Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Al Belletto was born on January 3, 1928 and raised in New Orleans, Louisiana. He graduated from Warren Easton Charter High School before entering Loyola University New Orleans studying music and then earning a master’s degree from Louisiana State University.
Belletto played with Sharkey Bonano, Louis Prima, Wingy Manone and the Dukes of Dixieland in the 1940s and 1950s. He went on to lead his own band and record several albums on Capitol Records from 1952. Along with his ensemble they became part of Woody Herman’s band for U. S. State Department tours of South America in 1958 and 1959.
In the Sixtiess, Al worked at the New Orleans Playboy Club fronting the house band and serving as Musical/Entertainment Director, booking nationally known acts into the venue.
Saxophonist and clarinetist Al Belletto, who recorded six albums as a leader, died on December 26, 2014 in Metairie, Louisiana.
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DailyDose Of Jazz…
Leonard Ware was born in Richmond, Virginia on December 28, 1909. He went to college at the Tuskegee Institute and learned to play the oboe.
By 1938 Ware was playing electric guitar on recordings by Sidney Bechet. He then started working with Jimmy Shirley, who was one of the first groups to have two electric guitarists.
In December 1938, he played at Carnegie Hall with the Kansas City Six alongside Lester Young and Buck Clayton. 1939 saw him recording Umbrella Man with Benny Goodman. He performed in a trio during the 1940s and recorded as a leader in 1947. Leonard also recorded with Don Byas, Albinia Jones, Buddy Johnson, and Big Joe Turner.
Ware was the co-composer of Hold Tight, which he recorded with Bechet and I Dreamt I Dwelt in Harlem with Jerry Gray and Buddy Feyne, which was recorded by Glenn Miller and The Delta Rhythm Boys in 1941.
Dropping out of music a few years later, guitarist Leonard Ware, who was one of the first American jazz guitarists to play electric guitar, died at the age of 64 on March 30, 1974.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Tom “Kid” Albert was born on December 23, 1877 on a plantation field in Plaquemines Parish, Louisiana.. He later relocated to New Orleans, Lousiana sometime in his early childhood, settling in the Algiers neighborhood. Living in a run-down shack on Saux Lane, an impoverished strip near the Naval station. He initially played the guitar before learning how to play the violin and was taught basic methods for each instrument by Jimmy Palao.
In the 1890s he began working with the bands with violinist Johnny Gould, and with “Big Eye” Louis Nelson Delisle on clarinet. Soon after he mastered the cornet and the violin Albert’s first band in 1908 was his own which included Papa Celestin and Manuel Manetta. In 1920, he founded the Eureka Brass Band and during the earlier years his band played in Algiers with Henry Red Allen Sr. Band.
In his late thirties, Albert moved across the river to the French Quarter and reformed his band, branding it the Kid Albert Band. The band then began performing in several halls around the city, mostly in the Storyville and Treme sections. For a decade the Kid Albert Band played alongside jazz pioneers Louis Armstrong, Kid Thomas Valentine and other small brass bands but never recorded.
In 1949 trumpeter, violinist and bandleader Kid Albert retired from the bands and died on December 12, 1969, at the age of 91.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Guy Edgar Kelly was born in Scotlandville, Louisiana on November 22, 1906. In his early career he performed in Baton Rouge, Louisiana with a band led by Toots Johnson before going to New Orleans, Louisiana to play in Papa Celestin’s band in 1927-1928. While residing there he would regularly perform in trumpet duels with Red Allen.
In 1929 he went on tour as a member of Kid Howard’s band, and then joined Boyd Atkins’s band in the summer of 1930. By 1931 Kelly had moved to Chicago, Illinois where he was working with Cassino Simpson and Erskine Tate.
In the 1930s he worked with banjoist Ed Carry, pianists Dave Peyton, Tiny Parham, Albert Ammons, violinist Carroll Dickerson, and clarinetist Jimmie Noone,. Guy appears on the Noone classic composition The Blues Jumped A Rabbit, recorded Chicago on January 15, 1936.
Trumpeter and singer Guy Kelly died February 24, 1940.
Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Mickey Ashman was born on November 12, 1927 in the United Kingdom and began playing the double bass at a young age. His sojourn into the jazz world began in the early 1950s when he collaborated with Chirs Barber in one of his amateur bands. Their early 1951 recording Misty Morning hinted at his exceptional musical talent.
The mid-Fiftiess saw his transition into the professional realm of jazz, joining Humphrey Lyttelton’s band. In 1956, he returned to Chris Barber’s Jazz Band, further solidifying his reputation as a sought-after bassist. Mickey made significant contributions to two influential LP records, Echoes Of Harlem and Volume 2 in the Chris Barber Plays series.
Parting ways with Chris Barber’s band following Lonnie Donegan’s exit in 1956, he joined Lonnie in creating one of the UK’s most popular musical acts in the late 1950s. By the early 1960s, he embraced leadership, forming Micky Ashman’s Ragtime Jazzmen. Although the group didn’t achieve the same level of fame as some of its contemporaries, they contributed noteworthy recordings like Tin Roof Blues.
His dedication to jazz and versatile talent solidified his place in British jazz history and his legacy continues to inspire musicians. Double bassist Mickey Ashman, also known as Micky, died on August 21, 2015.
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