Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Harry Charles Prime was born on March 5, 1920 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. He graduated from St. Bridget’s Elementary and Roman Catholic High School. In the fall of 1944, he entered and won a singing contest at the 400 Club in Washington, D.C. and was offered a week’s engagement at the Club.
From there he proceeded to perform with big bands such as Randy Brooks, Tommy Dorsey, Jack Fina and Ralph Flanagan throughout the 1940’s and 50’s. Prime’s recording of the song Until with Tommy Dorsey sold a million records, but recording most of his hit songs with the Flanagan band.recording most of his hit songs with the latter.
In 1945, the Nations Disc Jockeys voted the Ralph Flanagan Band as the #1 band in the country and Prime was voted 20th best singer ahead of Dennis Day, Eddie Fisher and Dean Martin.
In the years following his tenure with the big bands, Prime never strayed far from the music business and worked as a disc jockey and radio host in various cities including WCAU in Philadelphia and WNPV in Lansdale.
His impeccable phrasing and vocal prowess led him to record Dear Hearts and Gentle People, Oh, What a Beautiful Morning, Nevertheless and Just One More Chance. He sits among the likes of Bob Eberle, Billy Eckstine, Dick Haymes, Frank Sinatra and Perry Como.
Prime recorded nearly 100 songs in the 1940s and 1950s, including Until, a million-seller with the Tommy Dorsey Orchestra. The song peaked at number four in the US chart.
Big band vocalist Harry Prime died on June 15, 2017 in Chalfont, Pennsylvania at age 97.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Raymond Eberle was born on January 19, 1919 in Mechanicville, Saratoga County, New York. He started singing in his teens without formal training. In 1938 while looking for a male vocalist for his big band asked Bob Eberly if he had any siblings at home who could sing and his brother was hired on the spot.
Eberle went on to find success with Miller, deeming the songs for the film Orchestra Wives, such as the jazz standard “At Last”, to be among his favorites, as they were songs he could make a story out of. During the Forties he appeared in Twentieth Century Fox movies, and several Universal Studios films, singing mostly ballads.
He led his own orchestra, The Ray Eberle Orchestra, as well as the Serenade In Blue Orchestra from 1943. In the 1950s and 1960s.he also appeared on numerous television variety shows. He maintained his band until his death.
After his departure from Miller, Eberle briefly joined Gene Krupa’s band before launching a solo career. He later joined former Miller bandmate Tex Beneke’s orchestra in 1970 for a national tour, and reformed his own orchestra later in the decade.
Vocalist Ray Eberle died of a heart attack in Douglasville, Georgia on August 25, 1979, aged 60.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
James Charles Jackson Jr. was born on January 18, 1957 and raised in Kalamazoo, Michigan. Hailing from a musical family, he grew up surrounded by instrumentalists and vocalists. Before reaching high school, he was the drummer in his brother’s band, Ripple, that recorded and played gigs in the area. When it was time to go on the road his mother was adamant that he must finish high school.
Graduating in 1977 he landed a job in Atlanta, Georgia as the drummer for The Counts. Jimmy played with them for a few years until they disbanded, then transitioned to the Mose Davis Trio. Though much younger than his bandmates, he played well beyond his years.
Getting his big break came with meeting jazz organist Jimmy Smith, who had a show in Atlanta and Davis loaned him his Hammond organ for the performance. After moving the instrument, Jackson asked if he could sit in on the sound check. Blowing Smith away with his playing during the sound check landed him a job with the organist. He would tour the world with the band.
While residing in Atlanta, Jimmy played with the Paul Mitchell Trio at Dante’s Down the Hatch, as well as freelancing around town. Leaving Atlanta in 2006 for New York City and then on to the Washington, D.C. area a year or so later. His heart always considered Atlanta as his second home
Drummer and vocalist Jimmy Jackson, who was affectionately known by most as Junebug, died on January 28, 2012 of complications associated with congestive heart failure at the age of 55.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Frankie Randall was born Franklin Joseph Lisbona on January 11, 1938 in Passaic, New Jersey. In 1964, he kicked off his acting career starring in Wild on the Beach and appeared in The Day of the Wolves in 1971. He appeared numerous times on the Dean Martin TV show, and hosted the summer version of the show when Martin was not available.
