Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Floyd Maurice “Stumpy” Brady was born on August 4, 1910 in Brownsville, Pennsylvania. At the end of the 1920s he performed and recorded with Zack Whyte’s Chocolate Beau Brummels before touring with Al Sears. During the next decade he played with Andy Kirk in New York, recorded with Blanche Calloway, and returned briefly to Whyte’s band in 1933.
He replaced Ed Cuffee in McKinney’s Cotton Pickers, and then performed and recorded with Claude Hopkins from 1936 to 1938 and Teddy Wilson from 1939 to 1940. As a member of the Lucky Millinder orchestra, Stumpy played a solo while accompanying Sister Rosetta Tharpe in the soundie Lonesome Road in 1941.
Other musicians and bandleaders he worked with include Al Sears, Count Basie, Joe Guy touring with Billie Holiday in 1945, Jay McShann, Fletcher Henderson, Roy Eldridge, and Cat Anderson. After a period of inactivity in the 1950s, Brady resumed playing in the 1960s with Slide Hampton’s band, Luckey Roberts’s orchestra, and Edgar Battle’s big band.
Trombonist Stumpy Brady died on February 11, 1998.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Lawrence Brown was born on August 3, 1907 on August 3, 1907 in Lawrence, Kansas. When he was about six or seven years old his family moved to Oakland, California. He began playing the violin at a young age, but quickly grew tired of it and turned to playing the tuba in his school’s band.
Coming from a musical background, his mother played the organ and the piano and he often sang as a part of his father’s sermons when he preached at the A. M. E. Church. Brown discovered the trombone while doing janitorial work at his father’s church and wanted to replicate the sound of cello on a trombone.
Beginning his career with Charlie Echols and Paul Howard, in 1932 he joined Duke Ellington’s band. He was featured with the band every year on compositions such as Blue Cellophane and Golden Cress. Leaving Ellington’s band in 1951, Lawrence joined Johnny Hodge’s band, where he stayed for four years. After this stint he took a five year position as a session player with CBS.
He rejoined Ellington in 1960 and stayed with him until 1970. After leaving Ellington’s band the second time at the age of 63, Brown stopped performing.
Trombonist Lawrence Brown, whose fast technical style inspired trombonists from Tommy Dorsey to Bill Harris, died on September 5, 1988 in Los Angeles, California, at the age of 81.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Sara Jacovino was born on July 9, 1983 and earned both a Bahelors and Masters degree in music from the University of North Texas. While there she studied composition with Neil Slater and Paris Rutherford and trombone with Steve Wiest and Tony Baker.
Since leaving Texas for New York City, she has entrenched herself in the jazz scene as a trombonist, composer, and arranger. who has drawn the recognition of many of her peers nationwide. She has received awards from the BMI Foundation, Downbeat Magazine, the Airmen of Note, The International Trombone Association and among others.
Sara leads her own quartet and is a member of The Birdland Big Band, The Diva Jazz Orchestra, David Berger and the Sultans of Swing, Band of Bones, The Manhattan Bridges Orchestra, and The Afro-Bop Alliance. She is an active musician in the Broadway scene performing in numerous musical productions and currently holds the tenor/bass trombone chair in “Tina, The Tina Turner Musical” at the Lunt-Fontanne Theatre.
A sought after session musician as both a lead/section trombonist and soloist. Her writing and playing is often featured by the Birdland Big Band, The Diva Jazz Orchestra, and can be heard on numerous albums by the University of North Texas One O’Clock Lab Band including: “Lab 2008,” “Lab 2007,” “Lab 2006” and “Live at Blues Alley, and by the award winning UTubes Jazz ensemble.
She enjoys working as a guest artist and clinician for University and High school jazz programs. Sara will be a guest performer and clinician at both the International Trombone Festival in 2021 and IWBC Festival in 2022.
Trombonist Sara Jacovino continues to perform, compose, arrange and continues to accept commissioned works.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Ron Collier was born on July 3, 1930 in Coleman, Alberta, Canada and began his musical training in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. He was a member of the Kitsilano Boys’ Band. He studied music privately in Toronto with Gordon Delamont and was the first jazz musician to receive a Canada Council grant that led him to study orchestration in New York in 1961 and 1962.
He formed the Ron Collier Jazz Quartet, which performed in the 1950s at the Stratford Festival and on CBC’s Tabloid with Portia White, and in 1963 with the Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra.
Duke Ellington performed with the Ron Collier Orchestra on the 1969 album North of the Border in Canada. The album included his compositions and those by several Canadian composers. He also created orchestrations for a number of Ellington’s concerts and recordings.
He composed the scores to three films in the 1970s and began directing a student orchestra at Toronto’s Humber College. His band won the Big Band Open Class at the Canadian Stage Band Festival in 1982. He would go on to perform in and lead a number of jazz groups.
Trombonist, composer, and arranger Ron Collier, who was made an Officer of the Order of Canada, died on October 22, 2003 in Toronto, Canada at the age of 73.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
George Stevenson was born into a musical family on June 20, 1906 in Baltimore, Maryland. His brother Cyrus and his father both played piano. At 15 he studied saxophone and trombone with A. J. Thomas eventually joined his Baltimore Concert Band. His trombone style was greatly influenced by Tricky Sam Nanton.
By 19 he joined pianist Harold Stepteau and his Melody Boys, before organizing his own 11-piece Baltimore Melody Boys. They disbanded in 1928 and he moved to New York City. He would go on to play with Sammy Price and His Texas Blusicians and Hot Lips Page and His Band. Through the 1930s and 1940s he worked with various other bands including the Savoy Bearcats, Charlie Johnson, Fletcher Henderson, Claude Hopkins, Jack Carter’s Orchestra, Lucky Millinder, Cootie Williams and Roy Eldridge, and Cat Anderson.
From 1948 he went on to freelance with several leaders, continuing to perform through the 1960s. He briefly led his own band in 1959 and his last performances were with Max Kaminsky a year before his death.
Trombonist George Stevenson died on September 21, 1970.
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