Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Jay Leonhart was born December 6, 1940 in Baltimore, Maryland and grew up in a musical family, with his parents and six siblings all played the piano. By the age of seven he and his older brother Bil were playing banjos, guitars, mandolins and basses. They played country music, jazz and anything with a beat. In their early teens, the brothers were television stars in Baltimore and were touring the country performing on their banjos.
By fourteen Jay started playing the bass in The Pier Five Dixieland Jazz Band in his hometown. He studied at The Peabody Institute, attended The Berklee College of Music and The Advanced School of Contemporary Music in Toronto. He then left school to start touring with the traveling big bands of the late 1950s and early 1960s.
At 21 Leonhart moved to New York City to start his career and played lots of funky road gigs with big bands, small bands and singers, visiting many little jazz joints around the world. He eventually began playing for many of the great jazz musicians, big bands, and singers like Thad Jones and Mel Lewis, Lou Marini, Tony Bennett, Marian McPartland, and Jim Hall.
Becoming a very busy New York City studio musician he played every musical genre from James Taylor to Ozzy Osbourne and Queen Latifah, as well as Barbara Carroll, Peggy Lee, Eddie Higgins, Terry Clarke, Gerry Mulligan, Donnie O’Brien, Bucky Pizzarelli, Daryl Sherman and Bluesiana Triangle. Between 1975 and 1995 he was named The Most Valuable Bassist in the recording industry three times by the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences.
Bassist Jay Leonhart has now recorded fifteen solo albums and is performing a one-man show called The Bass Lesson about his life in the music business and song. He has toured worldwide for more than forty years and currently performs regularly with trombonist Wycliffe Gordon in a duo which began as a result of their recording This Rhythm on My Mind.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Russell Jacquet was born on December 4, 1917 in Saint Martinville, Louisiana, the elder brother of tenor saxophonist Illinois Jacquet. He had stints with Floyd Ray and Milt Larkin before he studying music at Wiley College and Texas Southern University.
Moving west he played with his brother’s band for a time, later forming his own group, that became the house band at the Cotton Club from 1945 to 1949. After that residency ended Russell rejoined his brother’s group. He would later play with several small groups in Oakland, California, as well as in Houston, Texas with Arnett Cobb. He also performed with his brother on a few dates in New York City.
Trumpeter Russell Jacquet passed away on February 28, 1990 in Los Angeles, California. He left a small catalogue of recordings as a leader during his Cotton Club years and four as a sideman with his brother, recorded between 1951 and 1969 on Clef, Argo and Prestige record labels.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Edward Ernest Sauter was born December 2, 1914 in Brooklyn, New York and studied music at Columbia University and the Juilliard School. He began as a drummer and then played trumpet professionally, most notably with Red Norvo’s orchestra, eventually becoming Norvo’s full-time arranger.
Eddie went on to arrange and compose for Artie Shaw, Tommy Dorsey, Woody Herman and Benny Goodman, earning a reputation for intricate, complex, and carefully crafted works such as Benny Rides Again, Moonlight on the Ganges and Clarinet a la King.
From 1952 to 1958 he co-led the Sauter-Finegan Orchestra and between 1957 and 1959 he was Kurt Edelhagen’s successor as leader of the SWF Orchestra in Baden-Baden, Germany. By 1961, he was working with tenor saxophonist Stan Getz on Focus, a unique collaboration of string compositions, and featuring drummer Roy Haynes on I’m Late, I’m Late, the only selection to feature a non-string instrument other than Getz. They collaborated again during Sauter’s work composing the score for the 1965 film Mickey One, starring Warren Beatty.
He would venture into composing for television including the third season theme to Rod Serling’s Night Gallery. He also orchestrated a number of Broadway musicals, most notably 1776, but also The Apple Tree and It’s a Bird…It’s a Plane…It’s Superman. His composition World Without Time is used as the theme music for the public affairs show The Open Mind.
Composer, arranger, drummer and trumpeter Eddie Sauter, who was prominent during the swing era, passed away of a heart attack in New York City on April 21, 1981.
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Jack T. Perciful was born on November 26, 1925 in Moscow, Idaho and began playing the piano at the age of seven. During his high school years he was already part of the University of Idaho Jazz Band. From 1943 he served in the military in California, and from 1945 to 1946 in the Army orchestras in Japan.
Returning to the U.S. after his discharge he continued his studies at the University of Idaho, earning a Master in Music Education. After a few years, of giving music lessons, he moved into the music business, initially in Spokane, Washington. 1952 saw Jack in Los Angeles, California playing piano initially working as a studio musician, but also played with Dicky Wells, Ernie Andrews and Charlie Barnet.
Harry James brought Perciful into his big band in Las Vegas, Nevada as a pianist and arranger, contributing to a total of 25 albums. He toured with the band throughout Europe, Latin America and Japan. As a sideman he appeared in 1970 on the album Two More Tenors: Boots and Corky by Boots Randolph and Corky Corcoran. After 18 years with the James outfit, he moved Olympia, Washington in 1974 and played at one of the local clubs, Tumwater Conservatory, accompanying soloists like Ernestine Anderson, and played with Bert Wilson and other local musicians. 1989 to 1991 he was a member of the Buddy Catlett Trio.
In subsequent years, he was on several albums on the Pony Boy label recording with Lance Buller and Charlie May. Perciful also appeared on the Ed Sullivan and Johnny Carson shows, performed with James in the Jerry Lewis film The Ladies’ Man in 1961 and in 2008 he was inducted into the Seattle Jazz Hall of Fame. Pianist and arranger Jack Perciful, who never recorded as a leader, passed away on March 13, 2008.
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Wild Bill Davis was born November 24, 1918 in Glasgow, Missouri and originally played guitar and wrote arrangements for Milt Larkin’s Texas-based big band during 1939–1942. The band included Arnett Cobb, Illinois Jacquet, and Tom Archia on horns. After leaving the Larkin orchestra, he worked in Chicago, Illinois as a pianist, recording with Buster Bennett in 1945. He played a crucial role as the pianist-arranger in Louis Jordan’s Tympany Five from 1945 to 1947 at the peak of their success.
Leaving Jordan and Harlem, he returned to Chicago for a time, recording again with Bennett, working with Claude McLin and after switching from piano to organ, Davis moved back to the East Coast. In 1950, he began recording for Okeh Records, leading an influential trio of organ, guitar, and drums. Originally slated to record April in Paris with the Count Basie Orchestra in 1955 but could not make the session, Basie used his arrangement for the full band and had a major hit.
During the Sixties, in addition to working with his own groups, Wild Bill recorded several albums with his friend Johnny Hodges, leading to tours during 1969–1971 with Duke Ellington. In the 1970s he recorded for the Black & Blue Records label with a variety of swing all-stars, and he also played with Lionel Hampton, appearing at festivals through the early 1990s.
Pianist, organist and arranger William Strethen Davis, whose stage name was Wild Bill, passed away in Moorestown, New Jersey on August 17, 1995. He recorded some four-dozen albums as a leader and co-leader and another dozen as a sideman with Ray Brown, Sonny Stitt, Gene “Mighty Flea” Conners, Billy Butler, Floyd Smith and Eddie “Lockjaw” Davis among others. Prior to the emergence of Jimmy Smith in 1956, he was the pacesetter among organists and best known for his pioneering jazz electronic organ recordings.
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