Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Horace Kirby Dowell, known professionally as Saxie, was born on May 24, 1904 in Raleigh, North Carolina. Attending the University of North Carolina he met Hal Kemp and joined Kemp’s orchestra as a tenor saxophonist, clarinetist, flutist and vocalist in the fall of 1925.
He composed I Don’t Care, which was recorded by Kemp for Brunswick in 1928. When the band’s style changed in the early 1930s to that of a dance band, Dowell became the group’s comedic vocalist for novelty songs. After Three Little Fishies became a hit in 1939, Dowell was involved in a legal dispute with lyricists Josephine Carringer and Bernice Idins. In 1940 he wrote the song Playmates.
Dowell left Kemp and started a big band in 1940. Drafted during World War II he served as a bandleader aboard an aircraft carrier, the U.S.S. Franklin. He went on to record for Brunswick, Sonora, and Victor. Around 1946 he led a naval air station band with 14-year-old Keely Smith as a singer.
>After the war he reunited his orchestra, performing mostly in Chicago, Illinois. In 1949 he became a disc jockey for WGN radio in Chicago, and retired in the late 1950s. He moved to Scottsdale, Arizona and worked as a disc jockey part-time for KTAR in Phoenix during his retirement.
Saxophonist and vocalist Saxie Dowell died on July 22, 1974 in Scottsdale.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Sergio Lara was born on May 21, 1959 in Mexico City, Mexico and started playing guitar at age nine. Very early he discovered and began studying several musical styles with his greatest influences being John McLaughlin, Jorge Strunz, Paco de Lucia, Tony Rice, Norman Blake, Sam Bush and David Grisman, among others.
Lara appeared on the international music scene in 1983 with the release of his first solo album titled Sergiology. During the following years he formed his own band, New Acoustic Unit, in Nashville, Tennessee and San Antonio, Texas. In 1994 he released a sophomore album Guitarras Hermanas, the first one for Higher Octave Music. This album of all original music, also included a new instrumental version of the very popular and romantic song Sabor a Mi.
1996 saw Sergio releasing his next product titled Two Guitars-One Passion, which received worldwide attention because of its original combination of different musical styles. Throughout the balance of the 1990s he recorded two more albums with instrumental versions of classic songs and his original compositions.
Omn the new millennium he continued to record albums for his new independent label Fusion Acustica Music. With a career that covers many years and more than ten albums under his name, he has shared the stage with Al Di Meola, Larry Carlton, Bireli Lagrene, Dr. John, Craig Chaquico, Joe Sample, Strunz & Farah, Bela Fleck, Sam Bush, Paquito D’Rivera, Julio Iglesias and Ray Charles.
Guitarist Sergio Lara continues to explore new possibilities inside the world of contemporary instrumental music and sharing improvisation.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Jimmy Henderson was born on May 20, 1921 in Wichita Falls, Texas and began studying piano at age six, picking up the trombone a few years later. By the time he was thirteen he had joined a musicians’ union and was first chair at the Wichita Falls Symphony Orchestra.
Winning several trombone competitions by age fourteen, Jimmy started his own orchestra while still in his teens, in addition to studying at the Cincinnati Conservatory of Music. Henderson toured with the big bands of Hal McIntyre, Jimmy Dorsey, and Tommy Dorsey.
In 1954, he moved to Los Angeles, California where he steadily worked as a session musician for some 20 years. Among his credits in the studios was the soundtrack for Bonanza. From 1957 to 1960, he was also a member of Lawrence Welk’s orchestra in which he appeared weekly on the Maestro’s television show.
He led his own orchestra for fifteen years, and was the musical director for the Emmy Awards, Television Academy Honors, and Directors Guild of America Awards In the 1970s, he led the Glenn Miller Orchestra ghost band before retiring in 1980.
Trombonist and bandleader Jimmy Henderson died at the age of 77 on June 10, 1998 in New York City, New York.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Mike Elliott was born on May 18, 1940 in Chicago, Illinois to a studio musician father and a blues singer mother. Raised in Colorado he learned guitar at a young age and was playing professionally by the time he was sixteen. It was in Colorado where he studied guitar with Johnny Smith.
He formed his first jazz group and in 1964 was on the road. He moved to Minneapolis, Minnesota two years later, and in the Seventies he helped found the jazz fusion group Natural Life, which included saxophonist Bob Rockwell, bassist Billy Peterson, pianist Bobby Peterson, and drummers Bill Berg and Eric Kamau Gravatt.
The 1980s saw him moving to Nashville, Tennessee and becoming manager of Gibson Professional Musical Services and holding clinics with Les Paul, Howard Roberts, and Elliot Easton. Mike did session work, engineering, producing, arranging, and songwriting. In the middle of the decade he teamed up with songwriter musician Jim Pasquale to form Magic Tracks Recording Studio.
Remaining in Nashville until 1998 he worked with Johnny Cash, Mickey Newbury, Chubby Checker, Emmylou Harris, Trisha Yearwood, Joe Diffie, Earl Klugh, Vic Damone, Steve Earle, Crystal Gayle, and Tennessee Ernie Ford.
Gruitarist Mike Elliott died on September 14, 2005. A Mike Elliott Scholarship Award for excellence in guitar was established in his honor.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Giuseppe “Pippo” Barzizza was born on May 15,1902 in Genova, Italy. He was a child prodigy and at age six he entered the Camillo Sivori Institute to study violin, quickly passing the exam and taking his first award. He could hardly read words but he was already able to write a Mozart symphony without error.
After attending primary and secondary schools he went to Cristoforo Colombo High School, where he studied violin at the Conservatory. Listening to his father’s phonograph, Pippo developed a passion for classical and symphonic music. He became skilled in mathematics and decided to follow mathematical studies, graduating as an engineer.
Barzizza also studied harmony, counterpoint, composition, and instruments. He focused on the piano until 1933, followed by the violin, banjo and the trumpet section. During this period he was the lead violinist at Politeama and performed music for silent movies at the cinema near his home.
By seventeen he had stopped his violin studies for the pursuit of conducting and composition. For the next four years he performed on ships and for orchestras in Genova. However, it was in New York City he first heard jazz and swing music. Through the 1920s Pippo became a skilled arranger, joined an orchestra, served in the Italian Army and founded a military orchestra.
His first line up was playing violin for Blue Star Orchestra, then he conducted the Cetra Orchestra, recorded during the Thirties for Fonit, Columbia, La Voce del Padrone, Odeon, Brunswick and Fonotipia record labels. Post World War II he played on soundtracks and counducted the Modern Orchestra. Retiring from music in 1960 he taught music, established a recording studio in his home
At the age of 92, composer, arranger, conductor and music director Pippo Barzizza, who was active from 1924 to 1960 playing violin, piano, saxophone, banjo, and accordion, died on April 4,1994 in Sanremo, Italy.
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