Daily Dose OF Jazz…
Algeria Junius “June” Clark was born on March 24, 1900 in Long Branch, New Jersey and played piano as a child. He went on to learn bugle and trumpet, playing in local brass bands. Taking a job as a porter in New Orleans, he played in a musical revue called S. H. Dudley‘s Black Sensations, alongside James P. Johnson.
Clark and Johnson parted from the show to play on their own, landing in Toledo, Ohio and playing with Jimmy Harrison in the late 1910s. By 1920 Clark relocated to Philadelphia performing with Josephine Stevens and Willie “The Lion” Smith. He would go on to work in the traveling show Holiday in Dixie, but after a poor run it folded and Clark temporarily took up work in an automobile factory.
Rejoining Harrison soon after as a member of the Fess Williams Band, by 1924 June was in New York City playing with his own band. In the 30s he played with Ferman Tapp, Jimmy Reynolds, George Baquet, Charlie Skeete and Vance Dixon. However, failing health led him to quit music and he became Louis Armstrong’s tour manager.
Suffering from an extended bout of tuberculosis in 1939 Clark was bedridden for several years. After his recovery he worked as a musical advisor and assisted Earl Hines. Giving up music altogether, in the Forties he turned to boxing and became Sugar Ray Robinson’s manager. On February 23, 1963 trumpeter, cornetist, advisor and manager June Clark passed away in New York City.
More Posts: trumpet
Daily Dose Of Jazz…
De De Pierce was born Joseph De Lacroix Pierce on February 18, 1904 in New Orleans, Louisiana. A trumpeter and cornetist, his first gig was with Arnold Dupas in 1924. During his time playing in New Orleans nightclubs he met Billie Pierce, who became his wife as well as a musical companion. They took residence as the house band at the Luthjens Dance Hall from the 1930s through the 1950s.
They released several albums together but stopped performing in the middle of the 1950s due to illness, which left De De Pierce blind. By 1959 they had returned to performing with De De touring with Ida Cox and playing with the Preservation Hall Jazz Band before further health problems ended his career.
On November 23, 1973, De De Pierce, best remembered for the songs “Peanut Vendor” and “Dippermouth Blues”, passed away at the age of 69.
Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Alonzo “Lonnie” Johnson was born on February 8, 1899 in New Orleans, Louisiana into a musical family. He studied violin, piano and guitar as a child, and learned to play various other instruments including the mandolin, but concentrated on the guitar throughout his professional career. By his late teens, he played guitar and violin in his father’s family band and with trumpeter Punch Miller in the Storyville clubs.
In 1917, Johnson joined a revue that toured England, returning home two years later to find that all of his family, except his brother James, had died in the 1918 influenza epidemic. Settling in St. Lois with his brother James the two embarked on a duo performance, though Lonnie also worked the riverboats in the orchestras of Charlie Creath and Fate Marable.
Johnson would go on to enter a blues contest in 1925 winning a recording contract with Okeh Records, record in New York with Victoria Spivey and tour with Bessie Smith’s T.O.B.A. show. By 1927, he recorded in Chicago as a guest artist with Louis Armstrong and His Hot Five, and in 1928 he was in the studio recording with Duke Ellington and with the group The Chocolate Dandies playing 12 string guitar solos on many these early recordings.
With the temporary demise of the recording industry in the Great Depression, Johnson went to work in the steel mills. However, post WWII he revived his career and would record for Decca, top the Billboard “Race Records” charts, tour England, move to Philadelphia, and record for Prestige Records. He settled in Toronto, Canada until he was sidelined when hit by a car, injuries from which he never fully recovered.
Lonnie is credited with pioneering the role of jazz guitar and is recognized as the first to play single-string guitar solos and who influenced such guitarists as Charlie Christian and Django Reinhardt. Guitarist, songwriter, jazz and blues singer Lonnie Johnson passed away on June 16, 1970.
More Posts: guitar
Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Emanuel Sayles was born on January 31, 1907 in Pensacola, Florida and played violin and viola as a child, then taught himself banjo and guitar. After high school he relocated to New Orleans and played with William Ridgely’s Tuxedo Orchestra. Following this he worked with Fate Marable, Armand Piron and Sidney Desvigne on Mississippi riverboats.
In 1929 he participated in recordings with the Jones-Collins Astoria Hot Eight, then moved to Chicago in 1933, where he led his own group and worked often as an accompanist on blues and jazz recordings with Roosevelt Sykes and others.
Returning to New Orleans in 1949 Emanuel played with George Lewis and toured Japan in 1963-64. He also played with Sweet Emma Barrett, and Punch Miller in Cleveland in 1960, then back to Chicago to play in the house band at Jazz Ltd. Club from 1965-67. Returning once more to New Orleans in 1968, he played with the Preservation Hall Jazz Band.
Sayles recorded as a sideman with Peter Bocage, Kid Thomas Valentine, Earl Hines and Lewis Cottrell, and as a leader recorded extensively as a leader in the 1960s for GHB, Nobility, Dixie and Big Lou record labels. Emanuel Sayles, master banjoist, passed away on October 5, 1986.
Daily Dose Of Jazz…
John Robichaux was a Creole born on January 16, 1866 in Thibodaux, Louisiana. As a youth he learned to play brass bass, alto saxophone and drums. By the time he was 25 he was living in New Orleans and starting his professional career as a bass drummer with the Excelsior Brass Band. During his tenure with the band from 1892 to 1903, John led his own ensembles while also playing violin.
Robichaux’s bands were highly respected in his day, and among the many ensembles he led was a 36-piece orchestra in 1913. He hired many of the city’s top musicians, such as Bud Scott, Lorenzo Tio and Manuel Perez. For 46 years he was considered to be the most continuously active dance bandleader in New Orleans. With the onset of the Black Code amendment in 1894 he was thrown into competition with the Uptown Negro bands that ultimately decreased his popularity.
A prolific composer, he wrote over 350 songs and orchestral arrangements. He predominantly played in New Orleans but also toured with the traveling musical One Mo’ Time. Violinist, drummer and bandleader John Robichaux led bands until his death of natural causes in New Orleans, Louisiana in 1939.
More Posts: bandleader,drums,violin