Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Paul Smith also known as Paul T. Smith was born on April 17, 1922 in San Diego, California. After playing early on with Johnny Richards in 1941 and spending a couple of years in the military, the pianist played with Les Paul from 1946–1947 and Tommy Dorsey from 1947–1949, them moved to L.A. and became a studio musician.
Smith has recorded frequently as a leader both with his trios and as a soloist. As a sideman he worked with Dizzy Gillespie, Anita O’Day, Buddy DeFranco, Louis Bellson, Steve Allen, Sammy Davis Jr., Rosemary Clooney, Stan Kenton Mel Torme and Ella Fitzgerald, the later with whom he was her conductor and pianist from 1956 to 1978.
Throughout his career Smith has worked in television with Bing Crosby, Red Skelton, Dinah Shore, Nat King Cole, Carol Burnett and many more, has toured around the world and has authored a number of educational books and CDs, most of which focus on explaining his particular approach to jazz piano.
Often praised for his brilliant technique and lyrical playing, he has performed in various genres of jazz, most typically bebop but has delved into cool jazz, swing, and traditional pop. Pianist Paul Smith passed away of heart failure at the age 91 in Torrance, California on June 29, 2013.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Eugene Valentino Cherico was born on April 15, 1935 in Buffalo, New York. As a child he played drums and pursued a drumming career until he hurt his hand while in a special services band in the Army whereupon he picked up the double bass as therapy. He attended Berklee College of Music where he met Toshiko Akiyoshi with whom he would tour and record intermittently for many years.
Throughout the Fifties and 60s Cherico worked as a sideman with Herb Pomeroy, Maynard Ferguson, Red Norvo, Benny Goodman, George Shearing, Stan Getz, Peter Nero Joe Morello, Paul Desmond and Gary Burton.
Much of the ‘70s Gene made a living as a studio musician siding with Frank Strazzeri, Louis Bellson Peggy Lee, Lew Tabackin, Frank Sinatra, Nancy Wilson Gerry Mulligan, Carmen McRae and Frank Sinatra, who he toured with into the early eighties. In 1984 he retired after being diagnosed with non-Hodgkins lymphoma and after a ten-year battle, double bassist Gene Cherico passed away on August 12, 1994 in Santa Monica, California.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Eugene Ammons was born in Chicago, Illinois on April 14, 1925 to one of the greatest boogie-woogie pianist, Albert Ammons. At the age of 18 he left Chicago to go on the road with King Kolax for a year and in 1944 and ‘49 he worked as a featured soloist with Billy Eckstine and Woody Herman respectively. By 1950 he formed a duet with Sonny Stitt and recorded as a leader from 1947 to 1953 for the Mercury, Aristocrat, Chess, Decca, United and for the rest of his career he was affiliated with Prestige.
Known as “Jug” and “The Boss”, Gene’s playing showed influences from Lester Young and Ben Webster and both helped develop higher levels of expressiveness with from the tenor. Along with Dexter Gordon and Sonny Stitt, he integrated those developments into the emerging vernacular of bebop. His adeptness with technical aspects did not abandon the commercial blues and R&B sounds and he became an important part of the soul jazz movement in the mid-50s combining the tenor with the Hammond B3.
Using a thinner drier tone Ammons exploited a vast textural range that would later influence Stanley Turrentine, Houston Person and Archie Shepp and much later Joshua Redman. Yet he had little interest in the modal jazz of Coltrane, Henderson or Shorter. His ballads are classic, a testament to his sense of intonation, melodic symmetry and lyrical expressiveness.
Along with Von Freeman, they founded the Chicago School of Tenor Saxophone. On August 6, 1974 Gene Ammons passed away after a battle with cancer.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Double bassist John Levy was born April 11, 1912 in New Orleans but was raised in Chicago, Illinois. In 1944 he left Chicago for the bright lights of New York and played bass with Ben Webster, Erroll Garner, Milt Jackson and Billie Holiday. In ’49 he became the original bassist for the George Shearing Quintet and took on the responsibility as his road manager.
1951 saw him turning to business and opening John Levy Enterprises, Inc. becoming the first black personal manager in pop and jazz. By the sixties his roster was boasting clients including Nancy Wilson, Cannonball Adderley, George Shearing, Joe Williams, Shirley Horn and Ramsey Lewis.
In 1997, John Levy was inducted into the International Jazz Hall Of Fame and in 2006 was named a Jazz Master by the National Endowment for the Arts. Bassist and personal manager John Levy passed away on January 20, 2012 at age 99 in Altadena, California.
Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Claude Bolling was born April 10, 1930 in Cannes, France. He studied at the Nice Conservatory in Paris. A child prodigy whose primary influence was Duke Ellington, he was playing jazz piano professionally at age 14 with Lionel Hampton, Roy Eldridge and Kenny Clarke. Drawing inspiration from the New Orleans sound of Jelly Roll Morton, King Oliver, Louis Armstrong and Sidney Bechet and blending it with the music of Johnny Hodges, Barney Bigard and Cootie Williams created an interesting voice for the small band Bolling assembled in 1945. This combination put Claude in the midst of the trad jazz scene in Europe that evolved during the fifties.
He worked with Paul Gonsalves, Roy Eldridge, Lionel Hampton, Cat Anderson and Rex Stewart and by 1955 was leading his own orchestra. Stepping aside from his jazz recording and performance duties in the 60’s, Bolling ventured into creating, managing and producing a female pop group Les Parisiennes, composed for film and television (amassing over a hundred scores), expanded his interpretive range to include the early American modern jazz pianists like Erroll Garner, Willie “The Lion” Smith, Fats Waller and Horace Silver.
His European fans followed his decades of playing ragtime, blues, New Orleans jazz, boogie woogie and swing, however, his American devotees gained access to his suites written and arranged for classical flute, guitar, trumpet, violin and cello soloists and a mainstream jazz piano trio beginning with his collaboration with flautist Jean-Pierre Rampal, a mixture of baroque elegance and modern swing that stayed at the top of the hit parade for two years and in the Billboard “Top 40” for 530 weeks, roughly ten years.
He became friends, worked with and paid tribute in his later years to Oscar Peterson, Duke Ellington, Django Reinhardt, Stephane Grappelli and Lionel Hampton. Claude Bolling, at 89, a renowned jazz pianist, composer, arrange and occasional actor is still active.
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