Daily Dose O fJazz…
Bill Stegmeyer was born October 8, 1916 in Detroit, Michigan. He attended Transylvania College in Lexington, Kentucky from 1934 to 1936, and following his studies he played through the rest of the decade with Austin Wylie, Glenn Miller, and Bob Crosby.
In the 1940s, he did arrangement work and played clarinet and occasionally, saxophone with Billy Butterfield, Yank Lawson, Bobby Hackett, Will Bradley, and Billie Holiday from 1945 to 1947. He arranged for WXYZ, a Detroit radio station, for two years starting in 1948, then followed this with arranging Your Hit Parade for eight years.
In the 1950s he also continued to play jazz with Lawson, Butterfield, Bob Haggart, Jimmy McPartland, and Ruby Braff. He went to work for CBS in the early 1960s.
Clarinetist and arranger Bill Stegmeyer, whose only recordings as a leader were five tunes for Signature Records in 1945 and some V-Discs, transitioned from cancer in Long Island, New York on August 19, 1968 at the age of 51.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Ami Nakazono was born on October 6, 1986 in Kagoshima, Japan and began classical piano lessons at the age of 4. By 12 she was playing the alto saxophone and joined her school brass band. After two years, she won the “City Solo Instrumental Competition.” At the same time she was offered a full scholarship to study music at Fukuoka Daiichi High School in Fukuoka, Japan, where she studied classical music, theory, ear training, harmony, and brass band skills.
After graduation, she entered Senzoku Gakuen University, Japan’s most prestigious university, with a jazz major. During this time, Ami formed her own band and began playing gigs in and around Tokyo, Japan. Again two years later in 2007 she accepted a scholarship from Berklee College of Music, moved to Boston, Massachusetts and continued to perform and study under Walter Beasley, Dino Govoni, Bill Pierce, Shannon LeClaire and Jeff Harrington, and flute with Mia Olson. In 2008 with mentor and inspiration George W. Russell Jr., the two worked on several collaborations during this period at Berklee.
Nakazono began performing internationally with the acclaimed band, Violette, headed by French jazz singer~songwriter Violette De Bartillat. In 2010 she recorded for two critically praised albums, Joie de Vivre with Violette and Shine with George W Russell Jr.
Saxophonist Ami Nakazono is currently an active member of Boston’s entertainment group Raw Ambition and continues to perform at prestigious venues and festivals across the United States.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Alicia Cunningham was born Alicia Rodriguez of Mexican heritage on October 5, 1946 in Los Angeles, California. A classically trained vocalist and pianist, she worked in the L.A. studios and as an educator at Loyola University in her early years.
Meeting her husband Don was fortuitous when he moved to Los Angeles in the early 70s. Their combination of his jazz-influenced energetic singing style and Alicia’s fluid, clear and lyrical sound, established a solid reputation. This would lead to a tour with Count Basie in Europe for five months at major events and jazz festivals in England and Switzerland.
She was an intricate and melodic harmonizer and arranger and paired with the Cunningham stage presentation, they offered enormous panache. They not only kept her hometown audiences satisfied but they traveled around the country and the world thrilling listeners in Europe, Canada, Singapore, Brazil, Japan, Indonesia and South Korea.
In 2012, they released their final album together titled Sao Paulo Lights that was recorded in Brazil. In the autumn of 2014, Alicia made her last performance in St. Louis when Don received a St. Louis Jazz Hall of Fame Award.
Vocalist Alicia Cunningham, who sang hard jazz, transitioned in Las Vegas, Nevada on December 23, 2014 at the age of 68 after battling cancer for a year.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Buddy Featherstonhaugh was born Rupert Edward Lee Featherstonhaugh on October 4, 1909 in Paris, France. After the family moved to England he studied in Sussex, and had his first professional gig with Pat O’Malley in 1927. He went on to play with Spike Hughes from 1930 to 1932, and toured England in Billy Mason’s band behind Louis Armstrong that same year and in 1933 recorded with a group called The Cosmopolitans. which included Fletcher Allen. In 1935 he recorded with Valaida Snow and two years later with Benny Carter.
During World War II, he led a Royal Air Force band which included in its ranks Vic Lewis, Don McAffer, and Jack Parnell. They went on to record as The BBC Radio Rhythm Club Sextet during 1943-45. After the war Buddy toured Iceland in 1946, and then left the jazz scene, taking up work as a car salesman.
1956 saw his return to playing and recording in a quintet with trumpeter Leon Calvert, Roy Sidewell, Kenny Wheeler, and Bobby Wellins. He also appeared with the band at Butlin’s Holiday Camps in the mid-1950s. He toured the Middle East in 1957, after which he retired.
Saxophonist and clarinetist Buddy Featherstonhaugh, who was an occasional racing car driver who won the 1934 Albi Grand Prix, transitioned on July 12, 1976.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Edgar “Puddinghead” Battle was born on October 3, 1907 into a musical family in Atlanta, Georgia. In 1921 while a student at Morris Brown University he started playing trumpet and formed his own band, the Dixie Serenaders. A few years later the group changed their name to Dixie Ramblers.
Battle played with Eddie Heywood Sr., and toured with the 101 Ranch Boys traveling show. During the 1920s he worked with Gene Coy, Andy Kirk, Blanche Calloway, Ira Coffey, and Willie Bryant. A move to New York City in the early Thirties saw him doing short stints with Benny Carter and Sam Wooding before joining George White’s ensemble on Broadway.
Over time, he began doing more work as a studio musician and arranger, writing charts for Cab Calloway, Paul Whiteman, Fats Waller, Earl Hines, Rudy Vallee, and Count Basie. During World War II, Edgar held a position as an electrician in a shipyard, while simultaneously running a big band with Shirley Clay.
In the 1950s, he founded Cosmopolitan Records and continued to play in big bands part-time through the 1960s. Among his numerous jazz compositions are the pieces Topsy, co-composed with Eddie Durham and Doggin’ Around with Herschel Evans.
Trumpeter, trombonist, saxophonist and pianist Edgar “Puddinghead” Battle, who was also a composer and arranger, transitioned in New York City on February 6, 1977, at the age of 69.
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