Daily Dose Of Jazz…

Frank Deniz was born Francisco Antonio Deniz on July 31, 1912 in Cardiff, Wales. His father, an African born in Cape Verde, was a seaman, and his mother was of English and African-American descent. They were amateur musicians, father playing violin and mother playing piano. From the age of 15 he joined his father on sea voyages. In 1931 his father was taken ill and the lad was forced to leave him in hospital in Odessa, Ukraine where he died. Between voyages he played music, inspired by jazz guitarists Teddy Bunn and Eddie Lang.

He married pianist Clara Wason in 1936 and they moved to London, England and found work as musicians in Soho. In 1937 they played for a time in the orchestra of Ken “Snakehips” Johnson. Deniz later played at Adelaide Hall’s Florida Club in Mayfair, where he played with pianist Fela Sowande.

Joining the Merchant Navy in 1940, he played music in between voyages with contemporaries Eric Winstone and Edmundo Ros, and formed his own band, the Spirits of Rhythm. In 1944 he was wounded when his ship was torpedoed on approaching Anzio.

Stanley Black, leader of the BBC Dance Orchestra employed him regularly and introduced him to others in the music business. Deniz joined Harry Parry’s Radio Rhythm Club Sextet, which had a regular radio series. In 1953 with his brothers, he formed the Hermanos Deniz Cuban Rhythm Band, which gave regular broadcasts in the 1950s regularly through to the 1970s.

Deniz composed music with his brother Laurence for the 1959 film Our Man in Havana. He accompanied Hoagy Carmichael on a tour of Britain. In his later years he played with the Hermanos Deniz band at the Talk of the Town. This continued for many years until his retirement in 1980, when they lived in Málaga Spain during the summer, until Clara contracted Parkinson’s disease in the 1990s. At this point Deniz became her caregiver until her death.

Guitarist Frank Deniz transitioned on July 17, 2005 at his home in Stanstead Abbotts, Hertfordshire, England.

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Daily Dose Of Jazz…

Alfred “Fred” Böhler was born July 26, 1912 in Zurich, Switzerland.  He started on violin as a child but later switched to piano. He led his own ensemble starting in 1936, which featured Eddie Brunner and Hazy Osterwald, among others, as sidemen. This group made several tours of Switzerland during World War II and recorded copiously for Columbia Records.

In 1943, Böhler conducted an orchestral ensemble that played symphonic jazz. While he recorded most often on piano, he also used Hammond organ early in a jazz context. He would eventually play with Marcel Bianchi, Edith Piaf, Josephine Baker, and Pierre Cavall among others.

Pianist, Hammond organist and bandleader Fred Böhler transitioned on January 10, 1995 in  Zumikon, Switzerland.

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Daily Dose Of Jazz…

Arnold Fishkind was born July 20, 1919 in Bayonne, New Jersey, and grew up in Freeport, Long Island, New York where he met and began a lifelong friendship with Chubby Jackson. At age 7 Fishkind began learning violin, and played in The Musical Aces, a local band of budding musicians. By age 14 he was playing bass.

Fishkind had his first professional gig with Bunny Berigan in 1937. Following this he played with Jack Teagarden, Van Alexander, and Les Brown in the early Forties. After serving three years in the armed forces during World War II he met and played with pianist Lennie Tristano in New York, but by the fall he left to go to Hollywood to play with Charlie Barnet. During this experience he played alongside Stan Getz.

Returning to New York City from 1947 to 1949 he played with Tristano, then at the end of the decade recorded with Lee Konitz and on Johnny Smith’s Moonlight in Vermont. He also continued to play with Barnet, and played with Benny Goodman^.

By the 1950s he found much work as a session musician, for radio, television and pop musicians including Frankie Laine. His career at ABC lasted fifteen years and included appearances in the Andy Williams Show in 1961. Fishkind became well known enough during this time to be mentioned by Jack Kerouac in his novel Visions of Cody.

Rock and Roll having decimated the market for jazz musicians in New York City, Fishkind moved from New York City back to California. In California he found work with the Dean Martin and Bob Hope television shows and some substitution engagements on the Tonight and Merv Griffin television shows, as well as some recording and film work.

He toured with Les Brown and Lena Horne, while continuing to record into the 1980s, playing with Frank Scott. Ultimately he moved to Palm Desert, California, where he was able to join the celebration of his friend Chubby Jackson’s 80th birthday. In his latter years, Fishkind became an ordained minister at Family Life Church in Palm Desert.

During his career he performed swing and bebop jazz, television, jingles, and even western themed music. He worked with Ella Fitzgerald, Stan Hasselgard, Peanuts Hucko, Charlie Parker, Shorty Rogers, Butch Stone and Jerry Wald. Bassist Arnold Fishkind, sometimes credited as Arnold Fishkin and who appeared on over 100 albums, transitioned on September 6, 1999 in Palm Desert, California.

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Daily Dose Of Jazz…

Leonard “Ham” Davis was born July 4, 1905 in St. Louis, Missouri and began his career in his hometown playing with the Odd Fellows Boys’ Band as a teenager and landing a spot in Charlie Creath’s band.

>Late in the 1920s, Ham relocated to New York City, where he played in the bands of Edgar Hayes and Arthur Gibbs. His first recording was with Eddie Condon’s ensemble in 1929, and then he sat in with McKinney’s Cotton Pickers that same year. In the 1930s he played with Benny Carter, Don Redman, and Elmer Snowden, and did a two-year stint in Louis Armstrong’s orchestra starting in 1935.

Toward the end of the decade he toured Europe with Edgar Hayes and played in the Blackbirds revue in New York City. Davis joined Sidney Bechet’s revival group in 1940, and also played in bands led by Maurice Hubbard, Albert Socarras, and George James. He continued performing in small-time settings in New York through the mid-1950s.

Trumpeter Ham Davis transitioned in 1957.

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Daily Dose Of Jazz…

Eugen Cicero was born Eugen Ciceu on June 27, 1940 in Vad, Romania, to Teodor and Livia Ciceu, an Orthodox priest and professional singer respectively. He began to play the piano at the age of four and by age six performed a Mozart piano concerto with the symphony orchestra of Cluj. Although he graduated from the National Conservatory in Bucharest, Romania he abandoned a career as a conventional concert pianist. He established his style merging classical and jazz piano, introducing swing harmonies into baroque, classical and romantic compositions, often as spontaneous improvisations.

In 1962, while touring East Berlin, Germany he fled to West Berlin. This allowed him to spend the next two years in Switzerland where he joined the Kindli orchestra of Joe Schmid. After returning to Germany, Cicero produced more than 70 recordings, some of them with the Berlin and Munich Philharmonic orchestras. He appeared on German TV several times and enjoyed much success while touring Japan.

In 1976 he was awarded the Deutscher Schallplattenpreis for his interpretations of Franz Schubert. Returning to Switzerland in 1982, pianist Eugen Cicero, nicknamed Mister Golden Hands, transitioned in Zürich on December 5, 1997 from a cerebral apoplexy at the age of 57.