Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Guy Eugène Hilarion Pedersen was born on June 10, 1930 in Grand-Fort-Philippe, France. Coming from a family of popular musicians, their story begins in 1855 with all members of his maternal family being fiddlers from father to son. His uncles and his grandfather played all the balls of the region and his great-grandfather composed Tiger Rag, a jazz standard.
He began studying music theory around 1943 at the age of 13, taking free lessons at the Roubaix conservatory until 1952. Already passionate about jazz, he listened to Hugues Panassié ‘s radio broadcasts and bought his first American records by Charlie Parker, Thelonious Monk, and Lee Konitz. In 1950 he won the prize for best double bass player at the Brussels, Belgium competition, then Jazz Hot in Paris, France and decided to become a musician.
Beginning in Paris with singer Fats Edward, he went on to play with pianist Henri Renaud and drummer Jean-Louis Viale at Tabou, and at Ringside founded by Sugar Ray Robinson. Guy followed this working with Jacques Hélian and Claude Bolling to learn the trade of a large orchestra. From 1955 to 1966, he was a member with drummer Daniel Humair of one of Martial Solal trios, recording the historic Jazz à Gaveau in 1962.
Pedersen and Humair then joined the Swingle Singers to record the group’s second album. They traveled around the world with them, even passing through the White House in 1966. By 1973 he was touring with Baden Powell, recording over a dozen records with him. Between 1973 and 1980, he recorded seven albums and toured frequently with Jean-Christian Michel .
Leading an active career as a studio musician during this period he also appeared on television variety shows accompanying the group Les Troubadours. The late Sixties saw him composing, writing a lot of music for short films. Some of his recordings on Tele Music and Montparnasse 2000 are now cult, especially among disc jockeys.
A serious heart attack in 1977 sidelined the bassist from music and retiring permanently, he became a professional antique dealer. Double bassist, composer and antique dealer Guy Pedersen transitioned on January 4, 2005 in Rueil-Malmaison, Hauts-de-Seine, France at the age of 74 years old.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Michael Stephans was born in Miami, Florida on June 9, 1945. He has performed and recorded with artists including Dave Liebman, Bennie Maupin, Joe Lovano, Bob Brookmeyer, Don Menza, and Alan Broadbent.
Stephans’ first solo recording, Om ShalOM, was critically lauded in 2007 by UK critic Tom Barlow as an album of the year in the December 2007 – January 2008 issue of Jazzwise.
He has received multiple composition grants from the National Endowment for the Arts. In 1974, this association afforded him the opportunity to write the large ensemble composition Shapes and Visions for vibraphonist Karl Berger, which was performed at the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History in Washington, D.C.
In his role as a poet Michael has been published in The Note and Inscape, and received the Rachael Sherwood Poetry Prize by the English department at Cal State Northridge. He is the author of Experiencing Jazz: A Listener’s Companion, and Experiencing Ornette Coleman: A Listener’s Companion.
He is a professor who has taught at Pasadena City College, the University of Miami, and Bloomsburg University of Pennsylvania. Drummer Michael Stephans continues to pursue his career in jazz.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Prince Robinson was born in Portsmouth, Virginia on June 7, 1902. He learned to play clarinet as a teenager and after playing locally in Virginia, he moved to New York City, New York in 1923. Once settled Robinson quickly found work both performing and recording, with the Blue Rhythm Orchestra, June Clark, Duke Ellington, Billy Fowler, the Gulf Coast Seven, Fletcher Henderson, Lionel Howard, Clara Smith, and Elmer Snowden. He went on to tour South America with Leon Abbey’s group in 1927, and the following year became a member of McKinney’s Cotton Pickers.
The Thirties saw Prince working with Lil Armstrong, Willie Bryant, Blanche Calloway, Roy Eldridge, and Teddy Wilson accompanying Billie Holiday. His career continued in the 1940s, including work with Louis Armstrong, Lucky Millinder, and Benny Morton. In 1945 he joined Claude Hopkins’s band, remaining until 1952. Later in the decade he worked with Fletcher Henderson again and with Red Allen and Freddie Washington, in addition to leading his own ensemble in 1953.
