Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Jimmie Noone or Jimmy Noone was born on April 23, 1895 in Cut Off, Louisiana and started playing guitar. By 15 he switched to the clarinet, moved to New Orleans, studied with Lorenzo Tio and thirteen year old Sidney Bechet.
1912 found Jimmie playing professionally with Freddie Keppard in Storyville and over the next five years he performed with Buddy Petit, Kid Ory, Papa Celestin, the Eagle Band, and the Young Olympia Band, before moving to Chicago, Illinois and joining the Original Creole Orchestra. The following year, he joined King Oliver’s Creole Jazz Band, then in 1920 reunited with Keppard in Doc Cook’s band, which he would remain and make early recordings for six years.
Noone started leading the band at Chicago’s Apex Club in 1926. This band, Jimmie Noone’s Apex Club Orchestra, included alto saxophonist and clarinetist Joe Poston and pianist Earl Hines. Signing with Brunswick on their Vocalion label her recorded prolifically from 1928 to 1935, then moved to Decca the following year followed with a year at Bluebird.
A move to New York City in 1935 produced a short-lived band and club with Wellman Braud and Noone returned to Chicago. He continued to play at various clubs until 1943, moved to Los Angeles, California, joined Kid Ory’s band, which was featured for a time on a radio program hosted by Orson Welles. After playing only a few broadcasts with the band, the lyrical and sophisticated clarinetist, who would influence later clarinet players such as Artie Shaw, Irving Fazola and Benny Goodman, died suddenly of a heart attack at 48, in Los Angeles, California on April 19, 1944.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Herbert “Herb” Hall was born on March 28, 1907 in Reserve, Louisiana. He began on banjo and guitar with the Niles Jazz Band, then settled on reeds playing clarinet. In 1926 he played with Kid Augustin Victor in Baton Rouge, then moved to New Orleans the following year. Hall played briefly with trumpeter Sidney Desvigne’s outfit, and then teamed up with bandleader Don Albert played for many years from 1929-40. Following this stint he moved to San Antonio with him and remaining there until 1945.
After this Herb moved to Philadelphia playing with Herman Autrey; a few years later he was in New York, working with Doc Cheatham and toured Europe with Sammy Price in the mid-Fifties. He was a regular at the New York clubs of Jimmy Ryan and Eddie Condon in the late 1950s and 1960s. In 1968-69 he was on the road again touring with Wild Bill Davison’s Jazz Giants, and then a stint with an offshoot band of The Jazz Giants, called “Buzzy’s Jazz Family”.
Hall worked with Don Ewell, and appeared in Bob Greene’s Jelly Roll Morton revue show in the Seventies. Herb Hall, the highly skilled stylist, clarinetist, alto and baritone saxophonist who produced an impressive body of work, passed away on March 5, 1996.
Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Leon Joseph Roppolo was born on March 16, 1902 in Lutcher, Louisiana but by age ten was living in New Orleans. Young Leon’s first instrument was the violin, but being a fan of the New Orleans marching bands he wanted to play clarinet. Soon excelling on clarinet, he played youthful jobs for parades, parties and at Milneburg on the shores of Lake Pontchartrain. By his teens he left home with Bee Palmer’s group that evolved into the New Orleans Rhythm Kings, that become one of the hot jazz bands in 1920s Chicago along with King Oliver’s band. Leon’s style influenced many younger Chicago musicians, most famously Benny Goodman.
Following the breakup of the Rhythm Kings he went to New York City jazz scene and recorded with the Original Memphis Five and the California Ramblers. Returning to New Orleans he briefly reformed the Rhythm Kings, made a few recordings but primarily worked with other bands like the Halfway House Orchestra, with whom he recorded on saxophone.
Roppolo soon began exhibiting more eccentric behavior and violent temper outbursts. Too much for his family to take, Leon was committed to the state mental hospital. Aging and feeble far beyond his years in his later life, he would come home for periods when a relative or friend could look after him, and he would sit in with local bands on saxophone or clarinet.
Leon Roppolo, nicknamed “Rap” and who played clarinet, saxophone and guitar, passed away in New Orleans at the age of 41 on October 5, 1943. He left for posterity such compositions as Farewell Blues, Gold Leaf Strut and Make Love To Me, the latter recorded by Jo Stafford in 1954 and that hit No. 1 on the Billboard charts and #2 on Cashbox.
