BOB SCHNEIDER & MOONLIGHT TRIO

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Daily Dose Of Jazz…

Yervant Harry Babasin, Jr. was born on March 19, 1921 in Dallas, Texas to American/Armenian parents. He attended North Texas State University, one of many noted jazz alumni from the school. Among them were Jimmy Giuffre, with whom he played in Bill Ware’s orchestra around 1940, and Herb Ellis, who played with him in the Charlie Fisk Orchestra starting in 1942. Fisk actually fired his rhythm section after hearing Ellis and Babasin play, and after he was admitted, Babasin quit school to go on tour with Fisk.

He toured in the 1940s with Jimmy Joy, Bob Strong, Billie Rogers, Gene Krupa, Charlie Barnet, Boyd Raeburn, Benny Goodman, Woody Herman, Frank DeVol, and Jerry Gray. He also appeared in A Song Is Born, one of many jazz stars to play roles in the film. On the film set he met guitarist Laurindo Almeida, and the two began jamming together. Along with Roy Harte and Bud Shank their quartet was an early experiment blending Brazilian music and jazz. Their 1954 ten inch discs are predecessors to the bossa nova explosion of the late 1950s and early 1960s.

1947 saw him recording the first cello solos known in jazz music, with the Dodo Marmarosa Trio. In order to do so, he tuned his strings in fourths. In later cello ensembles he added a bass player. He and Oscar Pettiford did a session together with two cellos. In the mid-1950s, he put together his own ensemble, Harry Babasin & the Jazzpickers. This ensemble released three albums and played regularly at the Purple Onion in Hollywood, California. One recording of note was made in 1952 at the Tradewinds nightclub in Inglewood. It features Charlie Parker, Chet Baker, Sonny Criss, Al Haig, Larance Marable, and Harry, in one of Bird’s few West Coast appearances.

His career cooled in the 1960s, returning to work with Charlie Barnet and supporting Bob Hope’s USO tours. In the 1970s he and Harte initiated the Los Angeles Theaseum, a jazz archive and preservation society. Harry gave his last tour in 1985 with John Banister on piano. Over the course of his career he was possibly a part of as many as 1,500 recordings.

Bassist Harry Babasin, nicknamed The Bear, died of emphysema in Los Angeles, California on May 21, 1988.

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Daily Dose Of Jazz…

Charles E. Clark was born on March 11, 1945, in Chicago, Illinois and studied bass with Wilbur Ware. He embarked on a professional career in 1963 and went on to play with Muhal Richard Abrams in his Experimental Band between 1966 and 1968, recording with the ensemble on the album Levels and Degrees of Light.

He was a founding member of the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians. Clark played live with Joseph Jarman in the late 1960s, sometimes employing percussion, koto, and cello as well as bass. He recorded on Jarman’s Delmark Records releases, Song For in 1966 and again on As If It Were the Seasons in 1968.

With the death of Clark and pianist Christopher Gaddy, Jarman disbanded his ensemble and joined the Art Ensemble of Chicago.

Double-bassist Charles Clark, who during his extremely short career never recorded as a leader, died April 15, 1969 in Chicago.

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Daily Dose Of Jazz…

Zue (C. Alvin) Robertson was born on March 7, 1891 in New Orleans, Louisiana. His first instrument was the piano, and switched to playing the trombone at the age of 13. He performed in circus bands and traveling revues, including Kit Carson’s Wild West Show. He was part of the Olympia Band around 1914 and was a trombonist for Manuel Perez, Richard M. Jones, and John Robichaux.

Robertson was an early influence on Kid Ory, giving him lessons, and the two practised together. After moving to Chicago, Illinois in 1917 he played at the De Luxe Café, and by the mid-1920s he was playing with leaders of the stature of Jelly Roll Morton, with whom he recorded Some Day Sweetheart/London Blues in 1923, and King Oliver in 1924.

He recorded two sides with the Levee Serenaders in 1928  and plus the two from 1923, are his only recordings. After moving to New York City in 1929, Robertson concentrated on playing the organ and the piano, and stopped playing the trombone the following year. A few years later he moved to California, where he played piano and added the bass during the years he spent in the 1930s.

Trombonist Zue Robertson, who also played piano, organ, and bass, died in 1943 in Los Angeles, California.

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Daily Dose Of Jazz…

Teruo Nakamura was born on March 3, 1942 in Tokyo, Japan and everyone in his immediate family were artists. He studied at Nihon University before moving to New York City in 1964, where he studied with Reggie Workman.

In 1969 he joined drummer Roy Haynes’s ensemble and that same year he also formed a band with Steve Grossman and Lenny White, who both went on to play on his 1973 debut as a leader, the album Unicorn and Nakamura played both acoustic and electric bass on the album, which was released by Three Blind Mice.

Teruo formed the Rising Sun band in the mid-1970s. In 1977 this contained saxophonist Bob Mintzer, guitarist Shiro Mori, with Mark Gray on synthesizer, Art Gore on drums and Nobu Urushiyama on percussion.

The 1980s and 1990s saw him working principally as a record producer. Bassist and record producer Teruo Nakamura continues to perform and record.

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