Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Andy Raphael Thomas Hamilton, MBE was born March 26, 1918 in Port Maria, Jamaica, and learned to play saxophone on a bamboo instrument. He formed his first band in 1928 with friends who were influenced by American musicians such as Duke Ellington and Count Basie and by the Kingston-based bands of Redver Cook and Roy Coburn.
While in the U.S. he worked as a cook and farm laborer but also held short jazz residencies in Buffalo and Syracuse, New York. Returning to Jamaica, he worked as musical arranger for Errol Flynn at his hotel The Titchfield, and on his yacht the Zaka.
Hamilton emigrated to the United Kingdom in 1949 as a stowaway and eventually lived in Birmingham and worked in a factory, while at night he played jazz with his own group, the Blue Notes formed with fellow Jamaican pianist Sam Brown in 1953. He would go on to play local gigs, promote numerous Jamaican bands like Steel Pulse, and established a regular weekly venue in Bearwood, inviting visiting musicians such as Joe Newman, Al Casey, Teddy Edwards, Art Farmer, Harry Sweets Edison, and David Murray.
In 1988 EndBoards Production produced a documentary called Silver Shine about Andy Hamilton’s migration to the UK and the hurdles experienced in growing his music career, the changing musical taste of Windrush generation and their descendants. The documentary features Andy’s Band the Blue Notes with lead vocalist Ann Scott; his first youth band The Blue Pearls, Tony Sykes, Millicent Stephenson, his children Graeme and Mark.
Having recovered from a diabetic coma in 1986, he celebrated his 70th birthday in 1988 playing at his regular venue, The Bear, performed at the Soho Jazz Festival, and in 1991 at the age of 73, Hamilton made his first-ever recording with Nick Gold, Silvershine on World Circuit Records. It became the biggest selling UK Jazz Album of the Year, The Times Jazz Album of the Year, and one of the 50 Sony Recordings of the Year. It was followed two years later by Jamaica at Night, which led to Caribbean and European concerts and national tours. Playing regularly until his death, his 90th birthday concert featured Courtney Pine, Sonny Bradshaw, Myrna Hague, Lekan Babalola, Nana Tsiboe, son Mark and The Notebenders.
Saxophonist Andy Hamilton, appointed Member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE) in the 2008 New Year Honours among other awards, continued to play, teach and promote music even as he approached his 94th birthday, passing away peacefully on June 3, 2012.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Frankie Carle, born Francis Nunzio Carlone on March 25, 1903 in Providence, Rhode Island. The son of a factory worker who could not afford a piano, he practiced on a dummy keyboard devised by his uncle, pianist Nicholas Colangelo, until he found a broken-down instrument in a dance hall. By 1916, now a teenager, he began working with his uncle’s band as well as a number of local bands around the state. To overcome prejudice against Italians he changed his name to Carle.
In the Thirties, he started out working with a number of mainstream dance bands that included the Mal Hallett Orchestra, had his own orchestra and at one time was billed in an ad for a night club as America’s Greatest Pianist. Joining Horace Heidt and His Musical Knights in 1939, Frankie later became co-leader of the band. His popularity during his time with Heidt’s band allowed him to leave the band in 1944 and form his own band, The Frankie Carle Orchestra and his daughter, Marjorie Hughes, sang with his band. During World War II, with his orchestra, he recorded a couple of V-Disc in a program of the U.S. War Department that featured his new compositions Moonlight Whispers and Sunrise Serenade. Some eleven years later he disbanded, embarked on his solo career in 1955 and until the 1980s, maintained a close following of loyal fans.
He had early exposure on the radio as a pianist for The Four Belles, a singing group distributed by the World Broadcasting System. In the mid-1940s, he and singer Allan Jones starred in the Old Gold Show on CBS radio and was also featured on the shows Pot o’ Gold, Treasure Chest, and The Chesterfield Supper Club. Over the course of his career, he recorded some four-dozen albums, composed over two-dozen popular romantic dance melodies. Pianist and bandleader Frankie Carle, whose #1 hit Sunrise Serenade sold over a million copies, passed away on March 7, 2001.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Harry Hayes was born Henry Richard Hayes in Marylebone in the West End of London, England on March 23, 1909, a bookmaker’s son. Winning a scholarship to his local grammar school, he was given a soprano saxophone by his father when he was 11 and by age 16, made his professional debut as an alto player at the Regent dance hall in Brighton. He was soon playing at London’s Kit Kat Club and the Piccadilly hotel. In 1927, he joined Elizalde at the Savoy, working alongside Americans like saxophonists Adrian Rollini, Fud Livingstone and Bobby Davis, trumpeter Chelsea Quealey, and pianist Jack Russin.
He became highly successful during the big band era of popular music that dominated by radio and bands playing London hotels and clubs. The late 1920s through the 30s, Hayes worked with musicians and bands such as Sydney Kyte at Ciro’s Club, pianist Billy Mason at the Cafe de Paris, Spike Hughes’s Orchestra at the Empress Rooms, Leslie “Hutch” Hutchinson, and Maurice Winnick at the Carlton, with Harry Roy at the Mayfair and with Sydney Lipton at the Grosvenor House. In 1932, he was featured in the band that accompanied Louis Armstrong’s first British tour.
