Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Jean Omer was born in Nivelles, Belgium on September 9, 1912. He played violin before switching to clarinet and saxophone, playing with local groups in Strassburg and Brussels. He worked in France in the band of Billy Smith, then played with the Golden Stars and in René Compère’s band.
Omer participated in a recording session with Gus Deloof in 1931. Following a tour with Fud Candrix’s Carolina Stomp Chasers, he founded his own group, which included at times, Lauderic Caton and Jean Robert. He and Robert De Kers accompanied Josephine Baker in the mid-1930s and played in a group with Ernst van’t Hoff late in the decade.
In 1941, he recorded with Rudy Bruder. He settled in Brussels and led a band into the 1960s which played at the club Le Boeuf sur le Toit. Clarinetist, saxophonist, and bandleader Jean Omer passed away on May 30, 1994 in Brussels, Belgium.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Roy Willox was born August 31, 1929 in Welwyn, Hertfordshire, England into a musical family in 1929. At 16 he initially played with Johnny Claes for a short time in 1945 and then worked in other well-known bands before joining the Ted Heath Orchestra for a five-year stint from 1950 to 1955. During this time he also worked in a band with Keith Christie.
A collaboration with Jack Parnell and other bands led to extensive freelance in television, radio and theater. In the field of jazz, he was part of Harry South’s band in the 1960s and 1970s. This period of performing saw him occasionally returning to the Heath band throughout the 1990s and 2000s, playing the Ted Heath Bands farewell concert at London’s Royal Festival Hall in 2000.
In his later years Roy worked with Kenny Baker, the Robert Farnon Orchestra, and Laurie Johnson’s London Big Band. 2009 with the all-star formation The Allan Ganley Jazz Legacy. He was involved in 156 jazz recording sessions between 1951 and 2016 with Cleo Laine, Larry Page, George Chisholm, Beryl Bryden, Johnny Keating, Tubby Hayes, Kenny Clare, Dudley Moore, Louie Bellson, The London Jazz Chamber Group, Michel Legrand, Phil Woods, and the Len Phillips Big Band.
As a session musician, he is also in pictures of Bert Kaempfert, Tiny Tim ~ Live! At the Royal Albert Hall, and Harry Nilsson ~ A Little Touch of Schmilsson in the Night. Alto saxophonist Roy Willox, who also plays clarinet and flute, passed away on November 25, 2019.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Billy Amstell was born on August 20, 1911 in London, England. At ten he played piano and at thirteen was teaching himself how to play the alto saxophone. He performed in Glasgow before moving to London in 1930, working with violinist Jack Harris.
During the next year, Billy recorded with Roy Fox and Spike Hughes and became a member of the Bert Ambrose Orchestra in which he played tenor saxophone. In the 1940s he worked for bandleader Geraldo and in the 1950s for the BBC Dance Orchestra, and in the 1960s while a studio musician he worked with George Chisholm.
The 1980s saw Amstell playing clarinet, releasing a solo album, Session After Midnight on the Zodiac label, and wrote his autobiography, Don’t Fuss, Mr. Ambrose. Saxophonist and clarinetist Billy Amstell, who continued to perform into his nineties, passed away on December 19, 2005 at the age of 94.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Perry Morris Robinson was born on September 17, 1938, the son of composer Earl Robinson. He grew up in New York City and attended the Lenox School of Jazz in Massachusetts in the summer of 1959. After serving in a U.S. military band in the early 1960s, his first record, Funk Dumpling with Kenny Barron, Henry Grimes, and Paul Motian was recorded by Savoy in 1962.
He would go on to record with Grimes on The Call in 1965, in which two of the album’s six songs are credited to Robinson, including the title track. From 1973, he worked with Jeanne Lee and Gunter Hampel’s Galaxie Dream Band. He contributed to Dave Brubeck’ s Two Generations of Brubeck and played with Burton Greene’ s Dutch klezmer band Klezmokum. He was the featured clarinetist on Archie Shepp’s LP Mama Too Tight on the Impulse! label.
Perry led his own groups in performances and on record, with albums on the Chiaroscuro, WestWind, and Timescraper labels. More recently, he worked with William Parker and Walter Perkins on Bob’s Pink Cadillac and several other discs on the CIMP label.
From 1975 until 1977, Robinson was a member of the Clarinet Contrast group, then recorded with Lou Grassi, Wayne Lopes, and Luke Faust in The Jug Jam, an improvisational jug band. He regularly plays and records in a free jazz and world music trio; played with Darius Brubeck and Muruga Booker in the MBR jazz trio, and played an integral part in the formation of the improvisational Cosmic Legends. In 2005 he was featured on his cousin Jeffrey Lewis’ album City and Eastern Songs on Rough Trade Records, A later release was OrthoFunkOlogy in 2008 with the band Free Funk. Clarinetist and composer Perry Robinson, whose autobiography, Perry Robinson: The Traveler was published in 2002, passed away on December 2, 2008.
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DAily Dose Of Jazz…
Dennis Moss MBE, known as Danny in the professional world, was born on August 16, 1927 in Redhill, Surrey, England. The son of a toolmaker, his childhood was spent on the south coast, in the Brighton-Worthing area, where he attended Steyning Grammar School. At the age of thirteen, he saw a jazz band appear briefly in a Bowery Boys film, and was so inspired by the clarinet playing that he swapped his most valued possession, his ice skates, for a second-hand instrument of his own. He was self-taught on both this and the tenor saxophone, which he took up at school,
A spell of National Service at the age of eighteen saw Moss performing for three years in a Royal Air Force regional band. After leaving the forces he joined the Vic Lewis Orchestra, then moved around various bands, especially ones with the potential for a soloist. In 1952, he joined Ted Heath’s band, soon discovering novelty numbers and musical reproductions were limiting his skills as an improviser, and he left after three years.
In 1957 Moss joined John Dankworth’s orchestra. Here, with the band’s encouragement, he began to develop his characteristic saxophone sound. He left Dankworth’s band in 1962, and from here, he joined Humphrey Lyttelton’s group, continuing to hone his style for another two years. He formed his own quartet, playing a mix of club gigs, festival appearances and radio broadcasts for the BBC and continued to tour with this quartet throughout the 1970s and 1980s. He also playing and recording with high-profile singers like Tony Bennett, Ella Fitzgerald, Bing Crosby, Sarah Vaughan, and Rosemary Clooney, and appearing with Buck Clayton in the mid-’60s and Louis Armstrong on his last British tour.
Diagnosed in 2005 with pleural mesothelioma, a rare form of lung cancer caused by exposure to asbestos. Saxophonist Danny Moss passed away on May 28, 2008, aged 80.
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