Daily Dose Of Jazz…
William Fredrick Bean was born on December 26, 1933 into a musical family in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. His mother played the piano, his father was an amateur singer and guitarist, and his sister sang professionally. He started on guitar at the age of twelve.
His father taught him some of the basics on guitar before he received lessons from Howard Herbert. He went on to study with Dennis Sandole for a year. During the late 1940s and 1950s, he performed at venues in the Philadelphia area, until in the mid-Fifties he moved to New York City and recorded with Charlie Ventura and Red Callender. By 1958 he was moving to the West Coast and settling in Los Angeles, California to record for Decca. In Los Angeles, he worked with Buddy Collette, Paul Horn, John Pisano, Bud Shank, Milt Bernhart, Les Elgart, Herb Geller, Lorraine Geller, Calvin Jackson, and Zoot Sims.
Returning to New York City in 1959 after accepting Tony Bennett’s offer to join his band, Bean remained with Bennett’s band for less than one year. Hal Gaylor, who had been Bennett’s bassist, assembled a trio with Bean and pianist Walter Norris, calling themselves The Trio. They recorded an album for Riverside Records in 1961. Finding it difficult to find work, the trio disbanded shortly after recording.
Bean performed with Stan Getz, Herbie Mann, and John Lewis, recording albums with Mann and Lewis. He co-led six recording albums and another 16 as a sideman. Returning to his hometown of Philadelphia, guitarist Billy Bean retired in 1986, and passed away on February 6, 2012.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Edward L. Gibbs was born on December 25, 1908 in New Haven, Connecticut. A student of the great banjoist and bandleader Elmer Snowden, he went back and forth among three different stringed instruments during his career.
Gibbs began his career late in the 1920s, playing with Wilbur Sweatman, Eubie Blake, and Billy Fowler. He played with Edgar Hayes from 1937 and played with him on a tour of Europe in 1938. After a short stint with Teddy Wilson, he joined Eddie South’s ensemble in 1940, and worked later in the decade with Dave Martin, Luis Russell, and Claude Hopkins.
As a bassist, he led his own trio at the Village Vanguard and played in a trio with Cedric Wallace, but returned to banjo in the 1950s during the Dixieland jazz revival. He played and recorded with Wilbur de Paris among others during this time.
After studying with Ernest Hill, he returned to bass in the middle of the 1950s, but played banjo once again in the 1960s during another surge in interest in the Dixieland groups. He played at the World’s Fair in 1965 and in 1969 he played bass and occasionally banjo as a member of Buzzy Drootin’s Jazz Family, which included Herman Autrey, Benny Morton, Herb Hall, Sonny Drootin on piano and Buzzy on drums. Also, in the late ’60s he was part of a group called The Happy Family who featured him on both banjo and bass.
Banjoist, guitarist, and bassist Eddie Gibbs, who retired from active performance in the 1970s, passed away on November 12, 1994.
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The Quarantined Jazz Voyager
Moods, also referred to as Moods Featuring Paul Quinichette is the 1954 debut album by saxophonist Paul Quinichette. It features compositions and arrangements by Quincy Jones and was released in 1955 on the EmArcy label. The tracks were recorded on two session dates, on November 4th (tracks 5–8) and 22nd (tracks 1–4) 1954 with two different line-ups at Fine Sound Studios in New York City.
The second session featured an Afro-Cuban combo with Herbie Mann on flute and also on tenor saxophone and Latin percussion instead of a drum set. The difference between the two sessions was preserved in splitting the album with the later recorded Latin jazz session on the LP’s A-side, the more straight ahead approach on the other.
Tracks | 40:40 All compositions by Quincy Jones except as indicated
- Tropical Intrigue ~ 3:04
- Grasshopper ~ 4:02
- Dilemma Diablo ~ 4:03
- I Can’t Believe That You’re In Love With Me (Jimmy McHugh, Clarence Gaskill) ~ 6:44
- Plush Life ~ 7:48
- You’re Crying ~ 3:13
- Shorty Georgie (Harry Edison, Count Basie) ~ 6:33
- Pablo’s Roonie ~ 4:53
- Paul Quinichette – tenor saxophone
- Herbie Mann – flute, tenor saxophone
- Jimmy Jones – piano
- Al Hall – bass
- Tommy Lopez – congas
- Manny Oquendo – bongos
- Willie Rodriguez – timbales
- Paul Quinichette – tenor saxophone
- Sam Most – flute
- Sir Charles Thompson – piano
- Jerome Darr, Barry Galbraith – guitar
- Paul Chambers – bass
- Harold Wing – drums
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Buddy Cole was born Edwin LeMar Cole on December 15, 1916 in Irving, Illinois. He started his musical career in the theater, playing between movies and by age 19 he was recruited to be part of the Gil Evans band.
Moving to Hollywood, California in the second half of the 1930s, Buddy played in dance bands, including those led by Alvino Rey and Frankie Trumbauer. From the 1940s, his main work was as a studio musician, utilizing piano, electric organ, celeste, harpsichord and Novachord.
Cole worked with Henry Mancini, who used his Hammond organ for the soundtrack to the TV series Mr. Lucky. He also played most of the piano parts in the 1951 film Young Man with a Horn, subbing for Hoagy Carmichael, who appeared on screen. He also wrote the music for the television game show Truth or Consequences.
He performed on Bing Crosby’s hits In a Little Spanish Town and Ol’ Man River, and on the albums Some Fine Old Chestnuts and New Tricks. Buddy also played on Rosemary Clooney’s radio program and some recordings from the show were released on the album Swing Around Rosie.
Pianist, organist, orchestra leader, and composer Buddy Cole, who recorded several organ albums as a leader for Warner Brothers, Columbia, Alshi and Doric, passed away on November 5, 1964 in Hollywood, California.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Sonny Greer was born William Alexander Greer on December 13, c. 1895 in Long Branch, New Jersey. He played with Elmer Snowden’s band and the Howard Theatre Orchestra in Washington, D.C., before joining Duke Ellington. Meeting him in 1919, he was Ellington’s first drummer, playing with his quintet, the Washingtonians. He then moved with Ellington into the Cotton Club.
As a result of his job as a designer with the Leedy Drum Company of Indiana, Greer was able to build up a huge drum kit worth over a then-considerable $3,000, including chimes, a gong, timpani, and vibes.
A heavy drinker, as well as a pool-hall hustler when he needed to retrieve his drums from the pawnbroker, in 1950, Ellington responded to his drinking and occasional unreliability by taking a second drummer, Butch Ballard, with them on a tour of Scandinavia. This enraged Greer, and the consequent argument led to their permanent estrangement.
Sonny continued to play, mainly as a freelance drummer, working with musicians such as Johnny Hodges, Red Allen, J. C. Higginbotham, Tyree Glenn, and was there for the iconic 1958 Art Kane black-and-white photograph A Great Day In Harlem. He was part of a tribute to Ellington in 1974, which achieved great success throughout the United States.
Never recording as a leader, he was quite active as a sideman recording with not only seven albums with Duke but another twelve albums with Johnny Hodges, Bernard Addison, Louis Armstrong, Earl Hines, Lionel Hampton, Lonnie Johnson, Brooks Kerr, Oscar Pettiford, Rex Stewart, Victoria Spivey, and Josh White.
Drummer Sonny Greer , best known for his work with Duke Ellington, passed away of a heart attack on March 23, 1982 in Lenox Hill, on the upper East side of Manhattan.
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