Called up in 1940, Hayes served in the Welsh Guards band but continued to perform with others. After his discharge in 1944, he formed an eight-piece band, which went on to record sessions for HMV at Abbey Road featuring some of the best players of the day including Harry Roche, Norman Stenfalt, a young George Shearing and tenor saxophone Tommy Whittle. He played with Benny Carter, and appeared in a London Jazz At The Philharmonic concert with Oscar Peterson, Ella Fitzgerald, and Lester Young.
By 1947, Hayes was playing Charlie Parker bebop, and opening his first music shop in Shaftesbury Avenue. He was also active as a music teacher. While working with Kenny Baker in the 1950s, he led his own band at various London nightspots. Retiring from regular playing in 1965, he continued to run his shops until 1985. He was granted the freedom of the City of London in 1988 nd his last performance was at the Birmingham international jazz festival in 1992. Saxophonist and shopkeeper Harry Hayes passed away at the age of 92 on March 17, 2002.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Maria Katindig-Dykes was born in the Philippines on March 21, 1955 into a renowned musical family to legendary jazz pianist, Romy Katindig. In the family music business since the age of 16, she has performed a wide variety of musical styles, but her true passion is for jazz and bossa nova.
During the Seventies, she performed in a pop-rock ensemble called Circus Band, who represented the Philippines at the Tokyo Music Festival in the 1970s. Maria went on to play Silahis International Playboy Jazz Club and was the featured vocalist for 3 years at the Top of the Hilton, both in Manila.
A move to Honolulu, Hawaii where she met her future husband, jazz pianist, arranger and composer, Jimmie Dykes, and together they formed Pacifica, a jazz ensemble that became a very popular music attraction performing in the clubs in the Pacific arena.
Riverside in Southern California was her next stop for the artist with performances at many of the regional universities, at Mario’s Place, and the Silver Screen Jazz Club at the Hyatt on Sunset in Hollywood, alongside internationally renowned jazz artists Tal Farlow and Barney Kessel.
In 2005, diagnosed with cancer, she successfully waged a battle that left her happily performing today with No More Blues! It is a pleasant undertaking featuring eleven covers of pop and jazz standards. Among the best are “Favela” and “In Walked Bud”.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Lawrence Joseph Elgart was born in New London, Connecticut on March 20, 1922, four years younger than his brother, Les, and grew up in Pompton Lakes, New Jersey. Mother and father both played piano, the former being a concert pianist. He attended Pompton Lakes High School and began playing in jazz ensembles in their teens, and he played with jazz musicians such as Charlie Spivak, Woody Herman, Red Norvo, Freddie Slack and Tommy Dorsey.
In the mid-1940s, the brothers started up their own ensemble, hiring Nelson Riddle, Bill Finegan and Ralph Flanagan to arrange tunes for them. Their ensemble was not successful, and after a few years, they scuttled the band and sold the arrangements they had commissioned to Tommy Dorsey. Both returned to sideman positions in various orchestras.
By 1953, Larry met Charles Albertine and recorded two of his experimental compositions, Impressions of Outer Space and Music for Barefoot Ballerinas. Released on 10″ vinyl, these recordings became collectors’ items for fans of avant-garde jazz, though not commercially successful. Putting together a more traditional ensemble they, produced what came to be known as the Elgart Sound in their recordings. This configuration proved to be very commercially successful, and throughout the 1950s, Larry and Les enjoyed a run of successful albums and singles on the Columbia label. Their initial LP, “Sophisticated Swing,” released in late 1953, was credited to The Les Elgart Orchestra, because, according to Larry, Les was more interested than his brother in fronting the band.
In 1954, the Elgarts left their permanent mark on music history in recording Albertine’s Bandstand Boogie, for the legendary television show originally hosted by Bob Horn, and two years later, by Dick Clark. In 1956, Clark took the show from its local broadcast in Philadelphia, to ABC-TV for national distribution as American Bandstand. He remained host for another 32 years. Variations of the original song surfaced as the show’s theme in later years.
In 1955, the band became The Les and Larry Elgart Orchestra, but split up in 1959, subsequently releasing his own series of LPs. Larry signed with RCA Victor and his 1959 album, New Sounds At the Roosevelt, was nominated that year for a Grammy Award. From 1960-62, he released music on MGM Records. The brothers reunited in 1963, recorded several more albums and ended with 1967’s “Wonderful World of Today’s Hits,” after which they once again went their separate ways.
His biggest exposure came in 1982, with the smash success of a recording titled Hooked on Swing. The instrumental was a medley of swing jazz hits – In the Mood, Cherokee, Don’t Sit Under the Apple Tree, American Patrol, Sing, Sing, Sing, Don’t Be That Way, Little Brown Jug, Opus #1, Take the A Train, Zing Went the Strings of My Heart and A String of Pearls. The album became so popular it cracked the US Billboard Pop Singles chart at #31 and Adult Contemporary chart #20. This was the final hit for any artist in the year-long “medley craze,” that lasted from 1981 to 1982.
Continuing to tour internationally and record into the 2000s, alto saxophonist Larry Elgart, who over the course of his career recorded twenty-eight albums as a leader and recorded two-dozen with his brother, passed away at a hospice center in Sarasota, Florida on August 29, 2017 at the age of 95.
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