Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Andrés Thor was born on December 27, 1974 in Hafnarfjordur, Iceland, a little harbour town near Reykjavík, Iceland. He began his musical studies at age 12 and his initial influences were glitter and hippie rock bands such as Led Zeppelin, The Doors, Jimi Hendrix and Bon Jovi.
During his teens was when he first heard the music of John Coltrane and Pat Metheny which led him to become more fascinated with jazz. He soon started studying with some of Iceland’s finest jazz educators at the FIH music school and after graduating his musical quest brought him to study at the Koninklijk Conservatorium (The Royal Conservatory) in The Hague, The Netherlands in 2000.
Finishing his Bachelors and Masters degrees by 2006 he went on to study under the guidance of Wim Bronnenberg, Peter Nieuwerf, Eef Albers, John Ruocco and Hein v/d Geyn as his main teachers. He also attended workshops and masterclasses lead by Michael Brecker, Kurt Rosenwinkel, John Abercrombie and Avishai Cohen, as well as performing with the late Michael Brecker and the Royal Conservatory Big Band in concert.
Living and studying in the Netherlands lead to the first recording featuring Andrés as a co-leader of the organ trio Wijnen, Winter & Thor. The band featured songs by all members of the trio. Since then he has been based and working in and out of Iceland and has released five albums under his own name and a handful of albums in collaboration. He has been active in various collective projects and as a sideman with bands like ASA trio, Icewegian, The Viking Giant Show, BonSom, Andreas Dreier quartet and Music with Z to name a few.
Thor has been an active performer in Scandinavia, Europe and America, as well as a session musician in studios and educator in Iceland. He doubles on the mandolin, banjo and steel guitars. Guitarist Andrés Thor continues to record and perform blending his positively ambrosial tonal palette with the elegant harmonic substance and incisive, ornamented cross-rhythms.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Lee L. Blair was born on October 10, 1903 in Savannah, Georgia and was a left-handed autodidact on banjo, aside from a few lessons taken from Mike Pingitore, the banjoist for Paul Whiteman. He played and recorded in New York City, New York with Thomas Morris’s Seven Hot Babies in 1926, then played with Charlie Skeete in 1926-28, before playing and recording with Jelly Roll Morton’s Red Hot Peppers in 1928-30.
In the Thirties he went on to play with Billy Kato, then played and recorded with Luis Russell and Louis Armstrong from 1935 to the end of the decade. He worked part-time in music through the 1940s, then joined Wilbur De Paris’s New New Orleans Jazz Band in the 1950s at Jimmy Ryan’s Club on West 52nd Street in New York City.
The summer of 1957 had him touring Africa with the DeParis band for the State Department. During the 1960s he played less, concentrating on raising chickens on his farm in Belmore, Long Island, but appeared at the 1964 World’s Fair in a trio with Danny Barker and Eddie Gibbs. He freelanced around New York with Hank Duncan and others until his death.
He never recorded as a leader, but appears on record with Morris, Morton, Russell, Armstrong, and De Paris, as well as with Dick Cary, Pee Wee Erwin, and Leonard Gaskin among others. He is honored in the jazz section of the Georgia Music Hall of Fame in Macon, GA.
Banjoist and guitarist Lee Blair, who never recorded as a leader, transitioned on October 15, 1966 in New York City.
Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Lawrence William “Beau” Dixon was born on September 5, 1894 in Chillicothe, Ohio, the second of five children. His father was a farm laborer and part-time musician, from whom he learned to play music from an early age.
From 1923 to 1928 he played in Chicago, Illinois and Columbus, Ohio with Sammy Stewart’s Ten Knights of Syncopation, which recorded for Paramount Records. During the Twenties Beau also worked with Vance Dixon’s Jazz Maniacs, Fess Williams, Dave Peyton, Paul Jordan, Clarence Moore, and Grant Williams.
In 1931 he joined Earl Hines’s band and remained with him until 1937 as rhythm guitarist and arranger. Dixon worked with Franz Jackson’s Original Jass All Stars in the Chicago area in the 1950s and 1960s.
Banjoist and guitarist Beau Dixon, who suffered for years with pulmonary emphysema and tuberculosis, transitioned on January 16, 1970 in Chicago.
Daily Dose Of Jazz…
David Buckley Wilborn was born April 11, 1904 in Springfield, Ohio, on April 11, 1904. He started on piano at the age of 12 but switched to banjo soon after. He played with Cecil and Lloyd Scott in 1922, then joined William McKinney’s Synco Septet, which became the Cotton Pickers soon after. He sang and played banjo for the group until its dissolution in 1934, and when it reformed a short time later he remained in the group until 1937.
After 1937, Dave worked as a bandleader until 1950, after which he left full-time performance. When David Hutson formed the New McKinney’s Cotton Pickers, Wilborn also played in this ensemble. He sang and played on their albums New McKinney’s Cotton Pickers released in 1972 and their 1973 You’re Driving Me Crazy.
Banjoist and vocalist Dave Wilborn, who recorded with Louis Armstrong in 1928, transitioned during a performance in Detroit, Michigan on April 25, 1982.
Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Big Eye Louis Nelson was born Louis Nelson Delisle on January 28, 1885 in New Orleans, Louisiana into a family who were Creoles of color. He spent most of his life in his hometown and studied clarinet with the elder Lorenzo Tio.
By the age of 15, Big Eye was working professionally in the music venues of Storyville, an area of brothels and clubs in New Orleans where Black musicians could find work. He developed a style of hot jazz, also known as Dixieland, and was an influence on clarinetists Johnny Dodds and Jimmie Noone.
In 1917, Nelson joined the reconstituted Original Creole Orchestra that included Freddie Keppard and Bill Johnson. Disbanded in Boston in the spring of that year, it was reassembled in New York City later in the fall. After a short while, he was replaced by Jimmie Noone. He was the regular clarinetist with the Jones & Collins Astoria Hot Eight but did not play on their 1929 recording sessions.
He made his only recordings in his later years in the 1940s, by which time he was often in poor health. Dixieland clarinetist Big Eye Louis Nelson, who also played double bass, banjo, and accordion, transitioned on August 20, 1949.
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