He released dozens of RCA singles and albums from the 1960s onwards. After starting out in pop music, Randall, a piano player, began performing material from The Great American Songbook. His version of the song “I Can See for Miles” by The Who is included in Rhino Records’ album Golden Throats: The Great Celebrity Sing Off.
In 2001, a Golden Palm Star on the Palm Springs, California, Walk of Stars was dedicated to him. Frankie was inducted into the Las Vegas Casino Legends Hall of Fame the following year. He was presented the Amadeus Award by the Desert Symphony on January 11, 2013.
On December 28, 2014, pianist and vocalist Frankie Randall died of lung cancer in Indio, California at the age of 76.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Cabell Calloway III was born on December 25, 1907 in Rochester, New York, on December 25, 1907 to two college graduates, his mother a teacher and church organist, and his father who worked as a lawyer and in real estate. The family moved to Baltimore, Maryland, in 1919 but soon after, his father died and his mother remarried.
Growing up in West Baltimore’s Druid Hill neighborhood Cab often skipped school to earn money by selling newspapers, shining shoes, and cooling down horses at the Pimlico racetrack where he developed an interest in racing and gambling on horse races. He ended up in Downingtown Industrial and Agricultural School, a Pennsylvania reform school run by his mother’s uncle.
Returning to Baltimore he resumed hustling, worked as a caterer while he improved his studies in school, and his mentors included drummer Chick Webb and pianist Johnny Jones. After graduating high school Calloway joined his older sister Blanche on tour for the popular black musical revue Plantation Days. He spent most of his nights in Chicago, Illinois clubs performing as a singer, drummer, master of ceremonies and as an understudy for singer Adelaide Hall. There he met and performed with Louis Armstrong, who taught him to sing in the scat style.
He established himself as a vocalist singing Ain’t Misbehavin’ by Fats Waller. The Thirties saw Cab’s orchestra permanently at the Cotton Club in Harlem, performed twice a week for radio broadcasts on NBC, and appeared on radio programs with Walter Winchell and Bing Crosby. He was the first Black American to have a nationally syndicated radio show and during the depths of the Great Depression he was earning $50,000 a year at 23 years old.
During the decade he recorded his most famous song, Minnie the Moocher, and became the first single record by a Black American to sell a million copies. He performed the song along with St. James Infirmary Blues and The Old Man of the Mountain, in Betty Boop cartoons of the same name.
His success with Minnie the Moocher and his relationship to the chorus earned him the nickname, The Hi De Ho Man. He performed a gliding backstep dance move called The Buzz, which some observers have described as the precursor to Michael Jackson’s moonwalk. He would go on to be featured in several films, and made his first Hollywood feature film appearance opposite Al Jolson in The Singing Kid in 1936.
His band included Ben Webster, Illinois Jacquet, Milt Hinton, Danny Barker, Doc Cheatham, Ed Swayze, Cozy Cole, Eddie Barefield, and Dizzy Gillespie. He entertained troops during World War II, hosted a weekly radio quiz show called The Cab Calloway Quizzicale and recorded songs full of social commentary. He appeared in the film Stormy Weather, one of the first mainstream Hollywood films with a black cast. Then he played the prominent role of Sportin’ Life in a stage production of Porgy and Bess. He continued to perform in movies and on stage throughout his career.
He published an autobiography and Cab Calloway’s Cat-ologue: A “Hepster’s” Dictionary, the first dictionary published by a Black American. It became the official jive language reference book of the New York Public Library.
Suffering a stroke at his home, vocalist, bandleader and actor Cab Calloway transitioned from pneumonia on November 18, 1994, at the age of 86, at a nursing home in Hockessin, Delaware.
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