Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Johnny Smith was born John Henry Smith on June 25, 1922 in Birmingham, Alabama but his family moved north during the Depression living in several cities before their final destination ending in Portland, Maine.
Smith taught himself to play guitar in pawnshops, which let him play in exchange for keeping the guitars in tune. At thirteen years of age he was teaching others to play the guitar. He got his first guitar after one of his students bought a new guitar and gave him his old guitar becoming the first guitar Smith owned.
Dropping out of high school, Johnny joined a local hillbilly band, Uncle Lem and the Mountain Boys, and travelled around Maine earning four dollars a night. His interest in jazz peaked after hearing jazz bands on the radio, started practicing playing jazz, left The Mountain Boys at eighteen and founded a jazz trio called The Airport Boys.
Equally at home playing Birdland or sight-reading scores in the orchestral pit of the New York Philharmonic and was one of the most versatile guitarists of the 1950s. He recorded for Roost Records, with his most critically acclaimed Moonlight In Vermont was named one of Down Beat magazine’s top jazz albums in 1952. His most famous musical composition is the tune “Walk Don’t Run” in 1955. Johnny Smith stepped out of the public eye/ear in the 1960s, having moved to Colorado in 1958 to teach and run a music store and to raise his daughter after the death of his second wife. The cool jazz and mainstream guitarist who actively participated in the jazz scene from 1935 to 1960 passed away on June 11, 2013.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Shelly Manne was born Sheldon Manne in New York City on June 11, 1920. His father and uncles were drummers, he got tips from drummer Billy Gladstone as a teenager and soon he rapidly developed his style in the 52nd Street clubs in the late 30s and 40s. He got his first professional job with the Bobby Byrne Orchestra and was soon recording with Coleman Hawkins, Charlie Shavers, Don Byas, Duke Ellington, Johnny Hodges, Harry Carney and Rex Stewart.
Manne rose to stardom when he became part of the bands of Woody Herman and Stan Kenton in the late 1940s and early 1950s, winning awards and developing a following at a time when jazz was the most popular music in the United States. When the bebop movement began to change jazz in the 1940s, Manne loved it and adapted to the style rapidly, performing with Dizzy Gillespie, Charlie Parker, Flip Phillips, Charlie Ventura, Lennie Tristano and Lee Konitz.
In the early 1950s, Manne left New York, settled permanently on a ranch outside Los Angeles, where he and his wife raised horses. This began his important role in the West Coast school of jazz, performing on the Los Angeles jazz scene with Shorty Rogers, Hampton Hawes, Red Mitchell, Art Pepper, Russ Freeman, Frank Rossolino, Chet Baker, Leroy Vinnegar and many others.
Shelly led a number of small groups that recorded under his name and leadership, recording his now famous live Black Hawk sessions and for Contemporary Records. He played in styles of Dixieland, swing, bebop, avant-garde jazz and fusion, as well as contributing to the musical background of hundreds of Hollywood films and television programs, collaborating with Henry Mancini on such films as Breakfast At Tiffany’s, Hatari and The Pink Panther and tv shows like Peter Gunn and Mr. Lucky.
Shelly Manne passed away of a heart attack on September 26, 1984 shortly before the popular revival of interest in jazz had gained momentum.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Russell Donald Freeman was born on May 28, 1926 in Chicago, Illinois. He was initially classically trained, but later turned toward jazz of a largely bop style. His reputation as a jazz pianist grew in the 1940s when he worked with Art Pepper, Shorty Rogers and Chet Baker. Among his best work is his extensive collaboration with Shelly Manne, especially in the 1950s and 1960s.
Freeman wrote “The Wind” with original lyrics by Jerry Gladstone and was performed as an instrumental piece during the 1950s and 1960s by the likes of Chet Baker, Leo Wright and Stan Getz as well as sung by vocalist June Christy. Russ’s piano is featured on the 1954 recording of “The Wind,” which has since become a jazz standard, for the album Chet Baker With Strings and Deep I A Dream: The Ultimate Chet Baker Collection, the latter he is featured on seven cuts. In 1991, Mariah Carey wrote her own lyrics to Freeman’s “The Wind” for her album Emotions.
Russ Freeman, bebop and cool jazz pianist, remained busy in music throughout his life, transitioning from jazz pianist to film scoring and composition before his death on June 27, 2002 in Las Vegas, Nevada.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Milt Bernhart was born on May 25, 1926 in Valparaiso, Indiana and began his musical career with the tuba. By high school he switched to trombone and by 16 he was working in Boyd Raeburn’s band and later gigged with Teddy Powell.
After a tour in the Army he worked, off and on, with Stan Kenton for the next ten years. He is perhaps most associated with Kenton, but in 1955 he had his first album as a leader. In 1986 he was elected President of the Big Band Academy of America.
Widely known as a mild-mannered and humorous musician his brief period with Benny Goodman was one area that brought out his ire. Except for the Army’s basic training, Milt indicates working with Goodman was “the bottom” of his first 23 years of life, referring to him as a bore and could not abide Goodman’s public humiliation of tenor saxophonist Wardell Gray or his segregated treatment at a Las Vegas club.
West coast jazz trombonist Milt Bernhart, who supplied the exciting solo heard in the middle of Sinatra’s popular 1956 recording of “I’ve Got You Under My Skin” conducted by Nelson Riddle, passed away on January 22, 2004 in Glendale, California.26-2004
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Stu Williamson was born on May 14, 1933 in Brattleboro, Vermont and is the younger brother of jazz pianist Claude Williamson. The trumpeter relocated to Los Angeles in 1949 and became a regular on the West Coast scene. He played with Woody Herman, Mel Lewis-Pepper Adams Quintet, Elmo Hope, Lennie Niehaus, Billy May and Charlie Barnet the first half of the Fifties.
Williamson played a significant role in Stan Kenton’s Orchestra, Howard Rumsey’s Lighthouse Café All-Stars and Terry Gibbs’s Dream Band. Between 1954 and 1958 Williamson played intermittently with Shelly Manne and was a ubiquitous session player up until 1968.
Although he had a beautiful, rich, round tone and his ability to create melodic solos full of invention, power and clarity gave him the opportunity to front small groups and big bands. Disappearing from the jazz scene after battling drug addiction for much of his life, including for years after he left the music. Trumpeter Stu Williamson passed away on October 1, 1991 in Studio City, California.
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