Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Albert Morgan was born on August 19, 1908 in New Orleans, Louisiana into a musical family. He started on clarinet, then learned baritone saxophone, tuba, and bass. After taking lessons with Simon Marrero around 1919, he played with his brother Isaiah. Relocated briefly to Pensacola, Florida he played with Mack Thomas and Lee Collins.
Returning to New Orleans to play on riverboats with Fate Marable and Sidney Desvigne. Al went on to play with Davey Jones and Cecil Scott and recorded with the Jones & Collins Astoria Hot Eight.
In the 1930s, Morgan led his own band and played as a sideman with Fats Waller, Les Hite, Zutty Singleton, Louis Jordan, and Sabby Lewis. This period saw him performing with Otto Hardwick and then spent four years with Cab Calloway from 1932 to 1936.
After leaving the Calloway orchestra, Al settled in California, playing live, on record, and on film. His film appearances include a feature on “Reefer Man” with the Calloway band in International House, Cab Calloway’s Hi-De-Ho, with Louis Armstrong in Going Places, and in The Gene Krupa Story.
From the 1950s to the 1970s, Morgan played extensively with Buddy Banks in a duo. Morgan recorded with Chu Berry, Coleman Hawkins, Don Byas, Jack Teagarden, Jay McShann, Red Allen, and T-Bone Walker.
Double bassist Al Morgan passed away on April 14, 1974 in Los Angeles, California.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Jeanie Barton was born on August 18, 1978 in London, England. She spent years as a principal in the National Youth Music Theatre, then studied jazz harmony at Morley College in London as well as improvisation with BBC Jazz award winner Anita Wardell. She also cut her teeth as a singer for bebop pioneer Laurie Morgan’s trio, fronting their famous North London weekly gig, Downstairs at The King’s Head in Crouch End for over a decade.
She went on to support Georgie Fame, as well as backing vocals for Luddy Samms of The Drifters. Barton has performed for Samuel L Jackson, Shirley Bassey, and Pierce Brosnan. She has sung at The Jazz Cafe, The 606 Club, Ronnie Scott’s and The National Theatre, as well as a Parisian cruise on the Seine and the Cannes Film Festival.
Vocalist Jeanie Barton was voted Best Newcomer at the Marlborough Jazz Festival 2015, and in addition writes for the London Jazz News and Nottingham Live, formally the Nottingham Post.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Perry Morris Robinson was born on September 17, 1938, the son of composer Earl Robinson. He grew up in New York City and attended the Lenox School of Jazz in Massachusetts in the summer of 1959. After serving in a U.S. military band in the early 1960s, his first record, Funk Dumpling with Kenny Barron, Henry Grimes, and Paul Motian was recorded by Savoy in 1962.
He would go on to record with Grimes on The Call in 1965, in which two of the album’s six songs are credited to Robinson, including the title track. From 1973, he worked with Jeanne Lee and Gunter Hampel’s Galaxie Dream Band. He contributed to Dave Brubeck’ s Two Generations of Brubeck and played with Burton Greene’ s Dutch klezmer band Klezmokum. He was the featured clarinetist on Archie Shepp’s LP Mama Too Tight on the Impulse! label.
Perry led his own groups in performances and on record, with albums on the Chiaroscuro, WestWind, and Timescraper labels. More recently, he worked with William Parker and Walter Perkins on Bob’s Pink Cadillac and several other discs on the CIMP label.
From 1975 until 1977, Robinson was a member of the Clarinet Contrast group, then recorded with Lou Grassi, Wayne Lopes, and Luke Faust in The Jug Jam, an improvisational jug band. He regularly plays and records in a free jazz and world music trio; played with Darius Brubeck and Muruga Booker in the MBR jazz trio, and played an integral part in the formation of the improvisational Cosmic Legends. In 2005 he was featured on his cousin Jeffrey Lewis’ album City and Eastern Songs on Rough Trade Records, A later release was OrthoFunkOlogy in 2008 with the band Free Funk. Clarinetist and composer Perry Robinson, whose autobiography, Perry Robinson: The Traveler was published in 2002, passed away on December 2, 2008.
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DAily Dose Of Jazz…
Dennis Moss MBE, known as Danny in the professional world, was born on August 16, 1927 in Redhill, Surrey, England. The son of a toolmaker, his childhood was spent on the south coast, in the Brighton-Worthing area, where he attended Steyning Grammar School. At the age of thirteen, he saw a jazz band appear briefly in a Bowery Boys film, and was so inspired by the clarinet playing that he swapped his most valued possession, his ice skates, for a second-hand instrument of his own. He was self-taught on both this and the tenor saxophone, which he took up at school,
A spell of National Service at the age of eighteen saw Moss performing for three years in a Royal Air Force regional band. After leaving the forces he joined the Vic Lewis Orchestra, then moved around various bands, especially ones with the potential for a soloist. In 1952, he joined Ted Heath’s band, soon discovering novelty numbers and musical reproductions were limiting his skills as an improviser, and he left after three years.
In 1957 Moss joined John Dankworth’s orchestra. Here, with the band’s encouragement, he began to develop his characteristic saxophone sound. He left Dankworth’s band in 1962, and from here, he joined Humphrey Lyttelton’s group, continuing to hone his style for another two years. He formed his own quartet, playing a mix of club gigs, festival appearances and radio broadcasts for the BBC and continued to tour with this quartet throughout the 1970s and 1980s. He also playing and recording with high-profile singers like Tony Bennett, Ella Fitzgerald, Bing Crosby, Sarah Vaughan, and Rosemary Clooney, and appearing with Buck Clayton in the mid-’60s and Louis Armstrong on his last British tour.
Diagnosed in 2005 with pleural mesothelioma, a rare form of lung cancer caused by exposure to asbestos. Saxophonist Danny Moss passed away on May 28, 2008, aged 80.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Terry Pollard (August 15, 1931 in Detroit, Michigan and began her career by collaborating with other Detroit musicians, such as Billy Mitchell and Elvin Jones, in the house band at the Blue Bird Inn. Johnny Hill, and the Emmitt Slay Trio.
Discovered by Terry Gibbs, she toured with him in the early 1950s, playing piano and vibraphone. They recorded several albums, including Terry Gibbs Quartet – Featuring Terry Pollard. Pollard appeared with Gibbs on an episode of The Tonight Show hosted by Steve Allen. Her collaborations with Gibbs from 1953 to 1957 marked the height of her career.
Pollard also performed with John Coltrane, Charlie Parker, Miles Davis, Chet Baker, Nat King Cole, Dinah Washington, Duke Ellington and Ella Fitzgerald
Recording a self-titled solo album for Bethlehem Records in 1955, Terry won Down Beat magazine’s New Artist award in 1956. She retired from her full-time music career shortly thereafter in order to raise a family, but she continued to play locally in Detroit and performed with Yusef Lateef, Dorothy Ashby, Don Fagerquist, and Diana Ross and the Supremes among others.
Her contributions to the mid-century Detroit jazz scene were recognized in the book Before Motown: A History of Jazz in Detroit 1920-1960, by Lars Bjorn and Jim Gallert. Pianist, vibraphonist Terry Pollard, who was inducted into the Michigan Jazz Hall of Fame, passed away on December 16, 2009 in Detroit.
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