Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Don Lusher was born on November 6, 1923 in Peterborough, Cambridgeshire, England and started playing the trombone at six years old in his local Salvation Army band, the third generation of his family to do so.
During World War II, he served as a gunner signaller in the Royal Artillery. After the war, he became a professional musician, playing with the bands of Joe Daniels making £12 a week, Lou Preager, Maurice Winnick, the Squadronaires, Jack Parnell and the Ted Heath Big Band.
Lusher spent nine years as lead trombone with Ted Heath’s Orchestra and toured the United States with him five times. After several attempts to revive the band, Don took over the leadership in 1976. He led the ‘Ted Heath Tribute Orchestra’ throughout the 1980s and 1990s until the sold-out final concert at the Royal Festival Hall in December 2000. He led the trombone section during many of Frank Sinatra’s European tours. In 1975 he gave the first performance of Gordon Langford’s Rhapsody for Trombone at London’s Royal Albert Hall, and went on to perform it around the world.
Lusher formed his own ensemble, the Don Lusher Big Band, performed with the Manhattan Sound Big Band, played with Alexis Korner and various session musicians in the big band-rock fusion group CCS, and was a founder member of the Best of British Jazz group from the 1970s onwards.
After spending some years as a Professor of the Royal College of Music he became Professor of Trombone at the Royal Marines School of Music, in Portsmouth, England in 1997, retiring in 2004.
In 2001, he recorded an album British Jazz Legends Together on the Decca label featuring Kenny Ball, Acker Bilk, John Chilton and the Feetwarmers, John Dankworth, Humphrey Lyttelton, and George Melly.
He was awarded the status of Freeman of the City of London, received an OBE for services to the music industry, and was twice president of the British Trombone Society. Trombonist Don Lusher, who with his big band played its final concert in 2007, transitioned in Cheam, England on July 5, 2006 at 82.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Edward Bennett Coles was born October 29, 1910 in Montgomery, Alabama and was the second oldest of ten children and the oldest son. He studied both piano and bass from a young age and formed his first band at age 17. Three years later at age 20, he joined Noble Sissle’s band the Sizzling Syncopators, stayed there six years and performed with greats such as Sidney Bechet and Clarence Brereton.
After a tour of Europe in 1936, Cole left Sissle’s band to join his brother Nat’s group, the Rogues of Rhythm. He appeared in the TV show Bourbon Street Beat in 1959 and later appeared on The Law and Mr. Jones and The Jack Benny Program.
Retiring in the 1960s, bassist, pianist and vocalist Eddie Cole, who was a member of the Cole dynasty of Nat, Freddy and Ike, transitioned on June 18, 1970 at the age of 59 in Los Angeles, California.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Peck Kelley was born John Dickson Kelley in Houston, Texas on October 22, 1898. During the 1920s, he was a popular bandleader who led his own band, Peck’s Bad Boys. The group included players such as Jack Teagarden, Louis Prima, Terry Shand, Wingy Manone, Leon Roppolo and Pee Wee Russell, several would go on to have successful recording careers of their own. Despite the apparent success of this group, no recordings survive from this period.
Rarely played anywhere outside of Texas, however, early in his career he did perform in Missouri and Louisiana. Throughout his career Kelley repeatedly turned down offers by other musicians of the day to play outside of Texas like Bing Crosby, Jimmy Dorsey, Tommy Dorsey and Paul Whiteman. Joining the Dick Shannon Quartet with Glen Boyd on Bass Fiddle, the only studio recordings from this musician to survive were made in Houston in 1957.
He enjoyed playing at the sessions and subsequently listening to the tapes but he refused to allow them to be released. They were eventually released in 1983 by Commodore Records as the Peck Kelley Jam Sessions, Volumes 1 & 2. Some private recordings of this same period have been released on the Arkadia record label.
Throughout his career he wished to remain anonymous, a private man who did not wish fame for himself. Pianist and bandleader Peck Kelley eventually became blind, developed Parkinson’s disease, and transitioned on December 26, 1980, at 82.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Alfred “Tubby” Hall was born October 12, 1895 in Sellers, Louisiana and his family moved to New Orleans, Louisiana in his childhood. His younger brother Minor “Ram” Hall also became a professional drummer. He played in many marching bands in New Orleans, including with Buddie Petit. His drumming style was forceful and sober, generally maintaining constant tempo on the snare.
By 1917 Hall had moved to Chicago, Illinois where he played with Sugar Johnny Smith. After two years in the United States Army, he returned to playing in Chicago mostly with New Orleans bands, joining Carroll Dickerson’s Orchestra and recording in 1927. He later played with the groups of King Oliver, Jimmie Noone, Tiny Parham, and Johnny Dodds.
He is seen in Armstrong’s Paramount movies of the early 1930s, including the live action and Betty Boop cartoon I’ll Be Glad When You’re Dead, You Rascal You and A Rhapsody in Black and Blue in 1932. Only Armstrong and Hall got closeups in the two films, and both get their faces transposed with those of racially stereotyped jungle natives in the cartoon. Hall morphs from a jazz drummer to a cannibal stirring a cooking pot with two wooden sticks.
Drummer Tubby Hall, considered one of the three greatest jazz drummers of his generation by jazz critic Hugues Panassié, along with Zutty Singleton and Baby Dodds, transitioned in Chicago, Illinois on May 13, 1945.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Myron Pierman “Mynie” Sutton was born October 9, 1903 in Niagara Falls, Canada. He worked in dance ensembles in Buffalo, New York and Cleveland, Ohio between 1924 and 1931. Returning to Canada in 1931 he founded the Canadian Ambassadors in Aylmer, Quebec. This was one of very few black jazz bands based out of Canada in the 1930s.
The group operated out of Montreal, Canada from 1933, playing at Connie’s Inn, the Hollywood Club, and Cafe Montmartre. Additionally they toured Quebec and Ontario. Pianists in the ensemble included Lou Hooper and Buster Harding.
By 1941 the Ambassadors had disbanded and Sutton returned to his birthplace of Niagara Falls, where he played locally for decades. He made no commercial recordings. A collection of materials devoted to Sutton is held at the Concordia University library in Montreal.
Alto saxophonist and bandleader Mynie Sutton transitioned on June 17, 1982 in Niagara Falls.
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