Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Russell Morgan was born on April 29, 1904 in Scranton, Pennsylvania into a Welsh family. He was encouraged to express himself musically from the age of seven. His father was a former drummer, his mother a pianist in a vaudeville act. He began studying piano and worked in the mines with his father to earn money to help support the family and pay for his lessons.
By 14, he was earning money as a pianist in a Scranton theater. Purchasing a trombone he learned to play and in 1921 he played trombone with the Scranton Sirens, a popular band in Pennsylvania. Russ moved to New York in 1921 at 18 and three years later he was writing arrangements for John Philip Sousa and Victor Herber. He then joined Paul Specht’s orchestra and toured throughout Europe with the likes of Paul Whiteman, Charlie Spivak, and Artie Shaw. After returning from Europe, Jean Goldkette invited him to Detroit, Michigan to lead his band with former associates Tommy and Jimmy Dorsey, Chauncey Morehouse, Joe Venuti, Eddie Lang, Bix Beiderbecke, and Fuzzy Farrar.
His first records were made for OKeh in mid 1930 and for Parlophone and Odeon, usually under the name Russell Brown and his Orchestra. During the early 1930s, Morgan joined the group of anonymous studio groups recording pop tunes for the dime store labels, which included Banner, Melotone, Oriole, Perfect, Romeo, Conqueror, and Vocalion.
For a short time in the Thirties he arranged for Fletcher Henderson’s Orchestra. In 1935, he played trombone with the Original Dixieland Jazz Band when they recorded four sides for Vocalio and two sides for Brunswick. He was offered the position of musical director for Detroit radio station WXYZ and his show, Music In The Morgan Manner, became one of the most popular radio shows.
An automobile accident in the early 1930s nearly sidelined his career but after several months in the hospital, Russ started again in New York City as an arranger for the George White Scandals, the Cotton Club Revue, and the Capitol Theatre. When not arranging for the Broadway shows, he worked as a pianist or trombonist with orchestras led by Phil Spitalny, Eddie Gilligan, Ted Fio Rito, and Freddy Martin.
He would go on to join the Freddy Martin Orchestra, become music director at Brunswick, hosted The Russ Morgan Show on the Mutual Broadcasting System and formed an orchestra at Rudy Vallee’s insistence. He landed his first engagement at the Biltmore along with Vallee’s band. He was music director for the Rinso-Lifebuoy Show on NBC and the Philip Morris radio series on NBC and CBS for two years.
Through his career he had four songs that charted, was music director for NBC and CBS and hosted television shows, On August 7, 1969 trombonist, arranger, composer, conductor and bandleader Russ Morgan, who has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, transitioned at the age of 65 in Las Vegas, Nevada.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Cecilia Wennerström was born on April 21, 1947 in Stockholm, Sweden. Educated at the music academies in Malmoe and Gothenburg. She was influenced by Archie Shepp, Eric Dolphy, John Coltrane, Elvin Jones, Jack DeJohnette, and Charlie Haden. She took part in a workshop led by David Murray and has allied herself with the music since the Eighties.
From 1979-91 she was the leader of Salamander, a jazz group that toured a lot in Sweden and Europe on festivals and clubs. Salamander made its debut 1981 at the Women’s Jazz Festival in Kansas City, Missouri.
In 1990 she started working with the talented singer and voice art performer Marie Selander in several creative and exciting projects, like for instance Maries composition “Blåst-Tuuli-Wind” that was performed in Kallio-Kuninkala Festival, Finland in 1996. She would go on to tour many times between 1997 to 1999. During the decade she was a member of the all nordic women big band April Light Orchestra
Cecilia is a member of Wennerstrom Larsson Explicity with her husband Sven Larsson. They released their first CD Tussilago in 2011, and she is in the octet LARS 8 which plays compositions by Lars Gullin and other Swedish jazz icons.
Saxophonist, composer and arranger Cecilia Wennerström has won several awards over the three decades and continues to perform, record and compose.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Eric “Big Daddy” Dixon was born on March 28, 1930 in New York City, New York. Although he played bugle as a child,he switched to the tenor saxophone at the age of 12. Following a stint as a musician in the US Army from 1951 to 1953 he played in groups that sometimes included Mal Waldron, with whom he would later record.
