Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Johnny Claes was born Octave John Claes on August 11, 1916 in London, England and received his education at Lord Williams’s School. He began playing trumpet in a jazz band that included Max Jones on reeds, and another with Billy Mason on piano. By the 1930s he had moved to the Netherlands, where he worked with Valaida Snow and Coleman Hawkins and in Belgium he worked with Jack Kluger’s.
Returning to England, Johnny led his own group, the Clay Pigeons, making a recording in 1942. Unfortunately for the jazz world in the late 1940s he abandoned his jazz career and settled in Belgium as a professional racing driver.
By 1955 Claes’ he had contracted tuberculosis and his health problems worsened. Finally trumpeter, bandleader and professional racer Johnny Claes succumbed to the disease in Brussels on February 3, 1956 at the age of 39.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Frank Traynor was born on August 8, 1927 in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. He formed his first band, the Black Bottom Stompers, in 1949 and in 1951 he joined the Len Barnard Band. That same year he was voted best trombonist in the Make Way for the Bands poll and made his first recordings with this band.
Traynor became a regular feature at Athol’s Abbey, an underground bar and grill on the corner of St Kilda Road and Park Street. In 1963, Traynor recorded an EP with Judith Durham titled, Judy Durham. Frank and his band the Jazz Preachers were also a feature of the Melbourne City Council’s – Free Entertainment in the Parks.
Founding the Melbourne Jazz Club in 1958, and not limiting his entrepreneurial skills to just jazz he also established and ran the Frank Traynor’s Folk and Jazz Club from 1963–75, which played a central role in the Australian folk revival.
Trombonist Frank Traynor led Australia’s longest continuously running jazz band, the Jazz Preachers, from 1956 until he was diagnosed with leukaemia and passed away on February 22, 1985 in Melbourne.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Fletcher Allen was born on July 25, 1905 in Cleveland, Ohio and began his career in the mid-’20s as a member of Lloyd Scott’s Band in New York City. In 1927, he was off to Europe for the first time in a group under the direction of Leon Abbey, a bandleader whose pioneering efforts with jazz eventually led to a 1936 tour of India which he also participated in. In between, he went to Budapest with the Benny Peyton group in 1929 and hung out in Europe the following decade. While in Europe he performed on several collaborations with guitarist Django Reinhardt, among others.
Reinhardt recorded some of his arrangements and compositions, including the intoxicating Viper’s Dream. Allen also took advantage of the European base to take part in several tours involving top American performers such as Louis Armstrong, Freddy Taylor and Leon Abbey in the ’30s. It was during this time that he began leading his own band.
By 1938, he began performing with Benny Carter, something of a doppelgänger in that both men played alto saxophone and clarinet and had excellent reputations as arrangers and shows up several times in the extensive Carter discography. He went on to Later that year, Allen went to Egypt as a member of the Harlem Rhythmakers group during an era when American jazz musicians held court at swank Cairo hotels, a situation that would be quite inconceivable in modern times.
As World War II escalated Fletcher returned home to the States and at first found little work but eventually left the docks when he found that his new skills on baritone sax meant work filling in the sections of various New York big bands. His last job of any notoriety began in the early 70s with the big band of Fred “Taxi” Mitchell, meaning he was one New Yorker who always managed to find a taxi.
Saxophonist, clarinetist and composer Fletcher Allen, whose composition Viper’s Dream has become a jazz staple, passed away on August 5, 1995.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Duke Burrell was born on born July 9, 1920 in New Orleans, Louisiana and worked throughout his career in the Crescent City. He performed and recorded with Louis Jordan, Johnny Otis and on the final recordings of clarinetist Barney Bigard and the Pelican Trio along with Barry Martyn. He would reunite with Bigard for an Ellington segment recording with bassist Bobby Stone, drummer Louis Bellson and trumpeter Ray Nance.
By 1973 Duke became a bandleader and the following year formed the Louisiana Shakers that included Sammy Rimington, Sam Lee, McNeil Breaux and Teddy Edwards in the quintet lineup. He went on to lead four recording sessions between 1973 and 1976.
Pianist, composer, arranger and bandleader Duke Burrell passed away on August 5, 1993 in Los Angeles, California.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Sing Miller was born James Miller in New Orleans, Louisiana on June 17, 1914. He started out his career singing with the Harmonizing Browns Quartet and playing banjo, but in the late 1920s he switched to piano. He did solo freelance work and as an accompanist in New Orleans in the 1930s, playing with Percy Humphrey for a time.
Serving in the military during World War II, after his discharge he played with Earl Foster’s band from 1945 to 1961. During the 1960s he was a regular at Preservation Hall, working with Kid Thomas Valentine, Kid Sheik Colar, The Humphrey Brothers, Jim Robinson, and Polo Barnes. He did asolo tours of Europe in 1979 and 1981, and recorded two full-length albums under his own name, a 1972 effort for Dixie Records and one in 1978 for Smoky Mary.
Pianist Sing Miller, who was a longtime performer on the New Orleans jazz scene, passed away on May 18, 1990.
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