Daily Dose Of Jazz…
John Daniel LaPorta was born on April 13, 1920 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania and started playing clarinet at the age of nine. He studied at the Mastbaum School in Philadelphia, alongside classmate Buddy DeFranco. As a teenager he played in local bands with Charlie Ventura and Bill Harris, and studied classically with Joseph Gigliotti of the Philadelphia Orchestra and Leon Russianoff at the Manhattan School of Music.
1942 saw him as a member of the Bob Chester big band for two years, then spent the following two years with the Woody Herman Orchestra. Beginning in 1947, he studied with Lennie Tristano, and with Teo Macero and Charles Mingus he was a member of the Jazz Composers Workshop, trying to combine jazz with classical music. Classically, he worked with Boston Pops, Leonard Bernstein, Leopold Stokowski, and Igor Stravinsky. In jazz he worked with Kenny Clarke, Miles Davis, Dizzy Gillespie, Charlie Parker, Buddy Rich, and Lester Young.
In 1956, La Porta played the first jazz concert in Venezuela at Caracas National Theater, where a selection of the repertoire performed was released under the title South American Brothers by Fantasy Records, becoming the first jazz recording in Venezuela.
As an educator he taught at Parkway Music School, then at public schools on Long Island, followed by the Manhattan School of Music and the Berklee College of Music. With guitarist Jack Petersen, he pioneered the use of Greek modes for teaching chord-scales.
In the 1990s, he retired to Sarasota, Florida, where he performed at the Sarasota Jazz Club and as a guest with the Fred Williams Trio. His autobiography is titled Playing It by Ear. Clarinetist and composer John LaPorta transitioned from complications of a stroke on May 12, 2004 in Sarasota.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Joseph Anthony Livingston, better known by his peers as Fud, was born April 10, 1906 in Charleston, South Carolina and started out on accordion and piano before settling on saxophone. At seventeen he was playing with Tal Henry in Greensboro, North Carolina in 1923, then worked with Ben Pollack, the California Ramblers, Jean Goldkette, Nat Shilkret, Don Voorhees, and Jan Garber. He recorded freelance with musicians such as Joe Venuti, Red Nichols, and Miff Mole.
He did some arrangement work for Frankie Trumbauer and Bix Beiderbecke, including the nursery rhyme Humpty Dumpty. Livingston played on the 1928 Brunswick recording of “Room 1411” as a member of Bennie Goodman and His Boys, which also featured Glenn Miller, Jimmy McPartland, Bud Freeman, and Ben Pollack.
A stint in London,England in 1929 had him working with Fred Elizalde, then returned to New York City to play with Paul Whiteman. His time with Whiteman lasted from 1930 to 1933, and was mainly as an arranger, though he played occasionally. By the mid 1930s he worked with Benny Goodman, Jimmy Dorsey, Bob Zurke, and Pinky Tomlin as the country entered into the Forties. Essentially stopping his writing and arranging at this point, Fud would occasionally perform in small-time venues in New York in the 1950s.
His compositions included Feelin’ No Pain, Imagination, Humpty Dumpty, Harlem Twist, Sax Appeal, are well known but the jazz standard, I’m Thru With Love, written with Matty Malneck and Gus Kahn, has been recorded by over sixty musicians and vocalists, but a short list is Bing Crosby, Dizzy Gillespie, Arthur Prysock, Coleman Hawkins, Lorez Alexandria, John Pizzarelli, Joe Williams Marilyn Monroe, Maxine Sullivan and Steve Tyrell.
It has been sung in the films Everyone Says I Love You, Some Like It Hot, The Affairs Of Dobie Gillis and Spider~Man 3. Even Alfalfa from The Little Rascals had added it to his repertoire.
Clarinetist, saxophonist, arranger, and composer Fud Livingston, who never recorded as a leader, transitioned on March 25, 1957 in New York City.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Voltaire “Volly” De Faut was born March 14, 1904 in Little Rock, Arkansas but his family moved to Chicago, Illinois when he was six. He started out studying the violin, however, by fourteen switched to the clarinet and saxophone.
At seventeen he had his first professional gig at a summer resort and the next year he was playing with Sig Meyers. During the early 1920s he spent time in the New Orleans Rhythm Kings before joining Art Kassel. He also played with The Bucktown Five.
His first recordings were made with Muggsy Spanier in 1924 followed by his recording with Jelly Roll Morton the next year. The late 1920s saw Volly playing with Merritt Brunies and Jean Goldkette, and played for a time in Detroit, Michigan.
Around the end of the decade De Faut held several positions in theater orchestras in Chicago, while working as a studio musician. He started his own dog breeding business but abandoned it to join the military and play in bands there.
He returned to Chicago in the middle of the 1940s, playing with Bud Jacobson and working extensively on the local jazz scene. In the 1950s he moved to Davenport, Iowa but returned to Chicago in 1965. In the last two decades of his life De Faut worked often with Art Hodes, including on many of his recordings for Delmark Records.
Clarinetist and saxophonist Volly De Faut transitioned on May 29, 1973 in Chicago Heights, Illinois.
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Three Wishes
While hanging out with the Baroness, she asked Benny Carter what his three wishes would be if by some chance he was granted them. His reply is as follows:
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“Three million dollars, tax free.”
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“Two millions dollars, tax free.”
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“One million dollars, tax free.”
“But seriously, call me at my hotel when I have had time to think about it, and I will give you the real ones.”
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*Excerpt from Three Wishes: An Intimate Look at Jazz Greats ~ Compiled and Photographed by Pannonica de Koenigswarter
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
George Arthur Probert, Jr. was born on March 5, 1927 in Los Angeles, California and was an autodidact on his instruments. He first played with Bob Scobey from 1950 to 1953 and then went on to play with Kid Ory’s Creole Jazz Band.
Between 1954 and 1969, George played in the Firehouse Five Plus Two Dixieland Revival Band, an ensemble formed by Walt Disney Studios animators. They recorded with Disney composer George Bruns in 1957 and again in 1968.
Probert led his own bands from 1973, touring America and Europe. In 1997 he toured England, Germany & the Netherlands with Big Bill Bissonnette’s International Jazz Band. The all-star group featured Anthony “Tuba Fats” Lacen of New Orleans & British pianist Pat Hawes.
Clarinetist, soprano saxophonist and bandleader George Probert, who also worked as a television and movie music editor, transitioned on January 10, 2015 in Monrovia, California.
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