Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Page Cavanaugh was born Walter Page Cavanaugh on January 26, 1922 in Cherokee, Kansas and began on piano at age nine. By the time he turned 16 he was playing with Ernie Williamson’s band for a year before moving to Los Angeles, California and joining the Bobby Sherwood band at age 20.
While serving in the military during World War II, he met guitarist Al Viola and bassist Lloyd Pratt, and they formed a trio. After the war’s end they performed together in the style of the Nat King Cole Trio, scoring a number of hits in the late 1940s, including The Three Bears, Walkin’ My Baby Back Home, and All of Me. The trio appeared in the films A Song Is Born, Big City, Lullaby of Broadway and Romance on the High Seas. He recorded dozens of tracks with Doris Day, Frank Sinatra, Dinah Shore, June Christy, Mel Torme and other legendary singers.
During the early Fifties he had a program, Page Pages You, on the short-lived Progressive Broadcasting System, the trio played on Frank Sinatra’s radio program, Songs by Sinatra, and on The Jack Paar Show. Cavanaugh played in Los Angeles nightclubs through the 1990s, both in a trio setting and as a septet, the Page 7. He recorded with Bobby Woods & Les Deux Love Orchestra, and as a bandleader with MGM, Capitol, RCA, Star Line, Tiara, and Dobre Records over the course of his career, releasing his final trio album, Return to Elegance, in 2006.
Pianist, vocalist, and arranger Page Cavanaugh transitioned from kidney failure on December 19, 2008 in Los Angeles, California.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Paul F. Murphy was born on January 25, 1949 in Worcester, Massachusetts and began playing drums at a very early age and made the acquaintance of Gene Krupa at age six. He went on to study with Krupa, Louis Bellson, and Joseph Levitt, the principal percussionist of the National Symphony Orchestra and director of the Peabody Conservatory.
At age sixteen, Murphy began playing in the Washington, D.C. area with Duke Ellington’s bassist Billy Taylor, who exposed him to the music of pianist Cecil Taylor. At Taylor’s advice he moved to San Francisco, California where he established himself as a bandleader. While there, he met and befriended Cecil Taylor and Jimmy Lyons. At the suggestion of Lyons, he then moved to New York, where he managed Ali’s Alley, a club run by drummer Rashied Ali, and began playing and recording with Lyons’ groups as well as his own quintet. While in New York, Murphy immersed himself in both the experimental jazz and punk rock scenes.
Following Lyons’ untimely death in 1986, Murphy spent time playing drums in Las Vegas, Nevada before returning to San Francisco, where he formed Trio Hurricane with saxophonist Glenn Spearman and bassist William Parker. A move back to the Washington, D.C. area in 1990, and has since collaborated with pianists Joel Futterman and Larry Willis, poet Jere Carroll, and others.
Percussionist, bandleader and composer Paul Murphy, best known for leading a variety of small jazz ensembles, continues to perform and record.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Lenny McBrowne was born Leonard Louis McBrowne in Brooklyn, New York on January 24, 1933. Influenced by his drummer father Arnold he took up drums at a young age, playing in street marching bands between ages 12 and 15, while also taking lessons on the bass. Graduating high school in 1951 he studied under Max Roach for one year and Sticks Evans.
McBrowne began his professional career in Pete Brown’s group, which featured Paul Bley. He also played with Randy Weston and Cecil Payne in various Brooklyn clubs, and with Paul Bley’s Trio in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. By 1956 he was playing with Tony Scott in New York City, and continued performing with Paul Bley in a college tour that led to his relocation to California.
His first West Coast dates included the likes of Billie Holiday, Sonny Stitt, Harold Land, Benny Golson, Curtis Fuller, Fred Katz and Sonny Rollins. 1959 saw Lenny forming his own group, The Four Souls, with pianist Terry Trotter, bassist Herbie Lewis, tenor saxophonist and composer Daniel Jackson, and trumpeter Donald Sleet.
Between January and March 1960, The band recorded their debut album Lenny McBrowne and the 4 Souls in 1960 that was released by Pacific Jazz Records. Shortly after they relocated to New York City and recorded their second and final album Eastern Lights with Jimmy Bond on bass. Cannonball Adderley was the producer and supervisor and the album was released by Riverside Records.
Described as a highly close-knit and well-rehearsed combo with fluid and competent soloing by several leading jazz magazines, the group was destined for dissolution. Lenny then free-lanced with Sal Salvador, Chris Connor and Carmen McRae. During the 1960s, he played with Sarah Vaughan, Lambert, Hendricks & Bavan, Randy Weston, Booker Ervin, Ray Bryant, Teddy Wilson, and toured Japan with Thelonious Monk.
In the second half of the 1960s, McBrowne played primarily with Ervin’s band. He then relocated to San Francisco, California and began to perform with Kenny Burrell on a regular basis until 1976, when he made his last recording. Hard bop and soul jazz drummer Lenny McBrowne transitioned on October 4, 1980 at 47 in San Francisco, California.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Benjamin Waters was born on January 23, 1902 in Brighton, Baltimore, Maryland. He began on organ, then switched to clarinet and later added saxophone. The first band he joined in 1918 was Charly Miller’s band. In 1922 he attended the New England Conservatory of Music where he gave lessons to Harry Carney.
From 1926 until 1931, Waters was a member of Charlie Johnson’s band. He would later work with King Oliver, Fletcher Henderson, Claude Hopkins, and others. During these years he made several recordings with King Oliver and Clarence Williams.
In the years 1941 and 1942 he played with the Jimmie Lunceford Orchestra, and later in the 1940s with Roy Milton. He went on to form his own band, playing at the Red Mill in New York City. After this stint in the city he moved to California for four years.
From 1952 to 1992 Benny lived in Paris, France. In 1996, he received the Legion of Honour from the French Ministry of Culture. He continued to perform regularly up to his 95th birthday.
Saxophonist and clarinetist Benny Waters, who became blind in 1992 due to cataracts, transitioned on August 11, 1998 in Columbia, Maryland.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
André Hodeir was born January 22, 1921 in Paris, France and trained as a classical violinist and composer. He studied at the Conservatoire de Paris, where he was taught by Olivier Messiaen and won first prizes in fugue, harmony, and music history. While pursuing these studies he discovered jazz and various music forms besides jazz and classical. He recorded on violin under the pseudonym Claude Laurence.
In 1954 he was a founder and director of Jazz Groupe de Paris, which included Bobby Jaspar, Pierre Michelot and Nat Peck. In 1957, at the invitation of Ozzie Cadena of Savoy Records, he recorded an album of his compositions with Donald Byrd, Idrees Sulieman, Frank Rehak, Hal McKusick, Eddie Costa, George Duvivier, and Annie Ross.
In addition to two books of Essais (1954 and 1956), he wrote film scores, including Le Palais Idéal by Ado Kyrou for the film Chutes de pierres, danger de mort by Michel Fano, and Brigitte Bardot’s Une Parisienne.
He founded an orchestra during the Sixties and composed a work based on the Anna Livia Plurabelle story from the novel Finnegans Wake by James Joyce. Violinist, composer, arranger and musicologist André Hodeir transitioned on November 1, 2011.
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