Daily Dose Of Jazz…

Tex Beneke was born Gordon Lee Beneke on February 12, 1914 in Fort Worth, Texas. He started playing saxophone when he was nine, going from soprano to alto and settling on the tenor saxophone. His first professional work was with bandleader Ben Young in 1935, but it was after a Gene Krupa recommendation when he joined the Glenn Miller Orchestra three years later that his career hit its stride.

Miller immediately made Beneke his primary tenor saxophone soloist and he played all but a few of the tenor solos on all of the records and personal appearances made by the Miller band until it disbanded in 1942. He appeared with Miller and his band in the films Sun Valley Serenade in 1941 and Orchestra Wives in 1942, and both film solos helped propel the singer/saxophonist to the top of the Metronome polls. He went on to perform with the 1941 Metronome All-Star Band led by Benny Goodman. In 1942, Glenn Miller’s orchestra won the first Gold Record ever awarded for Chattanooga Choo Choo.

With the orchestra disbanded due to Miller’s enlistment, Tex briefly joined  Horace Heidt before joining the Navy himself, leading a Navy band in Oklahoma. He led two bands in the navy and kept in touch with Miller while they were both serving in the military. By 1945, he felt ready to lead his own orchestra. When Glenn went missing in 1944 he took over the band, shaping it as a ghost band per the desires of the Miller estate, however by 1950, he and the estate parted ways.

Post Miller, Beneke led his own groups but as swing faded from the mainstream so did opportunities. There was a small revival in the late Seventies but he was limited to small labels and competition from Miller alumni and other imitators. He would make the television circuit making appearances on The Tonight Show and Merv Griffin. 1990 saw him have a stroke which sidelined his saxophone playing but he continued to conduct and sing.

On May 30, 2000 saxophonist, vocalist and bandleader Tex Beneke, who  received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, transitioned from respiratory failure at a nursing home in Costa Mesa, California, aged 86.  His saxophone is currently used by the Arizona Opry.

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Daily Dose Of Jazz…

Bruce Willmarth Squires was born on January 21, 1910 in Berkeley, California. From 1935 to 1937 he was a member of the Ben Pollack band. As The Dean and His Kids, they recorded Spreadin’ Knowledge Around/Zoom Zoom Zoom on the Vocalion label in 1936.

Following this Bruce worked with Jimmy Dorsey for a year in 1937, Gene Krupa the following year, Benny Goodman in 1939, and Harry James from 1939 to 1940. From 1940 for the next two years he worked with Freddie Slack and Bob Crosby.

After World War II he was a studio musician and worked in music for the next three decades. Trombonist Bruce Squires, who primarily performed in the swing genre,  transitioned on May 8, 1981 in North Hollywood, Los Angeles, California.

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Daily Dose Of Jazz…

Alvin “Buddy” Banks was born on January 15, 1927 in St. Thomas, Ontario, Canada and grew up in the United States. He became interested in music during high school, starting out on piano before switching to saxophone. During World War II he joined the United States Army Band as a bass player.

Making his first appearance on record was in Vienna, Austria with Thurmond Young, this group also played live at the Colored Club. He played in Paris, France with Gerry Wiggins in 1950, and then with Bill Coleman in Bern, Switzerland, Le Havre, France and Belgium. After problems with his passport in Switzerland, he left for Paris in 1953, where he recorded often with expatriate American jazz musicians as well as local performers.

These include Hazel Scott, Buck Clayton, Lionel Hampton, Mezz Mezzrow, Don Byas, Albert Nicholas, and André Persiany. He toured with Michel Attenoux and with Sidney Bechet through Western and Central Europe in 1954.

Double bassist Buddy Banks transitioned on August 7, 2005 in Las Vegas, Nevada.

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Daily Dose Of Jazz…

Bob Zurke came into the world as Boguslaw Albert Zukowski on January 7, 1912 in Hamtramck, Michigan. By the age of 16 he was already using the name Bob Zurke professionally when he first recorded with a group led by pioneering female jazz bassist Thelma Terry. At that time, Zurke also began to work as a copyist for the Detroit-based booking agency run by Jean Goldkette.

Through the end of 1936, he worked in various Detroit, Michigan clubs, mostly as a band pianist, but he occasionally went on tour with other groups. During this period he developed a long friendship with pianist Marvin Ash, who would later go on to record some of Zurke’s compositions.

1937 saw Bob was hired by bandleader Bob Crosby to fill in for Joe Sullivan, then ailing with tuberculosis and it was here that he gained notice, contributing arrangements to the band’s book and as a featured soloist.

As an arranger his arrangement of Meade Lux Lewis’ Honky Tonk Train Blues, became a hit. In 1938 he was named the winner in the piano category in the  DownBeat Reader’s Poll. By 1939 Sullivan was back with the Bob Crosby Orchestra and Zurke subsequently worked with the William Morris Agency to form his own band. They debuted at an RCA Victor recording session that same year as Bob Zurke and his Delta Rhythm Orchestra. His alcohol dependency, alleged drug use and unreliability and volatility led to the group disbanding.

After a period of wandering from job to job Zurke settled in Los Angeles, California in mid-1942 and began an engagement at the Hangover Club in Los Angeles that he held until the end of his days. In 1943, he made one final recording, synchronizing an original piano part to the Walter Lantz cartoon Jungle Jive (in the Swing Symphony series), one of his most difficult and challenging solos.

He published two folios of jazz piano solos and several sheet music editions of single pieces; in addition to that, 14 original compositions from Zurke are known to exist.

Pianist, arranger, composer and bandleader Bob Zurke, who was considered one of the finest boogie~woogie pianists of the time, collapsed at the Hangover Club and was taken to the hospital where he transitioned on February 16, 1944 from complications of pneumonia, aggravated by acute alcohol poisoning. He was 32.

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Daily Dose Of Jazz…

Helmut Brandt was born in Berlin Germany on January 1, 1931 and began singing in a church choir as a boy. He played violin from age ten before learning saxophone and guitar at a conservatory.

He began playing professionally in 1950 initially as a tenor saxophonist and clarinetist. Brandt switched to baritone in 1954 and led his own group.Through the end of the 1950s he worked in a Berlin radio dance band, and played in the orchestras of Lubo D’Orio and Kurt Widmann.

Baritone saxophonist Helmut Brandt, whose Mainstream Orchestra was popular in Berlin in the 1970s, transitioned from a heart attack on July 26, 2001.

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