Daily Dose Of Jazz…
John Leslie “Wes” Montgomery was born on March 6, 1923 in Indianapolis, Indiana. Although he started learning guitar relatively late at the age of 19 and not skilled at reading music, Wes had an incredible ear, learning by listening to the recordings of his idol Charlie Christian. He began his self-taught education in 1943 using his thumb instead of a pick and by the end of the decade he was touring with Lionel Hampton.
Montgomery’s recording can be divided into three periods. His Riverside recordings from 1959-1963 were spontaneous small group sessions; the orchestral dates with arranger Don Sebesky and producer Cecil Taylor at Verve were from ’64 to ’66; and the Creed Taylor years of simple pop melodies underscored with strings and woodwinds. The later sessions produced three best-selling albums that introduced AM radio listeners to jazz and his performances were as freewheeling as his earlier Riverside records.
Considered one of the seminal figures of jazz guitar in the company of innovators like Charlie Christian and Django Reinhardt; Wes alongside Tal Farlow, Johnny Smith, Jim Raney and Barney Kessell put guitar on the map as a bebop/post-bop instrument. He is credited with influencing future guitar lions Pat Martino, George Benson, Emily Remler, Kenny Burrell, Jimi Hendrix, Stevie Ray Vaughan and Pat Metheny.
During his career he would team up with his brother Monk who played string and electric bass and Buddy, who played vibes and piano, releasing a number of albums as the Montgomery Brothers. His career garnered him two Grammy nominations, a Grammy award, Down Beat’s New Star award, and Down Beat Critic’s Poll award for best jazz guitarist from ‘60 to ‘63 and from ‘66 to ‘67. At the height of his career and his success, Wes Montgomery succumbed to a heart attack on June 15, 1968 in his hometown of Indianapolis.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
On March 3, 1906 Barney Bigard was born Albany Leon Bigard in New Orleans, Louisiana. As a child he studied music and clarinet with Lorenzo Tio. In the early twenties his move to Chicago had him working and recording with Joe “King” Oliver, Johnny Dodds, Jelly Roll Morton and numerous others.
Bigard’s initial fame came as a tenor saxophonist in the twenties and was #2 behind Coleman Hawkins before moving to the clarinet. In 1927 his swinging style joined the ranks of the Duke Ellington Orchestra, a relationship that lasted till 1942, both as a featured soloist and section tenor. Credited with composing or co-composing several tunes, Barney’s most notable is the Ellington standard “Mood Indigo”.
Tiring of the road with Ellington, Bigard moved to Los Angeles getting into sound tracking, with an on-screen performance with Louis Armstrong in the 1946 film “New Orleans”. By the late 40’s he teamed with Kid Ory followed by once again touring the world with Louis Armstrong’s All Stars band from 1947 to 1955. In the late 50’s he played with Cozy Cole and became semi-retired by 1962, occasionally playing and recording with Art Hodes, Earl Hines and sometimes as a leader.
Considered one of the most distinctive clarinetists in jazz, composer and tenor saxophonist Barney Bigard passed away on June 27, 1980 in Culver City, California.
Daily Dose Of Jazz…
He was born William Correa on February 28, 1934 in East Harlem, New York City but to the jazz and Latin music worlds he was simply known as Willie Bobo, a moniker given him by Mary Lou Williams after they recorded in the early 50’s. Growing up in Spanish Harlem in New York City, he began playing bongos at age 14 and started performing a year later with Perez Prado. Over the next few years he studied with Mongo Santamaria while serving as his translator and at 19 joined Tito Puente for four years.
Willie became one of the great Latin percussionists of his time, a relentless swinger on the congas and timbales, a flamboyant showman onstage, and an engaging if modestly endowed singer. He also made serious inroads into the pop, R&B and straight jazz worlds, and he always said that his favorite song was Antonio Carlos Jobim’s “Dindi.”
