Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Shep Shepherd was born Berisford Shepherd on January 19, 1917 in Honduras while his mother was enroute from the West Indies to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Arriving in the city she first settled and raised him in a Jewish neighborhood before moving to a Black neighborhood.
An early fascination with marching bands he drummed on tables and chairs until his mother bought him a toy drum to save wear and tear on the furniture. He attended the Jules E. Mastbaum Area Conservatory and Vocational School where he trained as a percussionist on timpani, vibraphone, xylophone, snare and bass drums. Students were required to have a secondary instrument, and he chose the trombone.
Initially hoping for a career in the Philadelphia Orchestra, he shifted his interest to jazz. He formed a friendship with drummer Jimmy Crawford, who was able to help his career in New York City. During the Thirties performed with Jimmy Gorham’s band in Philadelphia. In 1941, Benny Carter contacted Shep and he moved to New York City, where he also worked with Artie Shaw the same year. He became heavily in demand and the phrase “Get Shep!” became a phrase among area musicians.
Four years in the Army saw him serving in the entertainment corps, and working there he played trombone and improved his skills as a composer and arranger. He met Billy Butlet and in 1952 after his discharge he began working with Butler as part of Bill Doggett’s group. In 1956, Shepherd helped write Doggett’s signature song, Honky Tonk. He left Doggett’s group in 1959 and returned to New York City where he worked in pit orchestras for Broadway shows, and as a music copyist and arranger.
When the nationwide tour of the Broadway show Here’s Love ended, Shepherd found himself in San Francisco, California and he became a freelance musician there. He continued to play drums through the Sixties and Seventies working with Patti Page, Lionel Hampton, Lena Horne, The Ward Singers, Earl Bostic, Buck Clayton, Odetta, Cab Calloway, Sy Oliver, Big Maybelle, and Erskine Hawkins. At 80 years old, he switched his primary focus from drums to trombone, and with organist Art Harris and drummer Robert Labbe formed the group Blues Fuse.
Drummer, trombonist, vocalist and composer Shep Shepherd, who is listed in The Biographical Encyclopedia of Jazz and Who’s Who Among Black Americans, transitioned on November 25, 2018 at the age of 101.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Larry Sonn was born in Woodmere on Long Island, New York on January 17, 1919. GraduatING from the Juilliard School of Music in New York City, he began his career with the Southern Symphony Orchestra in Columbia, South Carolina, as first trumpet, but later turned to the popular idioms of jazz and the big band sound.
He soon was playing trumpet and arranging for the top orchestras in the United States which included Glenn Miller, Teddy Powell, Bobby Byrne, Charlie Barnett, Hal McIntyre and Vincent Lopez.
A series of engagements in the early 1940’s took him to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania and San Antonio, Texas. An executive from the new Hotel Reforma in Mexico City heard him play and, impressed by his virtuosity, offered Larry an appearance at the hotel’s Ciro’s Night Club. The short-term contract lasted nine years and falling in love with Mexico, the country reciprocated.
Sonn returned to the States in the late-50’s and put together a new orchestra to play jazz and dance music. He gained national exposure on NBC’s Monitor with Al Jazzbo Collins commentating. When Mexico called again he went back and formed one of the foremost big bands in the country. He toured, did radio shows for XEW, Mexico’s largest station, and recorded for RCA Victor, CBS, Cisne, Peerless, Sonart and other labels.
Retiring from music in 1972 he relocated 40 miles south of Mexico City and opened a popular book store specializing in US editions for English-speaking residents and tourists. After several years he retired completely.
Trumpeter, arranger, composer, and bandleader Larry Sonn transitioned in 2015 at 95 in Cuernavaca, Morelos, Mexico.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Charles Theodore Straight was born on January 16, 1891 in Chicago, Illinois. He started his career in 1909 at 18 accompanying singer Gene Greene in Vaudeville. In 1916, he began working at the Imperial Piano Roll Company in Chicago, where he recorded dozens of piano rolls.
Becoming a popular bandleader around town during the Jazz Age, his band, the Charley Straight Orchestra, had a long term engagement at the Rendezvous Café from 1922 to 1925 and recorded for Paramount Records and Brunswick Records during the decade.
This period also saw Straight working with Roy Bargy on the latter’s eight Piano Syncopations. Besides working as a pianist or leading an orchestra, he also composed and arranged music, both ragtime and jazz.
Pianist, bandleader and composer Charley Straight transitioned on September 22, 1940 in Chicago after being struck by an automobile while working as a city sanitary inspector. He was emerging from a manhole in the street.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Anthony Frank “Tony” Inzalaco, Jr. was born January 14, 1938 in Passaic, New Jersey. From childhood drumming he went on to obtain bachelor’s and master’s degrees from the Manhattan School of Music. He was active in the United States from 1959 to 1968, performing and/or recording with Vinnie Burke, Jaki Byard, Donald Byrd, Chris Connor, Maynard Ferguson, Jim Hall, Roger Kellaway, Morgana King, Lee Konitz, Morris Nanton, Duke Pearson, Benny Powell, Buddy Rich, Charlie Shavers, Johnny Smith, Billy Taylor, and Ben Webster.
Moving to Germany in 1968 he lived there for a decade as a member of the bands of Kurt Edelhagen and Eugen Cicero. He worked with Benny Bailey, Don Byas, Kenny Clarke and Francy Boland, Kenny Drew, Art Farmer, Dizzy Gillespie, Dexter Gordon, Johnny Griffin, Peter Herbolzheimer, Carmen McRae, Sal Nistico, Horace Parlan, Fritz Pauer, Oscar Peterson, Idrees Sulieman, Ben Webster again, Jiggs Whigham, Jimmy Woode, and Leo Wright during his time in the country.
After moving back to the States, he was active principally in Boston, Massachusetts in the 1980s, working with Byrd, Griffin, and Farmer again, as well as with Ruby Braff, Al Cohn, and Dakota Staton.
Relocating again to Los Angeles in the 1990s, drummer Tony Inzalaco has led his own ensemble for the past decade.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Ojārs Raimonds Pauls was born January 12, 1936 in Iļģuciems, Riga, Latvia and is the second child of a glass blowing factory worker and a seamstress. His father played drums and his grandfather played the violin, and following in his grandfather’s footsteps he is enrolled into Riga’s institute of Music kindergarten branch. Being too young and his fingers unfit for playing violin, he started on the piano.
By 1943 he was studying at Riga’s 7th Elementary school while continuing piano lessons with professor Valerijs Zosts and teachers Emma Eglīte and Juta Daugule. 1946 saw Raimonds admitted to the Secondary Musical School of Emīls Dārziņš, combining his studies at the elementary school for three years.
When he turns 14, Pauls was playing piano at restaurants and clubs with a violin and saxophone virtuoso Gunārs Kušķis. Five years later he completed his studies at the Riga’s 7th Elementary school, however, during this time, he independently developed a liking for playing jazz by studying and imitating various jazz records.
He would go on to compose for musicals, ballets, theater performances, puppet shows, films, choirs, and instrumentals, He has received several honors from his home country, the USSR, Sweden, Japan and Armenia.
Composer, arranger and pianist Raimonds Pauls, who was the Minister of Culture of Latvia from 1988 to 1993, continues to record and perform.
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