Northwest Passage, Apple Honey, and on the longer work Lady McGowan’s Dream and the three-part Summer Sequence.

Herman band member Stan Getz was featured as a tenor saxophone soloist on Early Autumn, a hit for the band and the launching platform for Getz’s solo career. Burns also worked in a small band with soloists including Bill Harris and Charlie Ventura. The success of the Herman band provided Ralph the ability to record under his own name. He collaborated with Billy Strayhorn, Lee Konitz and Ben Webster to create both jazz and classical recordings.

Writing compositions for Tony Bennett and Johnny Mathis led to his later work with Aretha Franklin and Natalie Cole. He was responsible for the arrangement and introduction of a string orchestra on two of Ray Charles’s biggest hits, Come Rain or Come Shine and Georgia on My Mind. In the 1990s, Burns arranged music for Mel Tormé, John Pizzarelli, Michael Feinstein and Tony Bennett.

During the 1960s he quit touring as a band pianist and began arranging and orchestrating for Broadway shows including Chicago, Funny Girl, No, No, Nanette, and Sweet Charity. His first film score was for Woody Allen’s Bananas. He worked with Bob Fosse and won an Academy Award for Cabaret, and went on to compose the film scores for Lenny, New York, New York  and All That Jazz, the latter garnered an Academy Award. Besides winning Oscars, Burns won an Emmy,  a Tony and a Drama Desk Award. From 1996 until his death, he restored many orchestrations for New York City Center’s Encores! series.

Carefully hiding his homosexuality throughout his life, pianist, composer and arranger Ralph Burns, who was posthumously inducted into the New England Jazz Hall of Fame in 2004, passed away on November 21, 2001 from complications of a stroke and pneumonia in Los Angeles, California.

More Posts: ,,,,,,

Daily Dose Of Jazz…

Herman Edward Sherman, Sr. was born in New Orleans, Louisiana on June 28, 1923. He played clarinet in high school and later picked up the alto and tenor saxophone. He began working with brass bands on the New Orleans jazz scene around 1940, playing in the Eureka Brass Band, the Onward Brass Band, and the Young Tuxedo Brass Band.

Taking over the leadership of the Young Tuxedo Brass Band in 1971, he remained for the rest of his life. During his tenure the group toured the United States repeatedly and performed in Berlin, Germany in 1980. He led the ensemble in the studio for their 1983 release Jazz Continues on 504 Records.

Occasionally he played in dance bands, but concentrated on his work in brass bands. Saxophonist and bandleader Herman Sherman passed away on September 10, 1984 in his hometown.

More Posts: ,,,,

« Older Posts       Newer Posts »
© Notorious Jazz 2026