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John Kirby was born John Kirk in Winchester, Virginia on December 31, 1908. His mother gave him up for adoption and was raised by Reverend Washington and Nancy Johnson. He was a student at the Winchester Colored School and started trombone lessons around nine years old under the guidance of Professor Powell Gibson. As a kid and that he learned to play music just as it was written and his formal education ended around 1923.
Kirby arrived in Baltimore around 1927 and met trombonist Jimmy Harrison, saxophonist Coleman Hawkins and composer Duke Ellington. It was Harrison who persuaded him to switch from trombone to tuba. He played tuba with Bill Brown and His Brownies, pianist Charlie Sheets and then with John C. Smith’s Society Band. He joined Fletcher Henderson in 1929, recorded tuba on a number of sessions, but switched to double-bass when tuba fell out of favor as jazz bands’ primary bass instrument.
In the early 1930s, John took bass lessons from legendary bassists Pops Foster and Wellman Braud, left Henderson to play with Chick Webb, then joined Lucky Millinder and briefly led a quartet in 1935, but was more often than not a sideman in other groups. He performed behind Billie Holiday and Teddy Wilson on their first recording date.
By 1936, Kirby was a successful sideman on the New York City jazz scene, secured a gig at the Onyx Club leading Charlie Shavers, Buster Bailey, Billy Kyle, Russell Procope and O’Neill Spencer, becoming one of the more significant small groups in the big band era. They recorded the Shaver’s classic Undecided, with Maxine Sullivan most often performing the vocal duties for the group.
Along with his orchestra, John had a 30-minute radio program, Flow Gently, Sweet Rhythm, also known as The John Kirby Show on CBS from April 1940 – January 1941. The program also featured Sullivan and the Golden Gate Quartet and they have been cited as the first black artists to host a jazz-oriented series.
He tended toward a lighter, classically influenced style of jazz often referred to as chamber jazz. He was very prolific and extremely popular from 1938-1941 but lost most of his group to World War II. Through the war years he was able to attract Dizzy Gillespie, Benny Carter, Ben Webster, Clyde Hart, Budd Johnson and Zutty Singleton to his small groups and club dates. As Kirby’s career declined, he drank heavily and was beset by diabetes.
After the war, Kirby got the surviving sextet members back together, with vocalist Sarah Vaughan but the reunion did not last. A concert at Carnegie Hall in December 1950, with Bailey plus drummer Sid Catlett, attracted only a small audience, crushing his spirit and badly damaging what little was left of his career. Double-bassist, trombonist and tubist John Kirby passed away on June 14, 1952 in Hollywood, California at age 43.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Irving C. Ashby was born December 29, 1920 in Somerville, Massachusetts. After playing rhythm guitar in Lionel Hampton’s orchestra, he played in the Nat King Cole Trio from 1947 to 1951. He then briefly replaced drummer Charlie Smith in the Oscar Trio, producing a lineup of piano, guitar and bass similar to the Cole Trio’s, a substitution that continued until 1958.
After leaving the Peterson Trio, Ashby concentrated on session work for the labels. His subsequent recordings included sessions with Norman Granz, Sheb Wooley, LaVern Baker, Howard Roberts, B.B. King, Louis Jordan, Pat Boone and Illinois Jacquet.
In addition to performing on guitar, Irving Ashby also played the upright bass until his passing on April 22, 1987 in Perris, California at the age of 66.
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Cameron Brown was born December 21, 1945 in Detroit, Michigan. He started studying music at age 10, first on piano, later on clarinet. But, drawn to the bass, he found himself playing a tin bass in a student dance band. As an exchange student in Europe, he worked with George Russell’s sextet and big band for one year.
Brown went on to play with Don Cherry, Aldo Romano, Booker Ervin and Donald Byrd. In 1966 he returned to the States to matriculate and graduate in 1969 from Columbia College, Columbia University with a degree in sociology.
