Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Everett Barksdale, born April 28, 1910 in Detroit, Michigan, played bass and banjo before settling on guitar. During early 1930 he moved to Chicago, Illinois where he joined Erskine Tate’s band. He recorded for the first time with violinist Eddie South in 1931, who he remained with until 1939.
A move to New York City saw Everett become a member of the Benny Carter Big Band. Around that same time, he recorded with Sidney Bechet and during the 1940s, he worked for CBS as a session musician.
As a sideman, Barksdale played guitar in many genres, working with vocalists Dean Barlow, Maxine Sullivan, the Blenders, and the Clovers. He played on the hit Love Is Strange by Mickey & Sylvia, was the music director for the Ink Spots, and beginning in 1949, he worked with pianist Art Tatum until Tatum died in 1956.
During the Fifties and Sixties, he was part of the ABC house band and played on recordings with a who’s who list of vocalists and musicians not limited to Lena Horne, Sammy Davis Jr., Dinah Washington, Sarah Vaughan, Milt Hinton, Buddy Tate, Chet Baker, Red Allen, Harold Vick, Oscar Brown Jr., J. J. Johnson, Clark Terry, Kai Winding, Louis Armstrong, The Drifters and Ben E. King. He also played guitar in the studio for pop and soul musicians such as.
Guitarist and session musician Everett Barksdale retired from active performance in the 1970s, moved to the West Coast and passed away in Inglewood, California on January 29, 1986.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Piers Lawrence was born on April 19th in New York City, raised in San Francisco, California and Switzerland, where he attended the Conservatoire de Musique de Lausanne and studied guitar and composition.
An alum of the Harlem-based, Jazz-Mobile Orchestra and studying with Barry Galbraith and Ted Dunbar, he has played Broadway shows including Guys and Dolls, Dancin’, Hubie, and Your Arms Too Short to Box With God, and has toured and recorded with R&B hitmakers Wilson Picket, The Main Ingredient, Esther Phillips, Phyllis Hyman, The Caribbean All-Stars and Merl Saunders.
He has recorded sessions and shared the jazz stages with many great musicians including Narada Michael Walden, Sammy Figueroa, Hiram Bullock, Lou Soloff, Jerry Garcia, John Handy, Steve Kimock, Armando Peraza, Bob Weir, Vince Welnick, Reuben Wilson, Jimmy Heath, and Tommy Flanagan.
Being based in Manhattan, the jazz guitarist continues to lead the Piers Lawrence Quartet, manage his record label, JazzNet Media, that produced his internationally acclaimed recording Stolen Moments, and produces independent projects and ambient music for film and television.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Anthony C. Mottola was born on April 18, 1918 in Kearny, New Jersey. He started out learning to play the banjo, then took up the guitar and had his first guitar lessons from his father. In 1936 he toured with an orchestra led by George Hall, marking the beginning of his professional life.
His first recordings were duets with guitarist Carl Kress. In 1945 he collaborated with accordionist John Serry Sr. in a recording of Leone Jump for Sonora Records which was played in jukeboxes throughout the United States. Tony’s only charted single as a soloist was This Guy’s In Love With You, which reached No. 22 on the Billboard magazine Easy Listening Top 40 in the summer of 1968.
Mottola worked often on television, appearing as a regular on shows hosted by vocalist Perry Como and comedian Sid Caesar and as music director for the 1950s series Danger. From 1958–1972, he was a member of The Tonight Show Orchestra led by Skitch Henderson.
He composed music for the TV documentary Two Childhoods, which was about Vice President Hubert Humphrey and writer James Baldwin, and won an Emmy Award for his work. In 1980, Mottola began performing with Frank Sinatra, often in duets, appearing at Carnegie Hall and the White House. He retired from the music business in 1988 but kept playing at home almost every day.
Guitarist Tony Mottola, who released dozens of albums as a leader, passed away in Denville, New Jersey on August 9, 2004.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Bill Harris was born on April 14, 1925 in Nashville, North Carolina He studied guitar in Washington, D.C. at the Columbia School of Music and in 1950 began playing with the R&B vocal group The Clovers. He remained with the group through 1958, playing on many of their most successful hit records.
During this time he also recorded as a jazz musician, including two LPs for EmArcy Records, his 1956 self-titled Bill Harris and The Harris Touch In 1957. Through the Sixties, he played in the DC area and in the 1970s taught music, and published several books on guitar technique.
He was awarded a compositional fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts in 1972. Moving to France he performed there for much of 1972-1973, and after returning to the States, Harris began managing his own jazz club, Pigfoot, in the DC, but by 1981 the club was repossessed by the Internal Revenue Service due to back taxes.
Guitarist Bill Harris worked as an impresario late in life, organizing and presenting concerts in a variety of genres until passing away on December 6, 1988, Washington, D.C.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Phillip Robert Lee was born on April 8, 1943 in London, England and studied guitar with Ike Isaacs as a teenager. He was a member of the National Youth Jazz Orchestra, including their performance in the 1960 Antibes Jazz Festival. By the 1960s he was playing with John Williams and Graham Collier, was resident at Ronnie Scott’s Old Place, and in a band that included Bob Stuckey, Dudu Pukwana, and John Marshall.
During the 1970s, he played in jazz-rock bands such as Gilgamesh and Axel with Tony Coe and with Michael Garrick, Henry Lowther, and John Stevens. He recorded Twice Upon a Time in 1987 with Jeff Clyne.
Later in his career, he worked with Gordon Beck, Andres Boiarsky, Benny Goodman, Lena Horne, Marian Montgomery, Annie Ross, Dardanelle, Harry Edison, Ken Peplowski, Eddie Daniels, Jimmy Smith and the London Jazz Orchestra.
Phil Lee began playing jazz in the 1960s and. Since then he has recorded and appeared live with a vast range of musicians. including Pat Smythe, Duncan Lamont, Norma Winstone, Michael Garrick, Jimmy Hastings and Martin Speake. Phil has toured with Charles Aznavour, Michel Legrand, Gordon Beck and recently Jessye Norman.
In the 1970s he was a member of the fusion band Gilgamesh. His musicianship is held in high regard not only by fellow jazz players but also by musicians in other genres. His film credits include brief appearances in Eyes Wide Shut and Alan Plater’s TV film Misterioso and his playing featured in The Last of the Blonde Bombshells. Guitarist Phil Lee continues to perform, record and tour.
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