Daily Dose OF Jazz…
Gene Ramey, born April 4, 1913 in Austin, Texas, began playing trumpet in college but switched to the sousaphone when he played with George Corley’s Royal Aces, The Moonlight Serenaders and Terence Holder. It wasn’t until his move to Kansas City in 1932 that he took up the bass, studying with Walter Page.
Becoming a fixture in the Kansas City jazz scene, the double bassist played with Jay McShann’s orchestra from 1938 to 1943. Never a leader but a most sought after sideman, especially once he moved to New York, Ramey played with the who’s who of jazz including but not limited to Lester Young, Coleman Hawkins, Charlie Parker, Count Basie, Ben Webster, Hot Lips Page, Horace Silver, Thelonious Monk and Miles Davis.
His transition into bebop was easily accomplished due to the countless hours of daily practice with his friend Bird. They developed their style without drums, piano or other horns and Ramey was soon the first bassist to play the whole harmony chord while Bird ran his changes. Ramey is credited with stating that long before the jazz world started calling it bop he and Bird had created this pattern.
Ramey had a prolific career as a bassist for over three decades, never losing touch with Dixieland or swing as witnessed in his solos on recording sessions. Returning to Austin in 1976 his short-lived retirement led to lessons to local bassists, then to live performances and full-time musicianship until a heart attack caused his death on December 8, 1984.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Carol Kaye was born March 24, 1935 in Everett, Washington to professional musicians Clyde and Dot Smith. Growing up in poverty near the Port of Los Angeles, she began teaching guitar professionally in 1949 at age 14. Throughout the fifties Kaye played bebop in L. A. clubs with Bob Neal, Jack Sheldon who backed Lenny Bruce, Teddy Edwards and Billy Higgins.
One of the most prolific and widely heard bass players of her time she played many of Phil Spector’s sessions, Brian Wilson productions, Richie Valens, Simon and Garfunkel, Quincy Jones and Dave Grusin. Her television credits are a who’s who with shows like M*A*S*H, Get Smart, Kojak, It Takes A thief, The Love Boat, Hogan’s Heroes, Mannix, The Cosby Show, Wonder Woman, Mission Impossible and so on and so on.
An educator, Carol wrote beginning in 1969, How To Play The Electric Bass, the first of many bass tutoring books and DVD Courses. By the late 70’s she retired from playing due to arthritis but later returned to session work, teaching both bass and guitar to the likes of John Clayton, and performing, giving seminars and interviews.
A noted session player she carved out a lucrative career beginning with backing the likes of Sam Cooke in 1957 and working with leading producers like Michel Legrand, Lalo Schifrin, Hugh Montenegro, John Williams and Steven Spielberg. She is estimated to have played on 10,000 recording sessions over a career spanning 55 years.
Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Clyde Lombardi was born in February 18, 1922 in the Bronx borough of New York City. He had extensive classical training but by the time he was 20 he became a jazz musician. He became an advanced yet flexible bassist, quite valuable in the jazz world of the ’40s and ’50s, playing regularly with Red Norvo from 1942-1945.
Throughout the rest of the decade he would play with Joe Marsala and the Boyd Raeburn Orchestra in 1945, as well as both big bands and combos headed by Benny Goodman during 1945-1946 and his bebop fling of 1948-1949.
Clyde played and recorded with Charlie Ventura in 1946, Lennie Tristano, Wardell Gray, Stan Getz, Al Haig, Zoot Sims, Eddie Bert, Tal Farlow in 1953 and George Wallington among others.
Unfortunately for the jazz world he never got the opportunity to lead any albums of his own. He left jazz by 1959 re-emerging from time to time and working for CBS as a studio musician and recording with tenor Tony Graye. He passed away in New York City on January 1, 1978.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Rufus Reid was born on February 10, 1944 in Atlanta, Georgia but was raised in Sacramento, California where he played the trumpet through junior high and high school. Shortly after graduation he entered the Air Force and it was there that he became seriously interested in the bass.
Following his honorable discharge from the military, Reid moved to Seattle to begin studies with James Harnett of the symphony. Then continued at Northwestern University graduating with a music degree as a performance major on double bass.
His professional career began in Chicago playing with Sonny Stitt, James Moody, Milt Jackson, Curtis Fuller and Dizzy Gillespie, recording with Kenny Dorham, Dexter Gordon, Lee Konitz and Howard McGhee, and touring internationally with the Hutcherson-Land quintet, Freddie Hubbard, Nancy Wilson, Eddie Harris and Dexter Gordon in the ‘70s. Moving to New York in 1976 he began playing and recording with Thad Jones & Mel Lewis who are just the few colleagues among the hundreds of world’s greatest musicians.
A prolific bassist, Reid has spanned generations of jazz appearing on countless hard bop, bebop, swing and pop sessions with his restrained yet emphatic tone, time, harmonic sensibility and has made him one of the most sought after bassists in the industry. He has co-led a group with Akira Tana called TanaReid since the late eighties.
Rufus Reid began teaching at William Patterson College in 1979 and the bassist, educator and composer continues to record and perform around the world.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
John Kirby was born in Winchester, Virginia on December 31, 1908 though some sources say he was born in Baltimore, Maryland orphaned, and adopted. He hit New York at 17, but after his trombone got stolen, he switched to tuba.
Kirby joined Fletcher Henderson’s orchestra as a tuba player in 1929. In the early 1930s, he performed some amazingly complicated tuba work on a number of Henderson’s recordings. He picked up on the double bass at the time when tuba was falling out a favor as the primary bass instrument of jazz bands.
About 1933 Kirby left Henderson to go with Chick Webb, went back with Henderson, then with Lucky Millinder and briefly led a quartet in 1935 but generally kept busy as bassist in others’ groups. Securing a gig at the Onyx Club and really got going as a bandleader in 1937. Soon the sextet was known as the Onyx Club Boys.
“The Biggest Little Band in the Land,” as it was called began recording in August 1937 and immediately had a hit with a swing version of “Loch Lomond” and though the group’s name would vary with time this would become one of the more significant “small groups” in the Big Band era and was also notable for making the first recording of the Shavers song “Undecided”. He recorded with Maxine Sullivan for Vocalion Records and accompanied Billie Holiday.
John tended toward a lighter, classically influenced style of jazz, often referred to as chamber jazz. He kept trying to lead a group in clubs and in the studio, occasionally managing to attract such talents as Dizzy Gillespie, Benny Carter, Ben Webster, Clyde Hart, Budd Johnson and Zutty Singleton and Sarah Vaughan.
As John Kirby’s career declined, he drank too much, was beset by diabetes and moved to Hollywood, California, where he died on June 14, 1952 just before a planned comeback.
