Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Johnny Hodges was born John Keith Hodges on July 25, 1906 in Cambridge, Massachusetts but soon after the family moved to Boston. Growing up with baritone saxophonist Harry Carney and saxophonists Charlie Holmes and Howard E. Johnson, he started out on drums and piano and was mostly self-taught. He became good enough to play the piano at dances in private homes. By the time he was a teenager, he took up the soprano saxophone and around this time he picked up the nickname “Rabbit”, either for his ability to outrun truant officers or his nibbling on lettuce and tomato sandwiches.
When Hodges was 14 he saw Sidney Bechet, introduced himself, played a tune, received encouragement to continue to play and grew a name for himself in the Boston area till he moved to New York in 1924, able to play both the alto and soprano saxophone.
Hodges started playing with Lloyd Scott, Sidney Bechet, Lucky Roberts and Chick Webb. In 1928 he joined the Ellington orchestra and became one of the identifying voices on both alto and soprano sax. Leaving Duke in 1951 to lead his own band, he returned four years later shortly before Ellington’s 1956 performance at the Newport Jazz Festival. Ellington would write pieces like “Confab with Rab”, “Jeep’s Blues”, “Sultry Sunset”, “Hodge Podge” and “Prelude To A Kiss” among many others that featured Hodge.
Johnny’s pure tone and economy of melody on both the blues and ballads won him admiration from musicians of all eras and styles, from Ben Webster to John Coltrane, who both played with him when he had his own orchestra in the 1950s, to Lawrence Welk, who featured him in an album of standards.
Alto saxophonist Johnny Hodges’ last recordings are featured on the New Orleans Suite album and his final performances were at the Imperial Room in Toronto, less than a week before his death from a heart attack on May 11, 1970. He is considered one of the definitive alto saxophones players of swing in the Big Band Era and of mainstream jazz.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
George Lewis was born Joseph Louis Francois Zenon on July 13, 1900 in the French Quarter of New Orleans, Louisiana. Learning to play the clarinet he started his professional career by age 17, working with Buddy Petit and Chris Kelly regularly as well as the trombonist Kid Ory and other leaders.
It wasn’t until 1942 that George would gain recognition outside the city, when a group of New Orleans jazz enthusiasts, including jazz historian Bill Russell, went to record the older trumpeter Bunk Johnson who chose him as his clarinetist. Lewis was soon asked to make his first recordings as a leader for Russell’s American Music Records.
While working as a stevedore in 1944 a serious accident almost ended his music career however, while convalescing at home he improvised a blues that would become his signature “Burgundy Street Blues”. Lewis returned to play with Bunk Johnson until 1946, eventually taking leadership of the band after Bunk’s retirement.
Starting in 1949 Lewis had regular broadcasts from Bourbon Street on WDSU, was featured in Look Magazine in 1950 giving him international fame, began touring nationally and eventually to Europe and Japan. George Lewis, who achieved fame later in his life and who influenced the like of Louis Armstrong, played clarinet regularly at Preservation Hall from its opening in 1961 until shortly before his death on December 31, 1968.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Sam Taylor was born on July 12, 1916 in Lexington, Tennessee. Playing tenor saxophone he attended Alabama State University and was a part of the Bama State Collegians. Picking up the moniker “The Man”, Taylor would go on to work with Scatman Crothers, Cootie Williams, Lucky Millinder, Cab Calloway, Ray Charles, Buddy Johnson, Louis Jordan and Big Joe Turner.
He was one of the most requested session players in the New York recording studios in the 1950s and replaced Count Basie as the house bandleader on Alan Freed’s ‘Camel Rock ‘n Roll Dance Party’ radio series over CBS.
Venturing into rhythm and blues, Taylor’s saxophone solo appeared on Turner’s “Shake, Rattle and Roll”, Clyde McPhatter and The Drifters “Money Honey” and “Sh-Boom” by The Chords. During the 1960s, Sam led a five-piece band called the Blues Chasers and in the 1970s frequently played and recorded in Japan.
Tenor saxophonist Sam “The Man” Taylor died on October 5, 1990 in Lexington, Kentucky. He left a discography of fifteen albums as a leader across the MGM, Moodsville, Decca, Pony Canyon, Epic and Japanese labels.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Cootie Williams was born Charles Melvin Williams on July 10, 1911 in Mobile, Alabama and began his professional career with the Young Family band, which included saxophonist Lester Young, when he was 14 years old.[2] In 1928, he made his first recordings with pianist James P. Johnson in New York, where he also worked briefly in the bands of Chick Webb and Fletcher Henderson.
Williams rose to prominence as a member of Duke Ellington’s orchestra, with whom he performed from 1929 to 1940. He recorded his own sessions during this time, both freelance and with other Ellington sidemen. In 1940 he joined Benny Goodman’s orchestra, then a year later formed his own orchestra. Over the years he employed Charlie Parker, Eddie “Lockjaw” Davis, Bud Powell, Eddie Vinson and other important young players.
In 1947, Williams wrote the song “Cowpox Boogie” while recuperating from a bout with smallpox; began playing more rhythm and blues in the late 1940s, in the Fifties he toured with small groups and fell into obscurity. By 1962, he rejoined Ellington, stayed with the orchestra until 1974, after Ellington’s death, and in 1975, and performed during the Super Bowl IX halftime show.
Trumpeter Cootie Williams, who was noted for his occasional singing, renowned for his growling “jungle” style trumpet playing, reputed to have inspired Wynton Marsalis, and was inducted into the Alabama Jazz Hall of Fame, passed away in New York on September 15, 1985, at age 74.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Betty Smith was born on July 6, 1929 in Sileby, Leicestershire, England. She studied the saxophone as a young child and began playing the alto saxophone when she was nine in Archie’s Juveniles, not concentrating on jazz until her early teens.
1947 saw Smith touring the Middle East with pianist Billy Penrose, and then with Ivy Benson’s evening gown clad Girls’ Band, playing for off duty Nuremberg trials officials, and in 1948 with Rudy Starita’s All Girls Band to play for the troops.
Women jazz musician were rare in the Fifties, but Betty, by then playing tenor, proved herself in Freddy Randall’s Dixieland/Chicago styled band. She would be heard swinging, improvising and playing hotter jazz than her colleagues as they toured around Britain.
Following a tour of the U.S. the breakup of Randall’s band, and Betty forming a quintet in 1957, she returned to the States and toured with Bill Haley’s Comets. She worked fronting the Ted Heath Orchestra as a vocalist, got numerous radio and television jobs and had her own program on Radio Luxembourg.
She would meet trumpeter Kenny Baker, form the sextet “Best of British Jazz” and be the band’s only saxophonist for the remainder of her career until she got sick in 1985. She continued to sing and play the piano until a week before her death on January 21, 2011 in Kirby Muxloe, Leicestershire, England.
