Daily Dose Of Jazz…

Nat Towles was born August 10, 1905 in New Orleans, Louisiana, the son of string bassist Phil “Charlie” Towles. He started his musical career as a guitarist and violinist at the age of eleven but switched to the bass at 13. Performing in his hometown through his teenage years with Gus Metcalf’s Melody Jazz Band, he eventually played with a number of bands, including Buddie Petit, Henry “Red” Allen, Jack Carey, and the Original Tuxedo Jazz Orchestra.

In 1923 he formed The Nat Towles’ Creole Harmony Kings. This jazz band became one of the prominent territory bands in Texas, Oklahoma, Kansas, and Nebraska. By 1925 he was playing bass for Fate Marable, and reformed his own band the next year. 1934 saw Towles organizing a band of young musicians studying music at Wiley College in Austin, Texas. He also worked the club circuit in Dallas, Texas during this period, when T-Bone Walker and Buddy Tate worked for him.

In the 1930s he transformed his band into The Nat Towles Dance Orchestra, signed with the National Orchestra Service, and focused on swing music through the 1930s and 1940s. In 1934 Towles took up residence in North Omaha, Nebraska, where his band was stationed for the next 25 years. With this outfit Towles dueled with Lloyd Hunter for dominance over the much-contested Near North Side in North Omaha, where he was held over at the Dreamland Ballroom for several weeks. In 1936 and 1937 Towles’ band held residence at Omaha’s Krug Park.

Over the course of his career Billy Mitchell, Buster Cooper, Red Holloway, Buster Bennett, Preston Love, Paul Quinichette, Neal Hefti, Jimmy Heath, Duke Groner, Buddy McLewis and Oliver Nelson were members of his band at one time or another. He continued leading bands throughout the 1950s until retiring to California in 1959 where he opened a bar.

Never finding true national recognition and fearing the limelight would then steal away his best players, there are very few recordings of Nat Towles’ Band. Bassist, big band leader and educator Nat Towles, whose band is considered one of the greatest territory bands of all time by musicians who played in it and by others who heard it, transitioned in Berkeley, California of a heart attack in January 1963.

More Posts: bandleader,bass,educator,history,instrumental,jazz,music

Daily Dose Of Jazz…

Matthew Mitchell was born in Hamilton, New Zealand on August 9, 1973 and didn’t start studying jazz until late in his teens, beginning on guitar at the age of 17. Four years later he attended what became the Massey University Wellington School of Music majoring in jazz. By 1998 he became a member of the New Zealand Youth Jazz Orchestra and toured with ex-Buddy Rich trumpeter John Hoffman.

First achieving prominence on the New Zealand jazz scene the following year when he won the Wellington Fringe Festival Music Award. His study of Indian classical music produced cohesive results and Matthew toured the country with Master Tabla drummer Dr. Tarlochan Singh from Delhi, India and then with New York vibraphonist Arthur Lipner.  He then put together his own trio featuring Paul Dyne and Rick Cranson and they released two CDs, one of which was a big band work.

Moving to London, England in 2000 he continued work with his trio and rapidly became a prominent member of the jazz scene and joined Byron Wallen’s As Is project touring the UK and performing at a number of international festivals. He went on to perform and tour with German saxophonist Ingrid Laubrock, as well as Japanese electronic music artists Takagi Masakatsu and Ogorusu Norihide and with countryman electronics artist Signer.

Guitarist Mattewh Mitchell continues to tour regularly throughout Europe with his own groups and release recordings.

More Posts: bandleader,guitar,history,instrumental,jazz,music

Daily Dose Of Jazz…

Thomas Mansergh Pickering was born on August 8. 1921 in Burra, South Australia, Australia. When the family moved to Australia’s island state of Tasmania from Burra in the mid-l930s and settled in the house next door to where Ian Pearce lived, the stage was set for the beginning of what was to become a significant part of Tasmania’s jazz history.

In his mid teens, he and Ian discovered British dance bands and over timethey embraced Benny Goodman, Louis Armstrong and the Swing Era musicians. Pee Wee Russell and Bud Freeman came later. At sixteen Tom received his first clarinet, doubling on saxophone and with his brother Cedri on drums, friend Ian playing cornet, pianist Rex Withers-Green, they gave birth to The Barrelhouse Four. He started playing in local bands and the four hit at local jam sessions. With the oncoming of WWII in 1939 they went their separate ways, reuniting in 1946 to record their first commercial pressing.

Pickering played traditional jazz in various parts of Australia during the late 30s and 40s. He continued working throughout succeeding decades, continuing his preference for older styles but also playing effective tenor saxophone in mainstream settings. His playing and recording career continued apace into the 80s, and his contribution to the musical life of his country has been rewarded with a number of honours.

