Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Ron Jefferson was born on February 13, 1926 in New York City and began as a tap dancer before taking up the drums. He quickly became a fixture on the postwar bop scene collaborating, touring and/or recording with Lester Young, Coleman Hawkins, Charles Mingus, Freddie Redd, Teddy Edwards and Roy Eldridge to name a few.
He also spent a number of years as a sideman with Oscar Pettiford, and working with Charlie Rouse and Julius Watkins forming the Jazz Modes in 1957. After two years the trio split up and Ron signed on with Les McCann prior to moving to Los Angeles in 1962. It was there he cut his debut album as a leader titled “Love Lifted Me” on the Pacifica label.
In addition to playing behind Groove Holmes, Zoot Sims, Carmell Jones and Joe Castro, Ron also toured with Roland Kirk’s “Jazz and People’s Movement”, spent a number of years in Paris working with Hazel Scott, taught music for the U.S. Embassy and in 1976 he cut “Vout Etes Swing!” for the Catalyst label.
Upon returning to New York, Jefferson hosted the cable TV series Miles Ahead with fellow musician John Lewis. Despite a steady work schedule, he never attained the visibility or renown of many of his contemporaries, and after a brief illness drummer Ron Jefferson died in Richmond, Virginia on May 7, 2007.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Juini Booth was born Arthur Edward Booth on February 12, 1948 in Buffalo, New York. He began playing piano at about age eight, and switched to bass at 12. He worked with Chuck Mangione in his hometown before moving to New York City around 1966, where he played with Eddie Harris, Art Blakey, Sonny Simmons, Marzette Watts, Freddie Hubbard and Shelley Manne out in Hollywood through the end of the decade.
In the 70s Juini performed with Erroll Garner, Gary Bartz, Charles Brown, Tony Williams and McCoy Tyner and recorded with Larry Young, and with Takehiro Honda and Masabumi Kikuchi during a 1974 tour of Tokyo. He would spend a short period with Hamiett Bluiett, then resettle in Buffalo but worked with Chico Hamilton in Los Angeles and Junior Cook in New York. By the late 70s he played with Elvin Jones and Charles Tolliver.
From 1980 on, he played with Ernie Krivda in Cleveland, as well as locally in Buffalo. He recorded freelance with Beaver Harris, Steve Grossman, Joe Chambers, and Sun Ra among others and currently lives and works in New York City.
Double and electric bassist Juini Booth died on July 11, 2021 at the age of 73.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Thomas S. McIntosh was born February 6, 1927 in Baltimore, Maryland and studied at the Peabody Conservatory. During his time in the Army band he played trombone, followed by a move to New York in 1956 where he played with Lee Morgan, Roland Kirk, James Moody, Art Farmer and Benny Golson. During this period he also graduated from Julliard.
By 1961 he was composing “The Day After” for trumpeter Howard McGhee and two years later for Dizzy Gillespie’s “Something Old, Something New” album. The following year his composition “Whose Child Are You?” was performed by the New York Jazz Sextet, of which he was a member.
Working with Thad Jones and Mel Lewis in the late Sixties, as a leader McIntosh recorded Manhattan Serenade and worked with earl Coleman, Jerome Richardson, Billy Taylor, Frank Foster, Eddie Williams, Gene Bertoncini, Bobby Thomas and Reggie Workman. He arrange for Bobby Timmons and Milt Jackson, working as a sideman with the later and also Oliver Nelson and Shirley Scott.
Tom gave up jazz and moved to Los Angeles and began a long and successful career composing for film and television writing music for such films as The Learning Tree, Soul Soldier, Shaft’s Big Score, Slither, A Hero Ain’t Nothin’ But A Sandwich and John Handy. In 2008 he was honored by the National Endowment for the Arts as a Jazz Master. Trombonist and composer Tom McIntosh passed away in his sleep at age 84 on July 26, 2017.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Don Goldie was born Donald Elliott Goldfield on February 5, 1930 in Newark, New Jersey. While still a young boy, Goldie had started learning the violin, the trumpet, and the piano, and he was good enough on the trumpet to earn a $1,000 scholarship to the New York Military Academy, later studying with the New York Philharmonic’s Nathan Prager.
After Army service he relocated to Miami, Florida in 1954 winning the Arthur Godfrey’s Talent Scout Award. This was followed with a gig with Bobby Hackett in New York and subsequent engagements and recording work with Lester Lanin, Neal Hefti and Jackie Gleason.
Catching the attention of Jack Teagarden, he joined the band in 1959 and was a part of Teagarden’s first Roulette recording “At The Roundtable”. Over the next three years he distinguished himself as a soloist and sharing the vocals including a perfect impersonation of Louis Armstrong.
After leaving the group, Don led his own band for a time, but by the late ’60s was working with Jackie Gleason in Miami Beach, as well as playing jazz and pop gigs of his own. He cut albums for Chess Records’ Argo offshoot and the Verve label in the early ’60s, and in the 1970s reemerged with his own Jazz Forum label, for which he cut a string of eight LPs, each dedicated to the works of a single composer. He released his final LP, “Don Goldie’s Dangerous Jazz Band” on the Jazzology label in 1982.
With declining health, mostly associated with diabetes, he was forced into retirement and on November 25, 1995 trumpeter Don Goldie committed suicide.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Wade Legge was born on February 4, 1934 in Huntington, West Virginia. He played more bass than piano in his early years, and it was with the bass that Milt Jackson first noticed him, recommending Wade to Dizzy Gillespie. After hiring him, Gillespie moved him to piano and he remained a member of Gillespie’s ensemble until 1954. During his Dizzy years, Legge recorded a date in France as a trio session leader.
Following his tenure with Gillespie, Wade moved to New York City and freelanced there, playing in Johnny Richards’s orchestra, and sessions with Charles Mingus, Sonny Rollins, Milt Jackson, Joe Roland, Bill Hardman, Pepper Adams, Jimmy Knepper and Jimmy Cleveland.
Legge was one of three pianists recording as a member of the variously staffed Gryce/Byrd Jazz Lab Quintets in 1957 and appeared on more than 50 recordings before retiring to Buffalo in 1959. Jazz bassist and pianist Wade Legge died on August 15, 1963 in Buffalo, New York at the age of 29.