Daily Dose Of Jazz…

Robert Uno Normann was born on June 27, 1916 in Borge, Østfold, Norway. An autodidact performer on the banjo, accordion and tenor saxophone, he would eventually make the guitar as his main instrument. He was one of the swing era’s most sought after guitar soloists in Norway and was also a pioneer of the electric guitar.

He began his musical career as a wandering street and backyard musician at age 12 and became a professional musician in 1937. As a part of the Oslo jazz scene, he performed in several swing jazz groups, Freddy Valier, String Swing, and Gunnar Due. He simultaneously led his own quartet. During this period he played tenor saxophone with the Pete Brown Big Band from 1945 and various random jazz groups such as Frank Ottersen, and Willy Andresen. He got several career offers from international artists, including from Benny Goodman and Barney Kessel, that he turned down.

He never listened to recordings by Django Reinhardt but got his inspiration from listening to Teddy Wilson and Leon Chu Berry, and various accordionists. From 1955, he was less active in the jazz context because of significant alcohol problems. As a studio musician, Robert participated in close to 1300 productions, composed music to multiple folk texts, film, theater, and small pieces of music inspired by jazz and traditional Norwegian folk music.

Normann retired as an active musician in 1982 and devoted his time to small scale farming and inventions. Guitarist and jazz guitar pioneer Robert Normann, who made his first electric guitar in 1939 by constructing a pickup of copper wire, magnets and pitch stolen from public phones, passed away at the age of 81 on May 20, 1998 in Kvastebyen, Sarpsborg, Østfold, Norway.

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Daily Dose Of Jazz…

Philip L. Bodner was born June 13, 1917 in Waterbury, Connecticut and played in the Forties and 1950s as a sideman for studio recordings in New York City. He played on jazz sessions with Benny Goodman, with Miles Davis and Gil Evans in 1958.

Organizing The Brass Ring, a group modeled after Herb Alpert, in the mid-1960s they had popular success. Bodner also played with Oliver Nelson and J.J. Johnson during that decade. His associations in the 1970s included Oscar Peterson, Yusef Lateef, Peanuts Hucko, Wild Bill Davison, Ralph Sutton and he also played the signature piccolo part on the disco hit The Hustle by Van McCoy. Other work in the 1970s included playing with Ralph Sutton and Johnny Varro, working with Mingus Epitaph, and arranging Louie Bellson’s tribute to Duke Ellington’s Black, Brown and Beige.

The 1980s saw him working in a swing style with Marty Napoleon, Mel Lewis, George Duvivier, Maxine Sullivan, and Barbara Carroll. He released an album under his own name, Jammin’ at Phil’s Place, on Jazzmania Records in 1990, with Milt Hinton, Bobby Rosengarden, and Derek Smith as sidemen.

Multi-instrumentalist and studio musician Philip Bodner, active in jazz and popular music idioms. Best known as a reedist, he played clarinet, saxophone, oboe, English horn, piccolo, flute, conductor and arranger passed away on February 24, 2008 at age 90 in New York City.

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Daily Dose Of Jazz…

Rubin “Zeke” Zarchy was born on June 12, 1915 in New York City. He first learned the violin, but after a stint as a bugler with his Boy Scout troop, he switched permanently to trumpet while in his early teens.

In 1935 Zarchy was working with the Joe Haymes Orchestra, followed by Benny Goodman, and then Artie Shaw. He went on to work through the end of the decade with Bob Crosby and Red Norvo, Tommy Dorsey, and Glenn Miller.

Between 1942 and 1945 he played in US Army bands: he was part of what became Miller’s Army Air Force Band (officially, the 418th Army Band), playing lead trumpet as Master First Sergeant. Zeke’s trumpet can be heard on recordings as Benny Goodman’s Bugle Call Rag, Glenn Miller’s Moonlight Cocktail, and Bob Crosby’s South Rampart Street Parade.

After the war, Frank Sinatra invited Zarchy to move to Los Angeles, California where he became a first-call studio musician. He played on numerous recordings, including those led by Boyd Raeburn, Jerry Gray, Sarah Vaughan, and Frank Capp. He appeared in film in The Glenn Miller Story in 1954.

During the 1960s and 1970s, Zeke played in the CBS house bands of several television variety shows, including The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour, The Danny Kaye Show and The Jonathan Winters Show, and was a member of the NBC Staff Orchestras in New York and Los Angeles.

In his later years, he made many music tours of Europe, South America, and Australia, as well as thirty-two concert trips to Japan. He tutored several young trumpet players who became successful performers and studio musicians. Trumpeter Zeke Zarchy passed away in Irvine, California, on April 11, 2009.

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Daily Dose Of Jazz…

Glenn Gray Knoblauch was born on June 7, 1900 in Metamora, Illinois. Known professionally as Glen Gray, his father was a saloon keeper and railroad worker who died when he was two years of age. Along with an older sister, his widowed mother remarried a coal miner and moved her family to Roanoke. He went on to graduate from Roanoke High School, in 1917 where he played basketball and acquired his nickname, Spike.

Glen attended the American Conservatory of Music in 1921 but left during his first year to go to Peoria, Illinois, to play with George Haschert’s orchestra. From 1924 to 1929, he played with several orchestras in Detroit, Michigan.

In 1956, he went back into the studio to record the first of what became a series of LPs for Capitol Records, which recreated the sounds of the big band era in stereo. Casa Loma in Hi-Fi was the result, with 14 high-fidelity recordings.

Swing saxophonist Glen Gray passed away from lymphoma on August 23, 1963 in Plymouth, Massachusetts aged 63.

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Daily Dose Of Jazz…

Eugene Joseph Wright was born May 29, 1923 in Chicago, Illinois. Mostly self-taught but took a few lessons late in his career from Paul Gregory. He studied cornet in high school. He played with the Lonnie Simmons group and led his own 16-piece band, the Dukes of Swing in the Forties. He played with Gene Ammons, Count Basie, and Arnett Cobb in the late ’40s and early ’50s, then worked with Buddy DeFranco from 1952 to 1955, touring Europe with him.

He played in the Red Norvo trio in 1955, toured Australia with them, and was featured in a film short with Charlie Barnet. His biggest opportunity came when he was hired by pianist Dave Brubeck, remaining until 1968. He led his own ensemble on a tour of Black colleges in 1969 and 1970, then played with Monty Alexander’s trio from 1971 to 1974.

During the ’70s working in television studios found him film soundtrack work as well as play in clubs. He also did private teaching and became head of the advisory board in the jazz division of the International Society of Bassists, and head of the University of Cincinnati’s jazz department. 

Over the course of his lengthy career Wright has worked with Charlie Parker, Billie Holiday, Carmen McRae, Buddy DeFranco, Cal Tjader, Kai Winding, Sonny Stitt, Paul Desmond, Kenny Drew, Dottie Dodgion, Lee Shaw, Buddy Collette, Gerry Wiggins and Dorothy Donegan among others, participating on more than five dozen recordings, thirty-two of which were with Brubeck.

With the death of Brubeck on December 5, 2012, he became the last surviving member of the quartet. Cool and swing bassist Eugene Wright, who has recorded once as a leader, The Wright Groove, is presently still active on the jazz scene at age 96.

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