He worked with Cal Tjader, Herbie Mann and Santamaria with whom he recorded the evergreen Latin standard “Afro-Blue” but it was in 1963 that he made his first recording as a leader with Clark Terry and Joe Farrell. He went on to record with Miles Davis, Cannonball Adderley, Herbie Hancock, Wes Montgomery, Chico Hamilton and Sonny Stitt. In 1969, he moved to Los Angeles where he led jazz and Latin jazz combos, appeared on Bill Cosby’s first comedy series in 1969.
He recorded on his own for Sussex, Blue Note, Verve and Columbia. One of his last appearances, only three months before his death, was at the 1983 Playboy Jazz Festival where he reunited with Santamaria for the first time in 15 years. Jazz percussionist and timbale master Willie Bobo, known for his Afro-Cuban and Latin jazz succumbed to cancer on September 15, 1983 at age 49.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
René Thomas was born on February 25, 1927 in Liege, Belgium and is considered one of the greatest jazz guitarists to emerge in the 1950s. Influenced by Django Reinhardt Thomas was mostly self-taught and became one of the most sought after guitarists for his cool tone. After WWII he played with the “Bop Shots”, Belgium’s first be-bop outfit with Jacques Pelzer and Bobby Jaspar.
In the early 1950s, Thomas moved to Paris where he connected with the modern jazz scene and in 1954, he recorded his first album under his own name. His reputation as a virtuoso guitarist and inventive musician spread rapidly in the jazz world.
In 1956, moving to Canada, Thomas played regularly for the Montreal jazz society and met Sonny Rollins. So impressed with his talent, Rollins invited him for a concert in Philadelphia and for the 1958 recording, Sonny Rollins and the Big Brass. While in the U.S. René played with the best jazz musicians of that era: Stan Getz, Miles Davis, Toshiko Akiyoshi, and Jackie McLean and in 1960 he recorded Guitar Groove.
Returning to Europe in 1962, he toured and recorded with Chet Baker, Kenny Clarke, Eddy Louiss, Lucky Thompson and Sonny Criss. While touring with Lou Bennett throughout Spain, guitarist Rene Thomas died of a sudden heart attack at the age of 47 on January 3, 1975.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Claude “Fiddler” Williams, born on February 22, 1908 in Muskogee, Oklahoma, by the age of 10 had learned to play guitar, mandolin, banjo and cello and was inspired to learn the violin after hearing Joe Venuti play. He played around Oklahoma with bassist Oscar Pettiford and by 1927 had his first professional gig with Terence Holder’s territory band that soon became known as the Clouds of Joy led by Andy Kirk after Holder’s ouster.
Claude enjoyed a great deal of success due to the performing and composing talents of Mary Lou Williams. Their short-lived relationship ended due to health issues but during the thirties he worked with Alphonse Trent, George E. Lee, Chick Stevens, Nat King Cole and his brother Eddie.
In 1936 Claude became the first guitarist to record with Count Basie and throughout the 30’s and 40’s worked Chicago, Cleveland and Flint with the Four Shades of Rhythm. Throughout the 50’s he worked with Jay McShann, Eddie “Cleanhead” Vinson and Hank Jones.
Settling in Kansas City in 1953 he spent most of the next 20 years leading his own groups. By the 70’s a gig with McShann led to his first recordings in three decades and his second career was born. Over the next two decades he toured with McShann, worked as a feature soloist at jazz festivals, Parisian musical Black & Blue, a New York date with Roland Hanna and Grady Tate, played Carnegie Hall and Lincoln Center, and President Bill Clinton’s first inauguration. In 1997 Williams was the first inductee of the Oklahoma Jazz Hall Of Fame.
Claude “Fiddler” Williams, the venerable elder statesman of jazz, who outlasted virtually all his contemporaries and achieved his greatest successes at an advanced age and was the last surviving jazz musician to be recorded before 1930, passed away at the age of 96 of pneumonia in Kansas City on April 26, 2004.
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