Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Edwin Calvin Newborn (was born on born April 27, 1933 in Whiteville, Tennessee and is the brother of pianist Phineas Newborn Jr. with whom he recorded between 1953 and 1958. They formed an R&B band, with their father Phineas Newborn Sr. on drums and Tuff Green on bass, trumpeter Willie Mitchell and tenor saxophonist Ben Branch. The group was the house band at the Plantation Inn Club in West Memphis, Arkansas, from 1947 until 1951 and recorded as B. B. King’s band on his first recordings in 1949, and also the Sun Records sessions in 1950.
Calvin gave guitars lessons to Howlin’ Wolf and was friends with Elvis Presley, who frequented his gig at the Plantation Inn Club two nights a week. Presley also used to eat at the Newborns’ house and browse their music store for gospel records. The group left West Memphis in 1951 to tour with Jackie Brenston as the Delta Cats in support of the record Rocket 88. It was considered by many to be the first rock and roll record ever recorded, and was the first Billboard number one record for Chess Records.
Following his R&B period he transitioned into jazz and played with Earl Hines starting in 1959. The early Sixties saw him touring with Lionel Hampton, Jimmy Forrest, Wild Bill Davis, Al Grey, Freddie Roach, Booker Little, George Coleman. Frank Strozier, and Louis Smith. Newborn also worked with Ray Charles, Count Basie, Hank Crawford, Sun Ra, Lou Donaldson, Bobby Hutcherson and David “Fathead” Newman among others. His 1980 album Centerpiece hit No. 35 on the U.S. Billboard jazz albums chart, but much of his earlier material was not reissued on CD until 2005.
Since the 1970s he remained mostly in Memphis, Tennessee, where he played regularly in local clubs well into the 1990s. Guitarist Calvin Newborn currently resides in Jacksonville, FL and continued to perform throughout Northeast Florida until his transition on December 1, 2018, aged 85.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Ken Gregory was born on April 26, 1950 in Atlanta, Georgia and began playing trumpet at age nine, playing in the Northside Highlander Concert Band for three years beginning in 1960. After four years of private training, during his time in high school he sat 1st chair trumpet in the concert band from 1963 to 1968. He went on to work as conductor and lead trumpeter for the Six Flags Over Georgia orchestra until 1971, then learned to play guitar, electric bass and keyboards.
Gregory started playing the nightclub circuit in 1971 for the next nine years. By the Eighties as performance venues transitioned from clubs to private parties, he partnered with an electronics technician and moved into the professional studio business.
As a composer he has been commissioned to write for Warner Bros. Films, CNN, the Weather Channel, numerous radio and television advertisers, songwriters and lyricists. He has added trombone to his arsenal of instruments and has been recorded on thousands of studio sessions and has engineered audio and MIDI programming.
He performs original compositions with his band Solid State and has been featured on some of Atlanta’s best radio stations, on PBS Television’s Jazz Atlanta, and has performed at the Montreux Jazz, Atlanta Jazz and Inman Park festivals. Trumpeter and engineer Ken Gregory continues to be active in the professional music and record business in Atlanta.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Johnny St. Cyr was born on April 17, 1890 in New Orleans, Louisiana. St. He led several bands in the Crescent City beginning around 1905 and performed on the riverboats with Fate Marable. He played for several leading New Orleans bands including A.J. Piron, the Superior, Olympia and Tuxedo bands before moving to Chicago, Illinois in 1923 with King Oliver.
He is most commonly remembered as a member of Louis Armstrong’s Hot Five and Hot Seven bands. He also played and recorded with Jelly Roll Morton’s Red Hot Peppers. St. Cyr also performed with Don Cook’s Dreamland Orchestra. He composed the popular standard Oriental Strut, noted for its adventurous chord sequence.
In 1930 Johnny returned to New Orleans to make a living as a plasterer while still playing with local bands led by Paul Barbarin or Alphonse Picou. In 1955 he moved to Los Angeles, California and returned to music full time. From 1961 until his death in 1966, he was the bandleader of the Young Men from New Orleans that featured Barney Bigard, performers at Disneyland.
Banjoist and guitarist Johnny St. Cyr passed away on June 17, 1966 in Los Angeles, California.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Ulf Karl Erik Wakenius was born April 16, 1958 in Halmstad, Sweden and raised in Gothenburg. In the 1980s he played with Peter Almqvist in Guitars Unlimited during the intermission for 600 million viewers of the Swedish International Finale of the Eurovision Song Contest in 1985. He went to Rio de Janeiro, Brazil that same year and began recording the first of three records with Sivuca, Aquarela Do Brazil, followed by Rendez-Vous in Rio in 1986 and Let’s Vamos in 1987.
During the Eighties Ulf collaborated with Niels-Henning Ørsted Pedersen also started this decade, and during the mid to late Nineties they recorded Those Who Were and This Is All I Ask. He led the U.W. Group, releasing Venture with Jack DeJohnette on drums, Bill Evans and Bob Berg on saxophones, trumpeter Randy Brecker, pianist Niels Lan Doky, Chris Minh Doky and Lars Danielsson on bass. In 1994 he recorded New York Meeting with Niels Lan Doky, Ira Coleman and Billy Hart.
He would go on to work with Lars Jansson, Lars Danielsson, Raymond Karlsson, Gösta Rundqvist, Yasuhito Mori, Jukkis Uotila, Carsten Dahl, Morten Lund, Lars Danielsson, Haakon Graf, John Scofield, Dennis Chambers, Gary Grainger, Oscar Peterson, Michel Legrand, Ray Brown, Pat Metheny Jon Larsen, Stian Mevik, Jimmy Rosenberg Lisa Nilsson, Cæcilie Norby, Viktoria Tolstoy, Esbjörn Svensson and Youn Sun Nah among others.
Guitarist Ulf Wakenius,a member of of Oscar Peterson’s last quartet from 1997 and a member of the Ray Brown trio, continues to lead his own band and record.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
George Freeman was born on April 10, 1927 in Chicago, Illinois. By mid-1947, the guitarist was a member of the sextet led by Johnny Griffin and Joe Morris. He supported touring musicians such as Lester Young and Charlie Parker, recording with the latter on the Savoy Records label.
The mid-1950s,saw George beginning a long association with organist Richard “Groove” Holmes, recording as a sideman and song contributor on Holmes’ World Pacific and Prestige.
After touring with Gene Ammons and Shirley Scott,
Freeman decided against any more road work and based himself in his home city. He often collaborated with his brothers, tenor saxophonists Chico and Von Freeman throughout their careers.
His debut solo album, Birth Sign in 1969 featured saxophonist Kalaparusha Maurice McIntyre and organist Sonny Burke. He has worked with Ben Webster, Shirley Scott, Illinois Jacquet, Sonny Stitt, Sonny Criss, Buddy Rich, Charles Earland, Jimmy McGriff, Les McCann, Eldee Young, Harold Mabern, Kenny Barron, Bob Cranshaw, Buddy Williams, Kurt Elling, Red Holloway, Corey Wilkes, and the Deep Blue Organ Trio. Guitarist George Freeman continues to perform and record.
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