Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Tony Crombie was born Anthony John Kronenberg on August 27, 1925 in London, England’s East End Jewish community. A self-taught musician, he began playing the drums at the age of fourteen. He was one of a group of young men from the East End of London who ultimately formed the co-operative Club Eleven bringing modern jazz to Britain. He went to New York with his friend Ronnie Scott in 1947, witnessing the playing of Charlie Parker and Dizzy Gillespie, he and like-minded musicians such as Johnny Dankworth, and Scott and Denis Rose, brought be-bop to the UK. This group of musicians were the ones called upon if and when modern jazz gigs were available.
In 1948, Crombie toured Britain and Europe with Duke Ellington, who had been unable to bring his own musicians with him, except for Ray Nance and Kay Davis. Picking up a rhythm section in London, he chose Crombie on the recommendation of Lena Horne, with whom Crombie had worked when she appeared at the Palladium.
By 1956 Tony temporarily left jazz to set up a rock and roll band he called The Rockets, modeling themselves after Bill Haley’s Comets and Freddie Bell & the Bellboys. They released several singles for Decca and Columbia. He is credited with introducing rock and roll music to Iceland, performing there in 1957.
The next year the Rockets had become a jazz group with Scott and Tubby Hayes. During the following year, Crombie started Jazz Inc. with pianist Stan Tracey. During the Sixties he scored for television and film and established a residency at a hotel in Monte Carlo. He toured the UK with Conway Twitty, Freddy Cannon, Johnny Preston, and Wee Willie Harris.
In the early 1960s, Crombie’s friend, Victor Feldman, passed one of his compositions to Miles Davis, who recorded the piece on his album Seven Steps to Heaven. The song, “So Near, So Far”, has been recorded by players including Joe Henderson, who named a tribute album to Miles Davis using the title.
Over the next thirty years, Crombie worked with many American jazz musicians, including Ben Webster, Coleman Hawkins, Illinois Jacquet, Joe Pass, Mark Murphy and Eddie “Lockjaw” Davis.
After breaking his arm in a fall in the mid-1990s he stopped playing the drums, but continued composing until his death. Drummer, pianist, vibraphonist, bandleader and composer Tony Crombie, was regarded as one of the finest English jazz drummers and bandleaders, transitioned on October 18, 1999, aged 74.
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Three Wishes
One night when Kenny “Klook” Clarke was with Baroness Pannonica the topic of three wishes came up and when she asked he responded with:
- “Brigitte Bardot.”
- “Brigitte Bardot.”
- “Brigitte Bardot.”
1a) “No, of course I’m not serious about that. It would be to have Dizzy, J.J., Ray Brown, and Hank Jones. That’s my dream quintet.”
2a) “God, Nica, I don’t know. My second wish is to have my son over here and start him in music.”
3a) “My third wish is to set up a school over here in Paris, and put all those young boys on the right track. Then, if I do that, I’ll be happy. I’m gonna wish for no money! I’d rather do something.”
*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…
Jack Sperling was born on August 17, 1922 in Trenton, New Jersey. In 1941 he played with trumpeter Bunny Berigan. After World War II, he and Henry Mancini joined the Glenn Miller band when it was led by Tex Beneke. Drawing attention with his performance on the song St. Louis Blues in 1948, he then joined Les Brown and His Band of Renown, which played regularly for the Bob Hope radio program.
Sperling and other members of Brown’s band joined Dave Pell’s octet in 1953, recorded with the octet on Plays Irving Berlin and The Original Reunion of the Glenn Miller Orchestra. From 1954 to 1957 he was a member of Bob Crosby’s Bobcats. During the rest of his career, he worked in bands led by Charlie Barnet, Page Cavanaugh, Pete Fountain, and Benny Goodman.
He was among the studio musicians who accompanied Henry Mancini on the television show Peter Gunn. Jack recorded with him on the film soundtracks Charade and Days of Wine and Roses. He was the featured solo drummer on the theme song for the TV show Hogan’s Heroes and from 1959 to 1972 he was under contract with the NBC Orchestra. He worked on The Tonight Show Band, Rowan & Martin’s Laugh-In, and TV variety shows hosted by Bob Hope, Dean Martin, and Andy Williams.
In the music world, he recorded with Rosemary Clooney, Bobby Darin, Sammy Davis Jr., Doris Day, Ella Fitzgerald, The Four Freshmen, Lena Horne, Peggy Lee, Elvis Presley, Frank Sinatra, and Mel Tormé.
Drummer Jack Sperling, who was a big band and studio musician, transitioned on February 26, 2004.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Stanley Mackay Greig was born on August 12, 1930 in Joppa, Edinburgh, Scotland to a father who was a drummer and piano tuner. While still in high school he played with Sandy Brown in 1945, then played piano and drums with him from 1948 to 1954. Moving to London, England in the mid-Fifties he played with Ken Colyer, Humphrey Lyttelton, and Bruce Turner, then with the Fairweather-Brown All-Stars in 1958-59.
He played with Turner again briefly before becoming a member of Acker Bilk’s Paramount Jazz Band from 1960 to 1968. After 1969 Greig made piano his primary instrument, leading his own small groups and playing boogie woogie and blues piano. He played with Dave Shepherd and Johnny Hawksworth as a sideman in the early 1970s, then formed the London Jazz Big Band in 1975.
From 1977-80 he played with George Melly, then toured as a bandleader in Europe in the early Eighties. He worked again with Lyttelton for a decade beginning in 1985, then worked with Wally Fawkes later in the 1990s. The Stan Greig Trio played many gigs in and around London, with the Rolling Stones’s Charlie Watts sometimes turning out on drums.
Pianist, drummer, and bandleader Stan Greig transitioned on November 18, 2012 after suffering from Parkinson’s disease.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Charles “Chuck” Riggs was born on August 5, 1951 in Westerly, Rhode Island. Beginning in 1976 he played with Scott Hamilton and their association lasted well into the 1990s.
In the late 1970s and 1980s, he played with Bob Wilber, the World’s Greatest Jazz Band, Chris Flory, Benny Goodman, Kenny Davern, Dick Wellstood, Flip Phillips, Ruby Braff, and Jay McShann.
He was a member of the Concord Jazz All-Stars alongside Hamilton, Dave McKenna, and Gray Sargent in the early 1990s. Later in the decade he worked with Keith Ingham, Jon-Erik Kellso, and Ken Peplowski.
Riggs was featured on The Cotton Club, the soundtrack for the 1984 film of the same name.
Drummer Chuck Riggs continues to perform and record.
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