Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Carmen Mastren was born Carmine Mastrandrea on October 6, 1913 in Cohoes, New York. By 1934 he was playing professionally as a musician when he joined the Wingy Manone and Joe Marsala band. Mastren worked with a variety of musicians during his career, including Raymond Scott, Ray McKinley and Mel Powell.
In the 1940s Mastren recorded with the Sidney Bechet and the Muggsy Spanier “Big Four”. During World War II he played with the Glenn Miller Air Force Band. It was during this period that he worked as musical director and conductor for Morton Downey, and from 1954–1970 he played for The Today Show, The Tonight Show and Say When!! on the NBC television network.
Recording as a sideman, Carmen worked with Dick Hyman And His Orchestra, Bobby Hackett, Quincy Jones, Frank Sinatra, Bud Freeman and the Wolverine Orchestra on such labels as Mercury, Decca, Atlantic, Epic, Universal/MCA, Victor, RCA, Allegro Elite and Gennett.
Guitarist, banjoist and violinist Carmen Mastren passed away at age 68 from a heart attack on March 31, 1981 at his home in Valley Stream on Long Island, New York. He is best remembered for his work from 1936–1941 with the Tommy Dorsey orchestra as a guitarist.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Ikey Robinson also known as Banjo Ikey was born Isaac L. Robinson on July 28, 1904 in Dublin, Virginia. He moved to Chicago, Illinois in 1926, playing and recording with Jelly Roll Morton, Clarence Williams, and Jabbo Smith during 1928-1929.
He went on to put together groups that included Ikey Robinson and his Band with Jabbo Smith, The Hokum Trio, The Pods of Pepper, Windy City Five, and Sloke & Ike.
His jazz style influenced many subsequent players, and his 1929 recording Rock Me Mama is often cited as an early use of the term “rock” as it evolved from black gospel into rock and roll.
Robinson reunited in the 1970s with Jabbo Smith for a global tour and appeared in the 1985 film Louie Bluie, a documentary about fellow musician Howard Armstrong. Having never previously met Armstrong he was initially hesitant to meet him because of their differing musical styles. However, the two got on well and perform together in the documentary. Banjoist and vocalist Ikey Robinson passed away on October 25, 1990.
Inspire A Young Mind
Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Kid Ory was born Edward Ory on December 25, 1886 in Woodland Plantation near La Place, Louisiana. He started playing music with home-made instruments in his childhood but by his teens was leading a well-regarded band in Southeast Louisiana. A banjo player during his youth, it is said that his ability to play the banjo helped him develop “tailgate”, a particular style of playing that has the trombone playing a rhythmic line underneath the trumpets and cornets.
He kept La Place as his base of operations due to family obligations until his twenty-first birthday, when he moved his band to New Orleans. While Kid was living on Jackson Avenue, he was discovered by Buddy Bolden, playing his first new trombone, instead of the old civil war model but his sister said he was too young to play with Bolden. With one of the best-known bands in New Orleans in the 1910s, he hired many of the great jazz musicians of the city, including cornetists Joe “King” Oliver, Mutt Carey, and Louis Armstrong.
In 1919 he moved to Los Angeles and he recorded Ory’s Creole Trombone and Society Blues there in 1921 with a band that included Mutt Carey, Dink Johnson and Ed Garland. They were the first jazz recordings made on the west coast by a Black jazz band from New Orleans. His band recorded with the recording company Nordskog and paying them for the pressings sold them under his own label of Kid Ory’s Sunshine Orchestra at a store in Los Angeles called Spikes Brothers Music Store.
Moving to Chicago in 1925 he was very active working and recording with Louis Armstrong, Jelly Roll Morton, King Oliver, Johnny Dodds, Bessie Smith, Ma Rainey and many others. He mentored Benny Goodman and later Charles Mingus. The Great Depression retired Kid from music, not playing again till 1943. From 1944 to about 1961 he led one of the top New Orleans style bands of the period working with Alvin Alcorn, Teddy Buckner, Darnell Howard, Jimmie Noone, Albert Nicholas, Barney Bigard, George Probert. Buster Wilson, Cedric Haywood and Don Ewell.
The Ory band was an important force in reviving interest in New Orleans jazz, making popular 1940s radio broadcasts, among them a number of slots on The Orson Welles Almanac program. In 1944–45 the group made a series of recordings on the Crescent Records label, founded by Neshui Ertegun for the express purpose of recording Ory’s band.
Retiring from music in 1966 he spent his last years in Hawaii with the assistance of Trummy Young. Trombonist and bandleader Kid Ory, one of the most influential trombonists of early jazz, passed in Honolulu on January 23, 1973.
Put A Dose In Your Pocket
Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Dick McPartland was born in Chicago, Illinois on May 18, 1905, the older brother of Jimmy McPartland. His father was a music teacher and a baseball player butt family problems caused the siblings to be partly raised in orphanages. He was an early member of the Austin High School Gang that helped establish Chicago-style jazz in the 1920s.
McPartland started out on the violin and then switched to the banjo and guitar. He played primarily in Chicago during the 1920s including with Red McKenzie, replacing Eddie Lang. He recorded with Irving Mills in 1928 and Jack Teagarden in ’29.
Dick’s rhythm guitar can be heard on sessions led by his brother Jimmy in 1936 and 1939. Unfortunately an early heart attack forced his retirement from full-time music by his early 30s. He later became a cab driver and only appeared at an occasional concert, including in 1955 when he played his final gig. He never led his own record date and on November 30, 1957, guitarist Dick McPartland passed away at the age of 52.
Dose A Day – Blues Away
Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Marc Ribot was born on May 21, 1954 in Newark, New Jersey and worked extensively as a session musician. His early sessions with Tom Waits helped define Waits new musical direction in 1985.
His own work has touched on many styles, including n wave, free jazz and Cuban music. Ribot’s first two albums featured The Rootless Cosmopolitans, followed by an album of works by Frantz Casseus and Arsenio Rodriguez. Further releases found him working in a variety of band and solo contexts including two albums with his self-described “dance band”, Marc Ribot y Los Cubanos Postizos.
His relatively limited technical facility is due to learning to play right-handed despite being left-handed. He currently performs and records with his group Marc Ribot’s Ceramic Dog. Marc’s studio work involves several tracks accompanying the legendary pianist McCoy Tyner’s “Guitars” project. He has performed and recorded with Jack McDuff, John Scofield, Wilson Pickett, Cibo Matto, Bela Fleck, Derek Trucks, Madeline Peyroux, Medeski Martin & Wood, Elton John and many others.
He has toured Europe with his band Sun Ship, had a biographical documentary film called the The Lost String and has also judged the 8th Annual Independent Music Awards to support indie careers in music. He has twenty-one albums as a leader, a filmography that includes five and a biographical documentary about him titled The Lost String. Guitarist Marc Ribot also plays banjo, trumpet, cornet and sings and continues to perform, record and tour.
Dose A Day-Blues Away