Daily Dose Of Jazz…

Joseph Arthurlin Harriott was born in Kingston, Jamaica on July 15, 1928. Harriott was educated at Alpha Boys School, an orphanage in the city where he learned to play the clarinet, the instrument that was assigned to him shortly before his tenth birthday. He took up the baritone and tenor saxophone while performing with local dance bands before settling on the alto saxophone.

Moving to London, England as a working musician in the summer of 1951 at the age of 23 as a member of Ossie Da Costa’s band, he initially began as a bebopper, and also became a pioneer of free-form jazz. Harriott was part of a wave of Caribbean jazz musicians who arrived in Britain during the 1950s, including Dizzy Reece, Harold McNair, Harry Beckett and Wilton Gaynair.

Deeply influenced by Charlie Parker, he developed a style that fused Parker with his own Jamaican musical sensibility, most notably the mento and calypso music he grew up with. During the 1950s, he had two long spells with drummer Tony Kinsey’s band, punctuated by the membership of Ronnie Scott’s short-lived big band, occasional spells leading his own quartet and working in the quartets of drummers Phil Seamen and Allan Ganley.

Harriott began recording under his own name in 1954, releasing a handful of E.P. records for Columbia, Pye/Nixa and Melodisc throughout the 1950s. However, the majority of his 1950s recordings were as a sideman with the musicians previously mentioned, also backing a diverse array of performers, from mainstream vocalist Lita Roza to traditional trombonist George Chisholm to the West African sounds of Buddy Pipp’s Highlifers. Harriott also appeared alongside visiting American musicians during this period, including a “guest artist” slot on the Modern Jazz Quartet’s 1959 UK tour.

Forming his own quintet in 1958, Joe’s hard-swinging bebop was noticed in the United States, leading to the release of the Southern Horizons and Free Form albums on the Jazzland label. By now firmly established as a bebop soloist, in 1960 Harriott turned to what he termed “abstract” or “free-form” music. During the late 1960s he and violinist John Mayer developed Indo-Jazz Fusion – an early attempt at building on music from diverse traditions. His work in 1969 was to be the last substantial performance of his career.

While he continued to play around Britain wherever he was welcome, no further recording opportunities arose. He was virtually destitute in his last years and ravaged by illness. Alto saxophonist and composer Joe Harriott passed away from cancer on January 2, 1973.

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Daily Dose Of Jazz…

William Osborne Kyle was born on July 14, 1914 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania and began playing the piano in school. By the early 1930s, he was working with Lucky Millinder, Tiny Bradshaw, and later the Mills Blue Rhythm Band. In 1938, he joined John Kirby’s sextet but was drafted in 1942. After the war, he worked with Kirby’s band briefly and also worked with Sy Oliver. He then spent thirteen years as a member of Louis Armstrong’s All-Stars, performing in the 1956 musical High Society.

A fluent pianist with a light touch, Kyle never achieved much fame, but he always worked steadily. He had a few opportunities to record as a leader, seventeen songs in all, just some octet and septet sides in 1937, two songs with a quartet in 1939, and outings in 1946 with a trio and an octet.

He is credited as the co-author of the song Billy’s Bounce recorded by the Modern Jazz Quartet in 1992 with Bobby McFerrin on the album MJQ and Friends. He didn’t record during his Armstrong years, however, he recorded with Al Hibbler and Buck Clayton.

Pianist Billy Kyle, best known as an accompanist, passed away on February 23, 1966  in Youngstown, Ohio.

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Daily Dose Of Jazz…

Michel De Villers was born July 13, 1926 in Villeneuve-sur-Lot, France and learned to play alto saxophone as a teenager. He would later expand to clarinet and baritone saxophone. Playing in the latter half of the 1940s with Jean-Claude Fohrenbach, Django Reinhardt and Rex Stewart, he then joined the Edward VII Theatre band in Paris. 

In the 1950s he worked in the bands of Geo Daly, Jack Diéval, André Persiany, and Gérard Pochonet. He also played with touring American musicians such as Buck Clayton, Bill Coleman, Jonah Jones, and Lucky Thompson. The Seventies saw De Villers as less active as a musician, working as a jazz writer and radio screenwriter. In the 1980s he became active again as an educator and performer, working later in his career with Christian Garros, Pierre Michelot, Roger Guérin, and Marc Fosset.

Saxophonist, clarinetist, and bandleader Michel De Villers October 25, 1992, Mont St. Aignan, France.

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Daily Dose Of Jazz…

Kiwzo Fumero was born on July 12, 1972 in Marianao, Havana, Cuba.  A trumpeter from his youth, he began his professional career in 1991 with the creation of the first youth mariachi band in Cuba, of which he was its creator and director, and who is currently El Mariachi Real Jalisco De La Habana.

In 2000 Kiwzo settled in Miami, Florida. where he has participated with several orchestras and has accompanied Gilberto Sta Rosa, Huey Dumbar, Thalia, Tito Nieves, Rey Ruiz, Jose Jose, and many more. He has performed with the Willy Chirino Orchestra, La Sonora Carruseles, the tour “Embrace Me Very Strong”, Tropicana All-Stars, Celia Cruz, and Cachao.

As an educator Fumero has also had the honor of sharing a lectern with world-class musicians such as Arturo Sandoval, Paquito D’Rivera, John Fadis, Israel López Cachao, Jimmy Bosch, Andy García, Chocolate Armenteros, Patato Valdez among many others.

Winner of 2 Grammy Awards with 6 nominations, he has performed for President Bush in 2007, and has recorded nine albums. Kiwzo Fumero, one of the most recognized and influential Cuban trumpeters of his generation,  continues to perform, record and tour.

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Daily Dose Of Jazz…

Alex Welsh was born on July 9, 1929 in Edinburgh, Scotland, Welsh and started playing in the teenage Leith Silver Band and with Archie Semple’s Capital Jazz Band.  After a move to London in the early 1950s, he formed a band with clarinetist Archie Semple, pianist Fred Hunt, trombonist Roy Crimmins, and drummer Lenny Hastings. The band played a version of Chicago-style Dixieland jazz and was part of the traditional jazz revival in England in the 1950s.

In the 1960s, Welsh’s band played with Earl Hines, Red Allen, Peanuts Hucko, Pee Wee Russell, and Ruby Braff. During that period and into the early 1970s, Welsh frequently toured, including many visits to the United States. Influenced by his fellow trad jazz bandleader Chris Barber, he built up an extensive musical repertoire, working from popular music, jazz, and a large mainstream following for ensembles.

Welsh recorded under the Decca Record label from 1955 and had four records released that year, I’ll Build A Stairway To Paradise, Blues My Naughtie Sweetie Gives To Me, and What Can I Say After I Say I’m Sorry, and Dixielanders. Although none of these recordings charted, he found some success with the single Tansy from the film No My Darling Daughter.

In 1963 he was part of the biggest trad jazz event in Britain and would go on to tour internationally, playing festivals on both the American and European continents. He was a regular in the early 1970s, playing clubs around London and having continued success as a vocalist and playing Dixieland, and trad jazz. Singer, bandleader, cornetist, and trumpeter Alex Welsh passed away on June 25, 1982 in Hillingdon Hospital in London, England, at the age of 52.

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