Daily Dose Of Jazz…

Jimmy Mundy was born James Mundy in Cincinnati, Ohio on June 28, 1907. He learned to play the saxophone as a child but gained his arranging skills in his early twenties playing in the local bands of Erskine Tate, Tommy Miles and Carroll Dickerson.

In 1932 he sat in the saxophone chair of the Earl Hines band for four years, but swiftly developing a reputation as an arranger. Arranging a couple of tunes for Claude Hopkins in 1932, it was after selling one of his arrangements to Benny Goodman in 1935 that Mundy was hired him away from Hines, becoming Goodman’s staff arranger.

Mundy was also a significant supplier of arrangements to Count Basie from about 1940 to 1947, as well as writing for Gene Krupa, Paul Whiteman, Dizzy Gillespie, Charlie Spivak, Harry James and many others. He briefly led his own band in 1939, but after WWII he returned to arranging for Basie, James, and others.

Jimmy wrote the score to the 1955 musical “The Vamp” that starred Carol Channing. The 1957 musical “Livin’ The Life” and the 2010 dance revue “Come Fly Away” also had some of his music.

In 1959, a move to Paris had Mundy as the musical director for Barclay Records but he returned to the U.S. in the Sixties. He continued an active career as a writer well into the 1970s. He recorded three albums as a leader with his last “Fiesta In Brass” the year before his death. On April 24, 2003, tenor saxophonist, arranger and composer Jimmy Mundy passed away.

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Daily Dose Of Jazz…

Shad Collins was born Lester Rallingston Collins on June 27, 1910 in Elizabeth, New Jersey. He learned to play the trumpet and acquired the nickname Shad in his teens. The late 1920s saw him joining Charlie Dixon’s band and performing with pianist Eddie White before joining Chick Webb’s band in 1931. In the mid 1930s he played and toured Britain and Europe with Teddy Hill and then joined the Count Basie Orchestra.

Collins performed in Basie’s band at the From Spirituals to Swing concerts in New York City in 1938 and 1939. By the late 1930s he was working in the bands led by Benny Carter, Lester Young and Don Redman among others.

In 1941, he replaced Dizzy Gillespie in Cab Calloway’s band for two years, then sporadically through 1946. He worked and recorded in the 1940s with Oran “Hot Lips” Page, in the 50s with Jimmy Rushing, Lester Young and Sam “The Man” Taylor, when the later ventured into a more rhythm and blues sound.

Though he worked more on a part-time basis during the Sixties, he never recorded as a leader but was known for composing and arranging the frequently recorded tune “Rock-A-Bye Basie”. On June 6, 1978 trumpeter, composer and arranger Shad Collins passed away.

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Daily Dose Of Jazz…

Lammar Wright Sr. was born on June 20, 1907 in Texarkana, Texas but grew up in Kansas City, Missouri. He began his musical career playing and recording with Bennie Moten’s band in 1923. Relocating to New York City in 1927 Lammar played with The Missourians, staying with the group after Cab Calloway became its leader. Wright remained Calloway’s lead trumpeter until 1942.

Playing sporadically with Calloway through the rest of the decade, Wright would also played with Don Redman, Claude Hopkins, Cootie Williams, Lucky Millinder, Sy Oliver and Louis Armstrong.

In the 1950s and 1960s he taught music and worked as a studio musician, in addition to recording with Arnett Cobb, Count Basie, the Sauter-Finegan Orchestra and George Shearing.

Wright led his own groups from time to time, had a role in the 1968 film The Night They Raided Minksy’s. Trumpeter Lammar Wright passed away on April 13, 1973 in New York City.

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Daily Dose Of Jazz…

David Alden Lambert was born on June 19, 1917 in Boston, Massachusetts. His band debut was with Johnny Long’s Orchestra in the early 1940s and along with early partner Buddy Stewart; he successfully brought singing into modern jazz, concurrently with Ella Fitzgerald.

In the late 1950s Lambert teamed with wordsmith and vocalese pioneer Jon Hendricks. Annie Ross later joined the two vocalists and the trio lineup was a hit. After Ross left the group in 1962, Lambert and Hendricks went on without her by using various replacements, but the partnership ended in 1964.

Dave formed a quintet called “Lambert & Co.” which included the multiple voices of Mary Vonnie, Leslie Dorsey, David Lucas and Sarah Boatner. The group auditioned for RCA and was documented in a 15-minute documentary entitled Audition at RCA, and the Charlie Parker with Voices. It was one of the last images recorded of Lambert.

Lyricist and jazz singer Dave Lambert, an originator of vocalese best known for his work in Lambert, Hendricks and Ross, and who spent a lifetime experimenting with the human voice and expanding the possibilities of its use in jazz, was struck and killed by a truck on the Connecticut Turnpike while changing a flat tire, passed away on October 3, 1966.

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Daily Dose Of Jazz…

Sam Wooding, born on June 17, 1895 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania learned to play piano as a child, eventually becoming a bandleader who led several big bands in both the United States and abroad. In 1925 while performing at Small’s Paradise in Harlem, a Russian impresario hired him to be the pit band for the Chocolate Dandies in Berlin. That date led him to a record date for Vox Records with Doc Cheatham, Herb Fleming in the band.

In 1929, with a change in personnel, Wooding’s orchestra made more recordings in Barcelona and Paris for the Parlaphone and Pathé labels. He would remain in Europe, performing on the Continent, in Russia and England through most of the 1930s. He became an expatriate and his overseas stays made him virtually unknown in the States, building staunch jazz fans that liked what his orchestra offered.

Returning home in the late 1930s, when World War II seemed a certainty, Wooding began formal studies of music, attained a degree, and began teaching full-time, counting among his students trumpeter Clifford Brown. During this period he would lead and tour with the Southland Spiritual Choir. By the early 1970s, he formed another big band and took it to Switzerland for a successful concert, but this venture was short-lived. Pianist, arranger and bandleader Sam Wooding passed away on August 1, 1985 at age 89.

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