Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Nathan Tate Davis ws born February 15, 1937 in Kansas City, Kansas. He apprenticed in the Jay McShann band before heading off to college to receive his degree in Music Education. After being discharged from military service post World War II, he traveled extensively around Europe before settling in Paris, France in 1962.
Moving back to the States he went on to attain a Ph.D in Ethnomusicology from Wesleyan University and was a professor of music and director of jazz studies at the University of Pittsburgh from 1969, an academic program that he helped initiate. During his tenure he was founder and director of the University of Pittsburgh Annual Jazz Seminar and Concert, the first academic jazz event of its kind in the United States.
Nathan helped to found the university’s William Robinson Recording Studio as well as establish the International Academy of Jazz Hall of Fame located in the school’s William Pitt Union and the University of Pittsburgh-Sonny Rollins International Jazz Archives.
Retiring as director of the Jazz Studies Program at Pitt in 2013, Davis also served as the editor of the International Jazz Archives Journal. One of Davis’ best known musical associations was heading the Paris Reunion Band from 1985 to 1989, which at different times included Nat Adderley, Kenny Drew, Johnny Griffin, Slide Hampton, Joe Henderson, Idris Muhammad, Dizzy Reece, Woody Shaw, and Jimmy Woode.
Over the course of his career he worked with Eric Dolphy, Kenny Clarke, Ray Charles, Slide Hampton, Kenny “Klook” Clarke and Art Blakey. He toured and recorded with the post-bop ensemble leading Roots which he formed in 1991. As a composer, Nathan created various pieces, including a 2004 opera entitled Just Above My Head.
Tenor and soprano saxophonist, bass clarinetist and flutist Nathan Davis, who recorded eighteen albums as a leader, passed away on April 8, 2018 in Palm Beach, Florida, at the age of 81.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Yoshio Ikeda (池田芳夫) was born on January 1, 1942 in Osaka, Japan. He received formal training in bass before studying jazz with Gary Peacock in the 1960s.
He led his own small groups in the Seventies, and has worked with Terumasa Hino, Masabumi Kikuchi, Steve Lacy, Akira Miyazawa, Yuji Ohno, Allan Praskin, Masahiko Sato, Masahiko Togashi, Kiyoshi Sugimoto, Aki Takase, and Sadao Watanabe. Double bassist Yoshio Ikeda continues to perform and record.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Louis Raphael Mucci was born on December 13, 1909 in Syracuse, New York and began as a baritone horn player. By age ten, he was appearing in professional settings. As a teenager, he switched to trumpet and worked in the late 1930s with Mildred Bailey and Red Norvo before joining Glenn Miller’s ensemble in 1938-1939.
During World War II he played in the bands of Bob Chester, Hal McIntyre, Claude Thornhill, and Benny Goodman. In the first half of the 1950s, he worked as a house musician for CBS and also recorded with Buddy DeFranco and Artie Shaw.
The late 1950s saw him working with Miles Davis, Helen Merrill, and John LaPorta. His association with Davis lasted into the early 1960s and he played with Kenny Burrell in 1964. Trumpeter Lou Mucci passed away on January 4, 2000.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Sol Yaged was born on December 8, 1922 in Brooklyn, New York and began playing the clarinet at the age of 12 after hearing Benny Goodman’s broadcasts for Nabisco in 1935. He studied under a New York Philharmonic clarinetist, however turned down a classical career to play jazz in New York City nightclubs.
After three years in the Army during World War II, Yaged played clarinet professionally and continuously for over 70 years, with Phil Napoleon, Coleman Hawkins, Red Allen, and Jack Teagarden among others. In the 1960s, he began working primarily as an ensemble leader in City. In the Nineties he worked in Felix Endico’s swing band, and served as a consultant on Benny Goodman’s musical style for the 1956 film, The Benny Goodman Story.
For two years in the mid-1990s he worked under the musical direction of bandleader Jack Vartan at the Stony Hill Inn in Bergen County, New Jersey. He recorded four albums as a leader and six as a sideman. Clarinetist Sol Yaged, who was strongly influenced by Benny Goodman passed away on May 11, 2019.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Marshal Walton Royal Jr. was born into a musical family on December 5, 1912 in Sapulpa, Oklahoma. His first professional gig was with Lawrence Brown’s band at Danceland in Los Angeles, California. In a very short time, he secured a regular gig at the Apex, working for Curtis Mosby in Mosby’s Blue Blowers, a 10-piece band. Following that gig, he began an eight-year stint from 1931–1939 with the Les Hite Orchestra at Sebastian’s Cotton Club in Los Angeles. He spent 1940 to 1942 with Lionel Hampton, until the war interrupted his career.
With his brother Ernie, he served in the U.S. Navy in the 45-piece regimental band that was attached to the Navy’s pre~flight training school for pilots at St. Mary’s College in Moraga, California. Two swing bands were organized from the larger regimental band, and they played for smokers and dances at USOs and officers clubs. Royal was the leader of the Bombardiers, one of those bands, which also included not only his brother Ernie, but Jackie Kelson (later known as Jackie Kelso), Buddy Collette, Jerome Richardson, and Vernon Alley.
When he left Basie in 1970, Royal settled permanently in Los Angeles, continuing to play and record, working with Bill Berry’s big band, Frank Capp and Nat Pierce, Earl Hines, and Duke Ellington. Royal recorded as a soloist with Dave Frishberg and Warren Vache. He co-led a band with Snooky Young in the 1970s and 1980s, recording with the band in 1978.
Alto saxophonist and clarinetist Marshal Royal, best known for his twenty years with Count Basie, passed away in Culver City, California, on May 9, 1995, aged 82.
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