Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Clyde Bernhardt, born July 11, 1905 in Gold Hill, North Carolina, grew up in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. He started playing trombone at 17 and in the Twenties performed in a series of lesser-known ensembles such as Bill Eady’s Ellwood Syncopators, Tillie Vennie, Odie Cromwell’s Wolverine Syncopators and The Whitman Sisters to name a few. In 1931 he worked with King Oliver and throughout the thirties played with Alex Hill, The Alabamians, Billy Fowler, Ira Coffey’s Walkathonians and Vernon Andrade.
In 1937 he joined the orchestra of Edgar Haye until 1942 then worked with Jay McShann, Cecil Scott, Luis Russell, Leonard Feather, Pete Johnson, Wynonie Harris, Claude Hopkins and the Bascomb brothers. He led his own ensemble, called the Blue Blazers, before returning to play with Russell from 1948-51. He recorded as a leader between 1946 and 1953, and on some of the recordings he sings under the pseudonym Ed Barron.
From 1952 to 1970 he played part-time with Joe Garland’s Society Orchestra followed with his leading the Harlem Blues and Jazz Band from 1972 and 1979 with sidemen Doc Cheatham, Charlie Holmes, Happy Caldwell, Tommy Benford and Miss Rhapsody. Shortly before his death he published his autobiography “I Remember” co-written with Sheldon Harris. As Bernhardt’s health began to fail in 1979, he gave up band leadership but played in Barry Martyn’s Legends of Jazz until his death on May 20, 1986 in Newark, New Jersey.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Major Holley was born on July 10, 1924 in Detroit, Michigan and started his music lessons playing violin and tuba at a young age. He started playing bass while serving in the Navy. In the latter half of the 1940s he played with Dexter Gordon, Charlie Parker, and Ella Fitzgerald. In 1950 he and Oscar Peterson recorded duets, and he also played with Peterson and Charlie Smith in a trio setting.
In the mid-1950s Major moved to England, working at the BBC. Upon returning to America he toured with Woody Herman in 1958 and with Al Cohn/Zoot Sims in 1959-60. A prolific studio musician, he played with Duke Ellington in 1964 and with the Kenny Burrell Trio, Coleman Hawkins, Lee Konitz, Roy Eldridge, Michel Legrand, Milt Buckner, Jay McShane and Quincy Jones during the Sixties and Seventies.
He was also noted for singing along with his arco (bowed) bass solos, a technique Slam Stewart also used. Holley and Stewart recorded together on two albums during the 1970s.
Never one far from the educational process, informal or formal, Holley was a professor and taught at the Berklee College of Music from 1967 to 1970. Upright jazz bassist Major Holley passed away on October 25, 1990 in Maplewood, New Jersey.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Colin James Bailey was born July 9, 1934 in Swindon, England and learned to play drums as a child, studying formally from age seven. Living in Australia from 1958 into the early 1960s, he played with Bryce Rohode and the Australian Jazz Quartet. While the AJQ toured the U.S., Bailey was hired by Vince Guaraldi to play alongside Jimmy Witherspoon and Ben Webster until 1963.
Settling in California, Bailey worked throughout the sixties with Claire Fischer, Victor Feldman, Joe Pass and Miles Davis; toured worldwide with Benny Goodman and George Shearing, played on a television program with Terry Gibbs and played with Chet Baker, Ray Brown, Joao Gilberto and Blossom Dearie in 1975.
In 1970, Bailey became an American citizen and spent six years as Ed Shaughnessy’s backup in the Tonight Show band, and starred in Fernwood Tonight in a drumming role in 1977-78. After a move to Texas in 1979, he became a faculty member at North Texas State University from 1981-84.
Drummer Colin Bailey’s later work includes time with Richie Cole, Jimmy Rowles, Red Mitchell, Stefan Scaggliari, Ron Affif, John Pisano, Weslia Whitfield, George H. Russell, Shelly Manne, Victor Feldman and re-teaming with Joe Pass.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Lloyd “Tiny” Grimes was born on July 7, 1916 in Newport News, Virginia and began his career playing drums and one-fingered piano. In 1938 he took up the electric 4-string tenor guitar and two years later joined the Cats and a Fiddle as guitarist and singer. 1943 saw him as part of the Art Tatum Trio making a number of recordings and this early configuration recorded some of the more interesting early examples of Tiny Grimes’ guitar work.
After leaving Tatum, Grimes recorded with his own groups in New York and he recorded with a long list of leading musicians, including Billie Holiday. He made four recordings with Charlie Parker that are considered excellent examples of early bebop jazz: “Tiny’s Tempo”, “Red Cross”, “Romance Without Finance” and “I’ll Always Love You”. He was to become one of the 52nd Street regulars during this period.
Towards the end of the decade Tiny scored a hit on a jazzed up version of “Loch Lomond”. His band was billed as Tiny “Mac” Grimes and the Rocking Highlanders, appearing in kilts and included top tenor sax man Red Prysock and big-voiced baritone singer Screaming Jay Hawkins. Grimes continued to lead his own groups into the later 1970’s recording for Prestige in a series of strong blues-based performances with Coleman Hawkins, Illinois Jacquet, Pepper Adams, Roy Eldridge, Earl Hines and others of note.
With Paul Williams he co-headlined the first “Moondog Coronation Ball”, promoted by Alan Freed in Cleveland, Ohio on March 21, 1952, often claimed as the first rock and roll concert. It is also generally considered he played on the first rock and roll record with a group called The Crows one-hit wonder “Gee”.
Tiny Grimes, a jazz and R&B guitarist most noted for playing a four-string electric tenor guitar, passed away on March 4, 1989.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Ray Biondi was born Remo Biondi on July5, 1905 in Cicero, Illinois. As a child, he started with violin and down a road that was not supposed to lead to ditties with suggestive titles. His early training was classical at the American Conservatory of Chicago. Mandolin was a natural double at age 12 and a gateway into the world of string bands. He remained focused mostly on violin but added guitar and then trumpet into his musical arsenal as he began thinking outside the classical idiom.
In 1926 Ray began playing professionally with the Blanche Jaros Orchestra, and the following year started an eight-year period of heavy freelancing in Chicago, enjoying sets with trumpeter Wingy Manone and reedman Bud Freeman and many others. He joined Earl Burtnett’s band as a violin and trumpet double, ending up on the road gigging in Kansas City, Cincinnati, New York and distant destinations.
He played violin and trumpet with clarinetist Joe Marsala, often adding guitar when Eddie Condon double-booked himself. This relationship continued until 1938, when Gene Krupa hired Biondi to work solely as a guitarist. He left Krupa a year later and went on his own in a series of small groupings. He opened a short-lived club, rejoined Krupa on the road in the early ‘50s and became a guitar and mandolin session player outside straight jazz.
By 1961 Ray began made a serious shift to teaching all of his instruments except the trumpet, while continuing to perform with groups both large and small, including the Dick Schory orchestra and stride pianist Art Hodes in the latter. Multi-string instrumentalist Ray Biondi passed away on January 28, 1981 in Chicago, Illinois.