Pickering went on to form his Good Time Jazz Band, which found success until the rising popularity of rock music led to the band’s eventual break up. A trio followed untilhe and Ian put together the Pearce- Pickering Ragtime Five. They had two very long and successful runs at the Tattersall’s Bar and Bistro, and then at Wrest Point Casino.

Ill-health led to Tom’s eventual retirement from music and the end of his playing career. Having qualified as a librarian in 1948, he would go on to work in the State Library of Tasmania, then became Parliamentary Librarian in 1974. He was made a member of the Order of Australia (AM), won the Australian Jazz Convention Composition Competition twice, and received the Satchmo Award.

Clarinetist Tom Pickering transitioned in Hobart, Tasmania on October 26, 2001.

More Posts: bandleader,clarinet,history,instrumental,jazz,music,saxophone

Daily Dose Of Jazz…

Thomas Robert Talbert was born on August 4, 1924 in Crystal Bay, Minnesota and grew up listening to big band music on the radio. He learned to play piano before he became a composer. He got started as a band leader when he was drafted in the Army in 1943, becoming composer for a military band at Fort Ord, California, performing for War Bond drives throughout California.

In the late 1940s he led his own big band on the West Coast, much of his work foreshadowing what became known as West Coast jazz. During the decade in Los Angeles he worked with Johnny Richards, Lucky Thompson, Dodo Marmarosa, Hal McKusick, Al Killian, Art Pepper, Steve White and Claude Williamson…….

Moving to New York in the early 1950s after being denied a recording contract in Los Angeles, California he worked with Marian McPartland, Kai Winding, Don Elliott, Johnny Smith, Oscar Pettiford, Herb Geller, Joe Wilder, Eddie Bert, Barry Galbraith, Aaron Sachs and Claude Thornhill. In 1956, Talbert recorded two records that would become his best known works, Wednesday’s Child and Bix Duke Fats, which gained him fleeting fame.

When rock and roll eclipsed jazz in popularity, in 1960 he moved to his parents’ home in Minnesota. He tried his hand at cattle ranching in Wisconsin but eventually moved back to Los Angeles and a musical career in 1975. As a sideman he recorded with the Boyd Raeburn Orchestra,  Johnny Richards, and Patty McGovern.

In addition to composing for TV and movie studios, he became involved in music education, and set up a foundation to help talented young musicians, with one of the first recipients in 1996 was Maria Schneider.

Pianist, composer and band leader Thomas Talbert, who recorded eighteen albums as a leader, transitioned on July 2, 2005 in Los Angeles.

More Posts: bandleader,composer,history,instrumental,jazz,music,piano

Daily Dose Of Jazz…

Kat Edmonson was born in Houston, Texas on August 3, 1983 and is the only child of a single mother who enjoyed songs from the Great American Songbook and traditional pop from the 1940s and ’50s. She wrote her first song at age nine while riding the school bus. In 2002, after a year at the College of Charleston in South Carolina, she moved to Austin, Texas, to pursue a music career.

The same year Edmonson auditioned for the second season of American Idol and was one of the Top 48 contestants invited to Hollywood in Losa Angeles, California. Returning to Austin from Los Angeles and spent several years as a regular in the Austin club scene. She worked briefly in real estate but quit her day job in 2005 making the decision to pursue music full time.

2009 saw Kat self-release her debut album, Take to the Sky, which reached the Top 20 on the Billboard magazine jazz chart. Her sophomore release Way Down Low in 2012 was the result of a successful Kickstarter campaign. It received a warm critical reception from The New York Times and NPR, reaching No. 1 on the Billboard Heatseekers chart. Her third album, The Big Picture, was released in 2014, which also reached No. 1 on the Billboard Heatseekers chart.

She would go on to open for Lyle Lovett’s tour, perform on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno, on NPR’s Tiny Desk, Austin City Limits and A Prarie Home Companion. By 2013 she had her first U.S. tour and an invitation to play the Montreux Jazz Festival. Opening for Jamie Cullum the same year she toured France, Germany, the Netherlands, Portugal, Spain, and the UK. She went on to tour with Michael Kiwanuka, Chris Isaak, and Gary Clark Jr.

All this led to film appearances in Angels Sing and Café Society, her songs used in Admission, her song Dark Cloud in the opening sequence of Closure, her song If in Netflix’s Russian Doll,  and a Cocca~Cola Winter Olympics commercial.

Vocalist Kat Edmopnson continues to stretch the boundaries of her talent with performances and recordings.

More Posts: bandleader,history,instrumental,jazz,music,vocal