Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Buddy Petit was born Joseph Crawford on May 25, 1897 in White Castle, Louisiana. His early life is somewhat mysterious but he was adopted by trombonist Joseph Petit, whose name he took.
Taking Freddie Keppard’s place in the Eagle Band, a place earlier held by Buddy Bolden, when Keppard left town. Briefly lured to Los Angeles, California by Jelly Roll Morton and Bill Johnson in 1917, but objecting to being told how to dress and behave differently from what he was accustomed to he returned to New Orleans, Louisiana.
Buddy spent the rest of his career in the area around greater New Orleans and the towns north of Lake Pontchartrain, not venturing further from home than Baton Rouge and the Mississippi Gulf Coast.
Okeh Records offered him a chance to record on their 1925 field trip to New Orleans, but Petit held out for more money and was never recorded. Danny Barker and Louis Armstrong said that it was a great loss to jazz history that there are no recordings of Petit.
After over-indulging in food and drink, cornetist Buddy Petit, which was sometimes spelled Buddie, transitioned on July 4, 1931.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Sylvester Ahola was born on May 24, 1902 in Gloucester, Massachusetts. His parents, Sophia and John Ahola, were born in Finland. He became most popular in England rather than the United States.
He first began performing with Frank Ward and His Orchestra. In 1925 he started playing with Paul Specht and His Orchestra, with whom he did a two-month-long tour of England that following year. For the next couple of years he performed with bands like The California Ramblers and Adrian Rollini and his band.
1927 saw Ahola moving to England and landing a job playing with the Savoy Orpheans. He went on to gig with Bert Firman and Bert Ambrose. The British Musicians’ Union, unhappy to see a foreigner land so many jobs and attain so much success, effectively prohibited him from playing with anyone other than Bert Ambrose. This forced him to eventually leave in 1931 and return to New York City.
Throughout the rest of his career he never again achieved the level of success he had enjoyed during his time in England. Trumpeter and cornetist Sylvester Ahola, also known as Hooley, transitioned on February 13, 1995.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
John Francis Picard was born May 17, 1934 in Tottenham, London, England and started learning music when he was seven years old by taking lessons on the piano.
After serving in the RAF, during which he played on weekends with Cy Laurie, he spent a further four months with Laurie before joining Humphrey Lyttelton, from 1954 until 1961. Through the Sixties and into the early 1970s he worked with Tony Coe as well as co-leading a quintet with Kathy Stobart. Then beginning in 1975 to 1983, he was a member of the London Jazz Big Band, led by Stan Greig.
During the early 1980s, with his friends Ian Stewart, Colin Smith and Dick Morrissey, he was a founding member of Rocket 88. and later went on to join the Charlie Watts Big Band.. Trombonist John Picard continues to perform.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Beryl Audley Bryden was born May 11, 1920 in Norwich, Norfolk, England and was an only child Her enthusiasm for jazz music started during her teenage years, becoming a member of the National Rhythm Club when she was 17 and became secretary of the local branch in 1941. An ardent jazz fan she established a Nat Gonella fan club in her teens, before taking up the washboard and singing, influenced by Bessie Smith.
Moving to Cambridge in 1942 at 22, post WWII she returned to London with the hope of starting a career in music/ She worked with Mick Mulligan and George Melly at London jazz venues and became a supporter of visiting American jazz acts when the Musicians Union ban was lifted. Beryl befriended, amongst others, Buck Clayton, Louis Armstrong and Bud Freeman, with whom she recorded.
By 1949 she formed her own group called Beryl’s Back-Room Boys and later worked with Mike Daniels. In 1955 she joined the Chris Barber band on washboard, and played on Rock Island Line with Lonnie Donegan on vocals. This track helped trigger the ‘skiffle’ craze of the late 1950s.
Graduating to the Monty Sunshine jazz band she covered Bessie Smith’s Young Woman’s Blues, Gimme a Pigfoot (And a Bottle of Beer, and Coney Island Washboard Blues, which demonstrated her washboard technique.
She remained active at the end of the British trad jazz boom, and became particularly popular in Northern Europe, playing with the Ted Easton Jazz Band and The Piccadilly Six. She was active well into the Nineties playing with the Metropolitan Jazz Band, Digby Fairweather, Nat Gonella and her own Blue Boys.
Vocalist Beryl Bryden, whose final recording was with Nat Gonella shortly before her death, transitioned from lymphoma, aged 78, at St Mary’s Hospital, Paddington, England on July 14, 1998
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Leon Alexander Anthony Abbey was born in Minneapolis, Minnesota on May 7, 1900 to Luther James Robert Abbey and Eva Lee Alexander. He started his career in 1920 as a classical violinist with the orchestra of J. Rosamond Johnson. Five years later, he recorded with Clara Smith on If You Only Knowed and You Better Keep The Home Fires Burning.
By 1926, Leon was leading the Savoy Bearcats and toured with the band the next year in Argentina, Brazil, and Uruguay. For a decade, he toured throughout Europe and performed in India two times.
Abbey led a band with blues singer Ethel Waters. In Chicago, Illinois he led a trio until 1964. His sideman during his career included Fletcher Allen, Emile Christian, Bill Coleman, Peter DuConge, and Crickett Smith. He recorded Jazz and Hot Dance in Denmark as a leader in 1938 on Harmony Records in Copenhagen, Denmark. It was also issued under the name Whoa Babe.
Violinist and bandleader Leon Abbey transitioned in September 1975.
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