In 1954, he played with Cootie Williams and the following year with Johnny Hodges. In 1956, he performed and recorded with Bennie Green and also took up the flute.
The late Fifties had him spending four years in the house band led by Reuben Phillips at the Apollo Theatre in New York. At the end of the decade he toured Europe and recorded with the Cooper Brothers.
He also worked with Paul Gonsalves, Ahmed Abdul-Malik, Oliver Nelson, Quincy Jones, Jack McDuff, Joe Williams, Frank Foster, and Eddie “Lockjaw” Davis, but is probably best known for his tenure in Count Basie’s band, which lasted almost two decades. Dixon continued to play in the ghost band after Basie’s death.
Tenor saxophonist, flautist, composer, and arranger Eric Dixon, who has been credited on as many as 200 recordings, transitioned on October 19, 1989 in New York City.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Lance Bryant was born on March 23, 1961 in Markham, Illinois. His early musical experience was in the Baptist church. He received his formal education at Berklee College of Music in Boston, Massachusetts where he studied saxophone composition and arranging. Moving to New York City in the mid Eighties he continued his study of saxophone and arranging privately with Frank Foster.
In the Nineties he began his relationship with the Lionel Hampton Orchestra and three years later became the orchestra’s musical director and principal arranger. He made his film debut in Spike Lee’s Malcolm X. He traveled extensively with Phyllis Hyman, Jon Hendricks, Pete “LaRocca” Sims, Wallace Roney, Abdullah Ibrahim, Bootsy Collins,James Williams and numerous others. He was an on-stage musician for the Broadway musical review Swing, has recorded with Carla Cook, George Gee, Yoron Israel.
Returning to his church roots he became Director of Instrumental Music at Fountain Baptist Church, Minister of Music for Andover Baptist Church and released Psalm in 2002, his first of a four cd series of originals and jazz arrangements of hymns and spirituals. As an educator he has taught Covenant Christian Academy, Phillips Academy, his alma mater Berklee, and Jazz At Lincoln Center’s Educational Department.
Saxophonist, arranger and vocalist Lance Bryant when not touring with Abdullah Ibrahim and Ekaya, he continues to perform around New York and New Jersey with Andy Farber Orchestra and the New Lionel Hampton Big Band.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Will Hudson was born Arthur Murray Hainer on March 8, 1908 in Grimsby, Ontario, Canada. His parents immigrated to the United States when he was nearly two years old. Growing up in Detroit, Michigan he graduated from Southeastern High School in 1926. He changed his name sometime between 1931 and 1933 and put together his first big band in Detroit in the early 1930s. Hudson became a United States citizen on April 14, 1941.
In 1934 Hudson joined ASCAP in 1934. At some point during the early 1930s, he became a staff arranger for Irving Mills, writing stock arrangements. Mills was notable in various roles in the development of swing and jazz — was as much a promoter of songwriters, arrangers, and big bands as he was a publisher.
Hudson was a dance-band arranger, and co-leader with Eddie DeLange of the Hudson-DeLange Orchestra. Singers with the orchestra included Ruth Gaylor, Mitchell Ayres, Georgia Gibbs, and Nan Wynn. When the orchestra was at the height of its popularity, around 1940, Hudson had to withdraw for health reasons.
Hudson also led his own band, the Will Hudson Orchestra, from 1939 to about 1941. His vocalists included Kay Kenny, Elisse Cooper, Jayne Dover and Ruth Gaylor.
DeLange and Hudson wrote the lyrics to several songs composed by Hudson and in 1941 he began focusing on arranging, full-time. Enlisting in the U.S. Army in 1943, serving in the U.S. Army Air Force. He became the arranger for the Glenn Miller Army Air Force Band until his discharge in 1945.
1948 saw Will enrolled at Juilliard where he studied orchestration and composition, earning a diploma in 1952 and post-grad diploma the following year. He also studied composition privately. His compositions include Moonglow, Tormented, Sophisticated Swing, Mr. Ghost Goes to Town, Devil’s Kitchen, You’re Not the Kind and Witch Doctor.
Composer, arranger, and big band leader Will Hudson, active from the mid-1930s through the mid-Fifties, transitioned on July 16, 1981.
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