Daily Dose Of Jazz…

Charlie Lee Byrd was born on September 16, 1925 in Suffolk, Virginia but grew up in Chuckatuck, Virginia and his father taught him to play the acoustic steel guitar at age 10. He went on to Virginia Polytechnic Institute, served in the Army and played in the Special Services band in Paris. Returning to New York he studied composition at Hamett National Music School, taking up classical guitar.

Charlie moved to Washington, D.C. in 1950 and studied classical guitar with Sophocles Papas, then with Andre Segovia.  By 1957 he teamed up with bassist Keter Betts and started gigging around D.C. for two years, joined Woody Herman for a State Department goodwill tour.

Byrd was first introduced to Brazilian music by his friend radio host Felix Grant who was well known in Brazil in 1960. A subsequent tour of Brazil and he returned home with recordings from Joao Gilberto and Antonio Carlos Jobim. He met with Stan Getz who convinced Creed Taylor, then at Verve Records to produce the album, recording “Jazz Samba” in 1962 in a building adjacent to All Souls Unitarian Church because of the excellent acoustics found there. And his love affair with Brazilian music began.

Over the course of his career he has toured the world, performed at numerous festivals, played with such jazz legends as Les McCann, Zoot Sims, Vince Guaraldi, his brother bassist Joe Byrd, Chuck Redd, Herb Ellis, Barney Kessel and the list goes on.

Charlie Byrd died of lung cancer on December 2, 1999 at his home in Annapolis, Maryland. He was deemed a Maryland Art Treasure in 1997 and knighted by the government of Brazil as the Knight of the Rio Branco.

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Daily Dose Of Jazz…

Charles Herbert Beal was born on September 14, 1908 in Redlands, California. He played freelance piano in the Los Angeles, California area before joining Les Hite’s band in 1930. Moving to Chicago, Illinois in 1932, he got a gig playing solo piano at the Grand Terrace in addition to working with Earl Hines, Carroll Dickerson, Jimmie Noone, Erskine Tate and Frankie Jaxon.

From 1933 to 1934 Beal accompanied and recorded extensively with Louis Armstrong. After departing from Armstrong he worked with Noble Sissle and then relocated to New York City late in 1934. There he did solo residencies and played with Adrian Rollini, Buster Bailey and Eddie South before moving to Canada for a time. After his return to the U.S. he served in the Army during World War II and upon his discharge he settled in Los Angeles again. There he played solo at the Jococo Room and found his way back into Armstrong’s ensemble in 1946.

From 1948 to 1956 he worked in Europe, returned to the States and spent three years as a member of the house trio at Embers in New York City. Later in his life he eventually returned to southern California, playing at the Racquet Club in Palm Springs.  Pianist Charlie Beal passed away on July 31, 1991 in San Diego, California.

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Daily Dose Of Jazz…

Chu Berry was born Leon Brown Berry on September 13, 1908 in Wheeling, West Virginia. Following in his piano playing stepsister’s footprints, Chu became interested in music at an early age, playing alto saxophone at first with local bands. It wasn’t until he heard Coleman Hawkins was he inspired to take up the tenor.

Most of Berry’s abbreviated career was spent in the sax sections of major swing bands of Sammy Stewart, Benny Carter, Teddy Hill, Fletcher Henderson and Cab Calloway. He recorded with Count Basie, Bessie Smith, Mildred Bailey, The Chocolate Dandies, Teddy Wilson, Billie Holiday and Lionel Hampton among others.

Although Berry based his style on Hawkins’ playing, the older man regarded Berry as his equal, saying, “‘Chu’ was about the best.” His mastery of advanced harmony and his smoothly-flowing solos on up-tempo tunes influenced such young innovators as Dizzy Gillespie and Charlie Parker and Chu was one of the jazz musicians who took part in the jam sessions at Minton’s Playhouse in New York that led to the development of bebop.

Collaborating with lyricist Andy Razaf, he composed “Christopher Columbus”, a tune that was the last important hit recording of the Fletcher Henderson orchestra. From 1937 to 1941 he would be associated with Cab Calloway until his death from complications stemming from a car accident. On October 30, 1941, tenor saxophonist Chu Berry passed away. He was just 33 years old. Author Jack Kerouac immortalized him in the beginning of his novella “The Subterraneans”.

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Daily Dose Of Jazz…

Joseph Dwight Newman was born on September 7, 1922 in New Orleans, Louisiana. A child of a pianist father, he had his first music lessons from David Jones. He continued his study of trumpet at Alabama State College where he also played, led and toured the school band, the Bama State Collegians.

By 1941 Joe joined Lionel Hampton for two years, before signing with Count Basie, a relationship that lasted for a total of thirteen years resulting in a number of small group recordings as leader, spent time with Illinois Jacquet, and then with J.C. Heard. He also played on Benny Goodman’s 1962 tour of the Soviet Union.

Leaving the Basie band in 1961, Newman helped found Jazz Interactions, of which he became president in 1967. Jazz Interactions was a charitable organization which provided an information service, brought jazz master classes into schools and colleges, and later maintained its own Jazz Interaction Orchestra, for whom Newman wrote.

In the 1970s and 1980s Newman toured internationally, recorded for various major record labels. He suffered a stroke in 1991, however, which seriously disabled him. Joe Newman, trumpeter, composer and educator best known for his years with Count Basie passed away on July 4, 1992.

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Meade Lux Lewis was born Meade Anderson Lewis on September 4, 1905 in Chicago, Illinois. As a child, he was greatly influenced by pianist Jimmy Yancey.

His 1927 rendition of “Honky Tonk Train Blues” for Paramount Records marked his recording debut and his best-known work. His early recordings included Adrian Rollini, Frankie Trumbauer, classical harpsichordist Sylvia Marlowe, theater organist George Wright and drummer Cozy Cole. His performance at John Hammond’s historic “From Spirituals to Swing” concert at Carnegie Hall in 1938 brought Lewis to public attention.

He went on to perform with Albert Ammons and Pete Johnson, played an extended engagement at Café Society, toured as a trio, and inspired the formation of Blue Note Records in 1939. Their success led to a decade long boogie-woogie craze with big band swing treatments by Tommy Dorsey, Will Bradley and others.

He became the first jazz pianist to double on celeste, recorded with Edmond Hall and Charlie Christian, also, then continued to Chicago and California. Lewis appeared in the movies “New Orleans”, “Nightmare” and “It’s A Wonderful Life” playing piano in the scene where George Bailey gets thrown out of Nick’s Bar.

Pianist and composer Meade Lux Lewis, who played the swing, blues and boogie-woogie styles, died in a car accident in Minneapolis, Minnesota on July 7, 1964.

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