Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Born in Rock Island, Illinois on November 1, 1912 Franz Jackson got his first lessons on saxophone from Jerome Don Pasquall and later studied at the Chicago Musical College.
Early in his career, Jackson played with Albert Ammons’s band and for much of the 1930s he was based in Chicago, Illinois. He toured with Fletcher Henderson in 1938, then played with Roy Eldridge’s band in New York City. In 1940 he toured with Fats Waller and then went to work with Earl Hines.
Following small band work back in New York City, Franz joined Cootie Williams’s big band, played in Boston, Massachusetts with Frankie Newton, toured with Eldridge, and worked with Wilbur De Paris at Jimmy Ryan’s in the city.
Jackson formed his own band in Chicago in 1957, the Original Jass All Stars and with this group he made overseas tours, including playing in Vietnam. Moving to Dowagiac, Michigan in 1975, he formed another band, the Jazz Entertainers, in 1980.
Saxophonist and clarinetist Franz Jackson, who played in the Chicago jazz school, passed away on May 6, 2008 in Niles, Michigan. The Franz Jackson Collection at the Chicago Jazz Archive contains his papers and oral history material.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Rudy Powell was born in New York City on October 28, 1907 and learned piano and violin while young before taking on the clarinet and saxophone. In the late 1920s, he played with June Clark, Gene Rodgers’s Revellers, and Cliff Jackson’s Krazy Kats.
Rudy worked extensively as a sideman throughout his career. Among his credits in the 1930s are Elmer Snowden, Dave Nelson, Sam Wooding, Kaiser Marshall, Rex Stewart, Fats Waller, Edgar Hayes, and Claude Hopkins. The Forties saw him playing with Teddy Wilson, Andy Kirk, Fletcher Henderson, Eddie South, Don Redman, Chris Columbus, Cab Calloway, Lucky Millinder and Hopkins again.
By the 1950s and through the Sixties Powell was with Jimmy Rushing, Buddy Tate, Benton Heath, Ray Charles, and Buddy Johnson. Never recording as a leader, he did record with Cat Anderson, Al Casey, Duke Ellington, Cliff Jackson, Jo Jones, Lucky Millinder, Jimmy Rushing, and Saints & Sinners. He continued playing intermittently into the 1970s and was a part of the photo A Great Day In Harlem.
Clarinetist and saxophonist Rudy Powell, who later changed his name to Musheed Karweem when he joined the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community, passed away at age 69 on October 30, 1976.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Alphonse Floristan Picou was born on October 19, 1878 in New Orleans, Louisiana into a prosperous middle-class Creole of Color family in downtown NOLA. Taking to music early by 16, he was working as a professional musician on both the guitar and clarinet, concentrating on the latter. To appease his family’s frown on music he trained and worked as a tinsmith, but in demand as a clarinetist, he made most of his living from music.
He played classical music with the Creole section’s Lyre Club Symphony Orchestra and played with various dance bands and brass bands including those of Bouboul Fortunea Augustat, Bouboul Valentin, Oscar DuConge, Manuel Perez, Freddie Keppard, Bunk Johnson, the Excelsior Brass Band, the Olympia Brass Band among others.
Due to his light-skin Picou sometimes worked with white bands as well in his youth. He was one of the early musicians playing in the new style that was developing in the city, not yet known as “jazz”. He sometimes played with Buddy Bolden, perhaps the most important force in the musical change. He was an influence for many of the up and coming younger clarinetists. His subtle variations are usually more melodic embellishments than what would later be called improvisation.
At least once he went north to Chicago, Illinois around 1917 and briefly to New York City in the early 1920s. Not liking life up North, he spent most of his career in his home city, writing tunes for King Oliver that included Alligator Hop and Olympia Rag.
Clarinetist and arranger Alphonse Picou, perhaps best known for originating the clarinet part on the standard High Society, passed away on February 4, 1961 in New Orleans.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Lenny Hambro was born on October 16, 1923 in the Bronx, New York, the younger of two children. As a teenager, his brother-in-law introduced the 15 year old to woodwinds, giving him a soprano saxophone and introductory music lessons and taking every music class in which he could enroll. While in high school he took private lessons from Bill Sheiner, one of the leading music teachers and session musicians in New York City. During his later high-school years, Hambro played alto sax, tenor sax, clarinet, and flute in an assortment of teen dance bands, including a summer in the Catskills.
During the Second World War, at just 18, Hambro auditioned and got the empty seat in Gene Krupa’s band in 1942. However, he left the band in December of that year for the Army, there joining Ivan Mogul, Shorty Rogers and approximately 40 other musicians from the Bronx who had agreed to man the 379th Army Service Forces Band in Newport News, Virginia, where he stayed for three years. Post war he worked and recorded with Billy Butterfield and Bobby Byrne, before rejoining Gene Krupa as lead alto sax and featured jazz soloist through 1950.
He would go on to play and /or record with the Latin jazz ensembles of Vincent Lopez, Pupi Campo, Machito and his Afro-Cuban Orchestra, Ray McKinley Band. the Chico O’Farrill Orchestra, tour with The Gene Krupa Orchestra, Charlie Ventura’s Orchestra and Joe Loco’s band. He did studio work, worked as a music copyist, and taught private lessons.
In 1954 he formed the Lenny Hambro Quintet, and in 1955 he again played in and managed the Ray McKinley Band, and toured the United States routinely during this period as well as England, Poland, Iron Curtain Europe, and North Africa in 1957 and 1958. He was a booking agent, opened up an advertising company, then returned to music. He recorded his final tracks at the Clinton Recording Studio at 653 10th Avenue in New York City in February, 1995 for Chico O’Farrill’s album, Pure Emotion for Milestone Records.
Lenny Hambro, who played alto, baritone and tenor saxophone, flute, and clarinet, passed away of a blood clot following open heart surgery on September 26, 1995, at Shore Memorial Hospital, Somers Point, New Jersey, a month shy of his 72nd birthday.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Gerhard Rochus “Gerd” Dudek was born September 28, 1938 in Wrocław, Poland. He studied clarinet privately and attended music school in the 1950s before joining a big band led by his brother Ossi until 1958.
During the early 1960s, Dudek played in the Berliner Jazz Quintet, in Karl Blume’s group and in Kurt Edelhagen’s orchestra until 1965. He then became interested in free music and joined Manfred Schoof’s quintet. He took part in the first sessions of The Globe Unity Orchestra in 1966, and played with them at various times into the 1980s.
He also worked with many other European free musicians and composers, including Alexander von Schlippenbach, Loek Dikker and The Waterland Ensemble And European Jazz Quintet.
He is best known for his work with Manfred Schoof, Wolfgang Dauner, Lala Kovacev, the Globe Unity Orchestra, Berlin Contemporary Jazz Orchestra, Albert Mangelsdorff, Don Cherry and George Russell. Tenor and soprano saxophonist, clarinetist and flautist Gerd Dudek continues to be involved in music.
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