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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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Alois Maxwell Hirt was born on November 7, 1922 in New Orleans, Louisiana to a police officer father. At the age of six, he got his first trumpet, which had been purchased at a local pawnshop. He played in the Junior Police Band with friend Roy Fernandez, the son of Alcide Nunez. By 16 he was playing professionally with his friend Pete Fountain, while attending Jesuit High School. During this time, he was hired to play at the local horse racing track, beginning a six-decade connection to the sport.
1940 saw Al in Cincinnati, Ohio studying at the Cincinnati Conservatory of Music with Dr. Frank Simon. After a stint as a bugler in the Army during World War II, he performed with various swing big bands, including those of Tommy Dorsey, Jimmy Dorsey, Benny Goodman, and Ina Ray Hutton.
In 1950 Hirt became the first trumpet and featured soloist with Horace Heidt’s Orchestra and after several years on the road he returned to New Orleans working with various Dixieland groups and leading his own bands. He soon signed with RCA Victor and posted twenty-two albums on the Billboard charts in the 1950s and 1960s. He recorded the theme for the 1960s television show The Green Hornet, with arranger and composer Billy May.
From the mid-1950s to early 1960s, Hirt and his band played nightly at Dan’s Pier 600, hosted the hour-long television variety series Fanfare, as the summer replacement for Jackie Gleason and the American Scene Magazine, and would go on to play for Pope John Paul II.
Trumpeter and bandleader Al Hirt died of liver failure on April 27, 1999 at the age of 76, after having spent the previous year in a wheelchair due to edema in his leg.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Rollie Culver was born Rolland Pierce Culver on October 29, 1908 in Fond du Lac, Wisconsin. His first entry into professional entertainment was as a tap dancer, but after 1930 he concentrated on drumming.
He went on to play in the territory band of Heinie Beau for most of the Thirties, then in 1941 he began playing with Red Nichols. He drummed behind Nichols for more than twenty years, working with him right up to his death in 1965.
Throughout the rest of his career he played with Jack Delaney and Raymond Burke, and as a session musician for film soundtracks.
Drummer Rollie Culver died on December 8, 1984 in Culver City, California.
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