Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Don Lamond was born on August 18, 1920 in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma and attended the Peabody Conservatory in Philadelphia in the early ‘40s. He played with Sonny Durham and Boyd Raeburn at the outset of his career, and then took over Dave Tough’s spot in Woody Herman’s big band “First Herd” in 1945, remaining until the group disbanded at the end of 1946.
By 1947 he briefly freelanced with musicians including Charlie Parker, and then returned to duty under Herman in his Second Herd, where he remained until its 1949 dissolution. In the 1950s and 1960s Don found work as a session musician, recording in a wide variety of styles.
He performed and recorded with such jazz luminaries as Stan Getz, Zoot Sims, Johnny Smith, Benny Goodman, Ruby Braff, the Sauter-Finegan Orchestra, Sonny Stitt, Johnny Guarnieri, Jack Teagarden, Quincy Jones, George Russell and Bob Crosby among others.
Lamond recorded as a bandleader in 1962 with a tentet that included Doc Severinsen, played with George Wein’s Newport Festival band in the late ‘60s, and worked with Red Norvo, Maxine Sullivan and Bucky Pizzarelli in the Seventies. He put together his own swing group that recorded in 1977 and 1982, and recorded a quartet album with his wife Terry singing in 1981. Don Lamond, drummer, bandleader and sideman died on December 23, 2003 in Orlando, Florida at age 83.
More Posts: drums
Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Donald Matthew Redman was born into a musical family on July 29, 1900 in Piedmont, West Virginia. He started playing the trumpet at age 3, joined his first band at 6 and by twelve was proficient on all wind instruments ranging from trumpet to oboe and piano. After studying at Storer’s College in Harper’s Ferry and at the Boston Conservatory, he joined Billy Page’s Broadway Syncopaters in New York.
1922 saw Don joining Fletcher Henderson’s orchestra, mostly playing clarinet and saxophones. He soon began writing the bulk of the orchestra’s arrangements, contributing much to formulate the sound that was to become big band swing. The chief trademark of Redman’s arrangements was that he harmonized melody lines and pseudo-solos within separate sections; for example, clarinet, sax, or brass trios. He played these sections off each other, having one section punctuate the figures of another, or moving the melody around different orchestral sections and soloists. His use of this technique was sophisticated, highly innovative, and formed the basis of much big band jazz writing in the following decades.
By 1927 he joined McKinney’s Cotton Pickers in Detroit as their musical director and leader but by 1931 Redman formed his own band and took up residency at Connie’s Inn in Manhattan. Redman’s band recorded for Brunswick Records, provided music for the Betty Boop series, employed singer Harland Lattimore, known as “The Colored Bing Crosby” and wrote arrangements for musicians and bandleaders like Paul Whiteman, Isham Jones and Bing Crosby. By 1940 Redman had disbanded his orchestra, began freelancing writing arrangements that became hits for Jimmy Dorsey, Count Basie and Harry James. In 1949 he appeared on CBS’s Uptown Jubilee and in the Fifties became musical director for Pearl Bailey.
Don Redman died in New York City at age 64 on November 30, 1964. His family legacy left us two more generations of jazz musicians, as he was the uncle of saxophonist Dewey Redman, and thus great-uncle of saxophonist Joshua Redman and trumpeter Carlos Redman.
Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Lynn Seaton was born on July 18, 1957 in Tulsa, Oklahoma and began studying classical guitar vey young but by age nine switched to the bass. By the late 70s he was performing around the state and in 19080 he moved to Ohio with the Steve Schmidt Trio and later became the house bassist at the Blue Wisp Jazz Club in Cincinnati. This gig gave him the opportunity to accompany a host of big name jazz guest soloists every week.
Seaton joined Woody Herman in 1984 followed by the Count Basie Orchestra in ’85 and after two years began touring extensively with Tony Bennett and George Shearing. He went on to spend time touring with Monty Alexander and with the Jeff Hamilton Trio. Since the early ‘90s the bebop and swing bassist has free-lanced with the likes of Toshiko Akiyoshi, Ernestine Anderson, Buck Clayton, Al Cohn, Kenny Drew Jr., Scott Hamilton, Ken Peplowski, Wynard Harper, Frank Foster, Harry “Sweets” Edison, Mark Murphy, Joe Williams, Nancy Wilson, Mel Torme, Frank Wess and Blossom Dearie, just to name a few.
Rarely a leader, Lynn has recorded under his name as in 1991with “Bassman’s Basement” followed by “Solo Flights” and “Puttin’ On The Ritz” and as a sideman on over 100 recordings including Grammy-winning “Dianne Schuur and the Count Basie Orchestra”. He lived in New York from 1986 to 1998 and has performed at festivals worldwide such as Newport, North Sea, Kyoto and others. He currently teaches at the University of North Texas, home to one of the world’s largest jazz program.
More Posts: bass
Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Lennie Niehaus was born June 1, 1929 in St. Louis, Missouri. A musical family heralded a concert pianist sister and a father who was an excellent violinist who started his son on the violin at seven, then switched to the bassoon. At 13 he began learning the alto saxophone and clarinet.
Always interested in composing and writing music Lennie studied music in college and in 1946 began playing professionally with Herb Geller, Herbie Steward and Teddy Edwards in 1946. Six months later he joined Stan Kenton, then drafted in 1952 but two years late rejoined Kenton after his discharge.
Leaving Kenton in 1959, Niehaus began composing, moved back to Los Angeles and arranged for the King Sisters, Mel Torme, Dean Martin, and Carol Burnett. Three years later saw him orchestrating for film composer Jerry Fields, a relationship that yielded more than sixty TV shows and films.
He orchestrates his own pieces and never forgets his jazz roots in film, writing jazz and using jazz musicians like Marshall Royal, Bill Perkins, Pete Jolly, Mike Land, and Clint Eastwood. He was the musical director for the Charlie Parker bio-feature, Bird.
After many years of not playing his alto saxophone at all, Niehaus returned to performing, reportedly in top form. He continues to arrange, compose and play alto on the West Coast jazz scene.
Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Jimmy Hamilton was born on May 25, 1917 in Dillon, South Carolina but grew up in Philadelphia. He learned to play piano and brass instruments and by the thirties he was playing the latter in local bands. He switched to clarinet and saxophone and by 1939 was playing with Lucky Millinder, Jimmy Mundy and Bill Doggett, then going to work for Teddy Wilson in 1940.
After a two-year stay with Wilson he played with Eddie Heywood and Yank Porter before replacing Barney Bigard in Duke Ellington’s orchestra in 1943. Over the next twenty-five years with Ellington his sound on saxophone had an R&B style while his clarinet was more precise, correct and fluent and it was during this time that he wrote some of his own material.
Leaving the Ellington orchestra, Hamilton played and arranged on a freelance basis, before spending the 1970s and 1980s in the Virgin Islands teaching music, occasionally returning to the U.S. for performances with John Carter’s Clarinet Summit. He retired from teaching but continued to perform with his own groups from 1989 to 1990.
The clarinetist, saxophonist, arranger, composer and music educator Jimmy Hamilton died in St. Croix, Virgin Islands at the age of seventy-seven on September 20, 1994.