His last recording was Mainstream Jazz by Andy Gibson and His Orchestra in 1959. He played a tenor saxophone solo on the theme Blueprint. Tenor saxophonist and clarinetist Prince Robinson transitioned on July 23, 1960 in New York City.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Ted Lewis was born Theodore Leopold Friedman on June 6, 1890 in Circleville, Ohio. His first instrument was the piccolo, however, he also learned to play the C-melody saxophone but was known principally as a clarinetist throughout his long career.
He was one of the first Northern musicians to imitate the style of New Orleans jazz musicians who came to New York in the 1910s. He first recorded in 1917 with Earl Fuller’s Jazz Band, a band attempting to copy the sound of the Original Dixieland Jass Band.
His earliest clarinet recordings were not very good but as his career gained momentum he refined his style under the influence of the first New Orleans clarinetists Larry Shields, Alcide Nunez, and Achille Baquet who relocated to New York.
By 1919, Lewis was leading his own band, and had a recording contract with Columbia Records. At the start of the Roaring Twenties, he was being promoted as one of the leading lights of the mainstream form of jazz popular at the time. He hired musicians Benny Goodman, Jimmy Dorsey, Frank Teschemacher, and Don Murray to play clarinet in his band. Over the years he hired trumpeter Muggsy Spanier and trombonist George Brunies as he led his band to be second only to the Paul Whiteman band in popularity.
One of his most memorable songs, Me and My Shadow, had usher Eddie Chester mimicking his movements during his act. He then hired four Black shadows, the most famous being Charles “Snowball” Whittier, making Lewis one of the first prominent white entertainers to showcase Black performers, albeit in stereotypical ways, to be onstage, on film, and eventually on network television.
Remaining successful through the Great Depression, Ted adopted a battered top hat for sentimental, hard-luck tunes. He kept his band together through the 1950s and continued to make appearances in Las Vegas, Nevada and on the popular television shows of the decade. He would go on to perform in the early talkie films by Universal Studios and Columbia Pictures.
Clarinetist, bandleader, and singer Ted Lewis, transitioned in his sleep from lung failure on August 25, 1971 in New York City. He was 81. His memorabilia resides in The Ted Lewis Museum, created by his wife Adah, located across the street from where he was born in Circleville.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Ginger Smock was born Emma Smock on June 4, 1920 in Chicago, Illinois and grew up in Los Angeles, California. She graduated from Jefferson High School and studied violin privately with Bessie Dones. By the time she hit the age of 10 she appeared as a soloist at the Hollywood Bowl. She was featured on Clarence Muse’s radio program at the age of thirteen performing Edward MacDowell’s To A Wild Rose. She earned degrees in music from Los Angeles City College, and the Zoellner Conservatory of Music. At the latter institution she was a pupil of Edith Smith.
During 1944 she led a trio with Nina Russell and Mata Roy. In 1951, she led an all-female sextette, featuring Clora Bryant, on the Chicks and the Fiddle show hosted by Phil Moore that broadcasted for six weeks on CBS. The next year she was the featured soloist on KTLA’s variety show, Dixie Showboat.
1953 had Smock recording as part of a group with Gerald Wiggins, Freddie Simon, Red Callender, and Rudy Pitts, accompanying the vocalist Cecil “Count” Carter.
During the mid 1970s, she spent ten years as concertmaster of show orchestras in Las Vegas. In addition to her work in jazz and rhythm & blues, she performed with the All City Symphony Orchestra of Los Angeles. A violin owned by Smock is in the collection of the National Museum of African American History and Culture
Violinist, orchestra leader, and local Los Angeles television personality Ginger Smock, who recorded as a leader but is perhaps best known from her recordings with the Vivien Garry Quintet, transitioned on June 13, 1995.
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