Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Jack Teagarden was born Weldon Leo Teagarden on August 20, 1905 in Vernon, Texas into a musical family, two brothers, a sister and father all musicians. His father started him on baritone horn but by age seven he had switched to trombone. His first public performances were in movie theaters, where he accompanied his mother, a pianist.
By 1920, Teagarden was playing professionally in San Antonio, Texas with the band of pianist Peck Kelley. In the mid-1920s he started traveling widely around the United States in a quick succession of different bands. 1927 saw him in New York City where he worked with several bands and by 1928 he was playing with the Ben Pollack band.
In the late 1920s, he recorded with such bandleaders and sidemen as Louis Armstrong, Benny Goodman, Bix Beiderbecke, Red Nichols, Jimmy McPartland, Mezz Mezzrow, Glenn Miller, and Eddie Condon. Miller and Teagarden collaborated to provide lyrics and a verse to Spencer Williams’ “Basin Street Blues”, which in that amended form became one of the numbers that Teagarden played until the end of his days.
Seeking financial security during the Great Depression, Jack signed an exclusive contract to play for the Paul Whiteman Orchestra from 1933 through 1938. In 1946, he joined his lifelong friend Louis Armstrong and his All Stars. In late 1951, he left to again lead his own band.
Suffering from pneumonia, trombonist and singer Jack Teagarden, considered the most innovative jazz trombone stylist of the pre-bebop era, passed away in New Orleans at the age of 58 on January 15, 1964.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Dill Jones was born Dillwyn Owen Paton Jones on August 19, 1923 in Newcastle Emlyn, Carmarthenshire, Wales. He was brought up in New Quay on the Cardiganshire coast. Music was in the family, his mother a pianist and his aunt played organ at the Methodist Tabernacle. He was exposed to jazz as a 10-year-old by hearing records by Fats Waller and Bix Beiderbecke on the radio.
After leaving college, Jones followed his father into banking but was called up by the Royal Navy for wartime service in the Far East. When the war ended he enrolled at Trinity College of Music in London, England but did not complete the course, preferring the informality of late night jazz sessions.
Joining the Harry Parry Sextet and Vic Lewis’ Orchestra before plying his trade as ship’s pianist on the luxury liner, the Queen Mary, he sailed between New York City and Southampton. This gave Dill the chance to hang out in New York’s jazz clubs and hear Coleman Hawkins and Lennie Tristano, among others. After forming the Dill Jones Quartet in 1959, he emigrated to the United States in 1961, settling in New York City. He became an expert in the Harlem stride style. was soon in demand, earning his reputation playing with the likes of Gene Krupa, Jimmy McPartland and Yank Lawson.
Between 1969–1973, Jones was a member of the JPJ Quartet with Budd Johnson, Oliver Jackson and Bill Pemberton. A double CD anthology of Dill Jones` work was released in 2004, entitled Davenport Blues – Dill Jones plays Bix, Jones and a Few Others.
Pianist Dill Jones, who was instrumental in bringing jazz to British television when he hosted the BBC Jazz Club, passed away from throat cancer in a New York hospital on June 22, 1984. He was 60
Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Roy Crimmins was born in London, England on August 2, 1929. Originally self-taught, he was later mentored by the American bass trombonist with the Philarmonia Orchestra, Ray Premru, and the then Ted Heath principal trombonist, Don Lusher. He turned professional when he joined the Mick Mulligan band in 1952.
Collaborating with Alex Welsh in 1954, the pair started their own band and recorded with American guest stars such as the clarinetist Pee Wee Russell and Wild Bill Davison. For the next decade they performed until Roy moved to Germany in 1965 where he kept a consistent line-up and a regular group. Residing in Switzerland from 1970 until 1977 he formed his own band under the pseudonym Roy King and recorded three albums.
Touring Europe extensively during this era, he had his own television show in Vienna, Austria for five years. The late 1970s saw Crimmins returning to England and working once again with Welsh until he died in 1982. In the mid-1980s he was approached to join his Benny Goodman and Duke Ellington orchestras,interpreting the original Lawrence Brown, Tricky Sam Nanton and Juan Tizol trombone solos. He performed at the Nice and North Sea Jazz Festivals.
As an advisor to the Mayor of Eilat, Israel, his involvement in this venture led to the renowned Red Sea Jazz Festival. Soon after, Roy and his family moved to Tel Aviv, Israel where he established the Israel Jazz Ensemble, and was commissioned by Musica Nova to write a concerto, which premiered in the Tel Aviv Museum of Art to great acclaim. His music is still broadcast regularly.
Trombonist, composer and arranger Roy Crimmins, whose career spanned over fifty years, passed away on August 27, 2014 at the age of 85. He is buried on a hill overlooking the Sea of Galilee.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Leon Prima was born on July 28, 1907 in New Orleans, Louisiana, the older brother of singer Louis Prima. Starting on piano before learning the trumpet, his early jobs were with Ray Bauduc, Leon Roppolo, Jack Teagarden, and Peck Kelley (during the Roaring Twenties. He and Sharkey Bonano led the group the Melody Masters in the late 1920s and early 1930s.
From 1940 to 1946 a move to New York City saw Leon playing in his brother’s big band. After returning to New Orleans, he led his own ensemble and managed more than one nightclub. Then in 1955 he retired from music and made a career for himself in real estate. Trumpeter Leon Prima, who owned the 500 Club on Bourbon Street in New Orleans, passed away on August 15, 1985.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Claude Luter ws born on July 23, 1923 in Paris, France the son of a professional pianist and studied the instrument with his father before moving to the clarinet in his teens. Seduced by jazz, he abandoned his training as a naval architect, although he retained an interest in sailing and later qualified as a private pilot. He went on to take clarinet lessons from a pit orchestra player, and pursued his passion for jazz by following the Claude Abadie band around Paris’s Latin Quarter clubs in the late 1930s, sometimes acting as a helpmate to the band’s frail trumpeter, the writer Boris Vian, with whom he made his debut on record in 1944.
Encountering trumpeters Pierre Merlin and Claude Rabanit, who became key members of his first band in 1946. Already recording as Claude Luter et Ses Orientais for the French Swing label, Luter and company moved over to the Vieux Colombier, popular with the existentialist crowd. He began a friendship with the trumpeter’s New Orleans-born clarinetist, Barney Bigard, a connection later cemented on record.
Among Luter’s principal influences was soprano saxophonist Sidney Bechet. As luck would have it, Bechet made concert appearances in Paris in 1949 and was teamed with Luter’s down-to-earth trad band at the Salle Pleyel. He also sat in with them at the Vieux Colombier, beginning an association that endured after Bechet settled permanently in France.
Luter later visited New Orleans, Louisiana a number of times, recorded there and took part in the centenary celebrations of Bechet’s birth. He also attended the tribute concert for Louis Armstrong’s 70th birthday in Los Angeles, California in 1970. Clarinetist Claude Luter, who doubled on soprano saxophone, passed away on October 6, 2006 in Paris at the age of 83.
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