In 1974, Cameron met Sheila Jordan, gigged with free jazz pioneers Roswell Rudd and Beaver Harris, joined Archie Shepp’s quintet in 1975 and recorded with Harris and The 360 Degree Music Experience around that time.
The Don Pullen/George Adams Quartet had Brown and drummer Dannie Richmond helping to develop into an intense and rewarding partnership that lasted during the 1980s. In addition to this quartet, he played with Art Blakey’s Jazz Messengers, and various groups led by Rudd, and Richmond. He has performed and recorded with Ted Curson, Lee Konitz, Chet Baker, Joe Lovano, Mal Waldron, Ricky Ford, Steve Grossman, Betty Carter, John Hicks, Etta Jones and Jane Ira Bloom, to name a few.
Cameron has appeared on more than 80 recordings as a sideman and his first recording as a leader after nearly 40 years of performing, was published in 2003 with his group The Hear and Now featuring Dewey Redman.
In addition to playing gigs and touring nationally and internationally, he is an educator currently teaching jazz double bass at Green Meadow Waldorf School in Chestnut Ridge, New York, offers private lessons and substitute teaches music theory classes at The New School for Jazz and Contemporary Music in New York City.
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Dose A Day – Blues Away
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Reginald Volney Johnson was born December 13, 1940 in Owensboro, Kentucky. After playing trombone with school orchestras and army bands, he switched to double bass and started working with musicians such as Bill Barron and recording with Archie Shepp in the mid–1960s, before joining Art Blakey’s band for a month-long residency at the Five Spot Café in 1965.
In 1966 Johnson traveled with the Blakey band to The Lighthouse in Hermosa Beach, California and recorded Buttercorn Lady alongside Frank Mitchell, Chuck Mangione and Keith Jarrett.
Reggie’s playing and/or recording in America reads like a who’s who list not limited to Bill Dixon, Sun Ra, Burton Greene, Lonnie Liston Smith, Stanley Cowell, Bobby Hutcherson,, Harold Land, Blue Mitchell, Walter Bishop Jr., Sonny Rollins, Sonny Stitt, Sarah Vaughan, Carmen McRae, Art Pepper, Clark Terry, The Crusaders, Charles Mingus, Eddie “Lockjaw” Davis, Johnny Coles, and Frank Wess.
Equally so is his mid–1980s he move to Europe working with Johnny Griffin, Horace Parlan, Monty Alexander, Kenny Barron, Tom Harrell, Phil Woods, Cedar Walton, Alvin Queen, Jesse Davis, Freddie Redd and Alvin Queen.
As a leader double-bassist Reggie Johnson released one album titled First Edition in 1985 on the JR Record label and he continues to be the consummate sideman performing all over the world.
Discography[edit]
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Art Davis was born in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania on December 5, 1934 where he began studying the piano at the age of five, switched to tuba, and finally settled on the bass while attending high school. He studied at Juilliard and the Manhattan School of Music, but graduated from Hunter College.
Davis earned a Ph.D in clinical psychology from New York University in 1982 and four years later he moved to Southern California, where he balanced his teaching as a professor at Orange Coast College and practicing of psychology with jazz performances.
Art recorded three albums as a leader with Herbie Hancock, Hilton Ruiz, Greg Bandy, John Hicks, Idris Muhammad, Pharoah Sanders, Ravi Coltrane, and Marvin Smith.
As a sideman he performed and recorded with Joe Albany, Gene Ammons, Count Basie, Art Blakey, John Coltrane, Curtis Fuller, Dizzy Gillespie, Eddie Harris, Freddie Hubbard, Elvin Jones, Etta Jones, Clifford Jordan, Roland Kirk, Abbey Lincoln, Booker Little, Lee Morgan, Tisziji Munoz, Dizzy Reece, Max Roach, Lalo Schifrin, Shirley Scott, Clark Terry, McCoy Tyner and Leo Wright.
He also launched a legal case that led to the current system of blind auditions for orchestras. Double bassist Art Davis passed away from a heart attack on July 29, 2007.
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