Daily Dose Of Jazz…

Kenny Baker was born on March 1, 1921 in Withernsea, East Riding of Yorkshire, England. Joining a brass band, by the age of 17 he had already become a professional musician. After leaving his home town for London, he met and began performing with George Chisholm. He was first heard on record in a British public jam session in 1941 and quickly established a strong reputation in London clubs.

After serving in the Royal Air Force during WWII, the young Baker was lead trumpeter with Ted Heath’s post war orchestra, with Bakerloo Non-Stop recorded for the Decca record label in 1946. He played a tenor saxophone solo on Johnny Gray, the piece recorded by both Baker and the drummer Jack Parnell. During the 1950s, he led his own group called Baker’s Dozen and performed on the first regular jazz show, the BBC Light Programme series Let’s Settle For Music.

During this period he regularly recorded as a quartet for Parlophone, and in the Sixties and Seventies, he was on call for film and studio work. He shared top billing with comedy variety acts, continued to appear on BBC shows, and formed the Best of British Jazz show with Don Lusher and Betty Smith. He went on to play with Frank Sinatra, Petula Clark, Sammy Davis, Jr. and Tony Bennett, as well as performing on James Bond soundtracks, with The Beatles and The Muppet Show among numerous other television shows.

Trumpeter, cornetist, flugelhornist and composer Kenny Baker, who was titled three times as best trumpet player and awarded the MBE title, died in Felpham, West Sussex on December 7, 1999 after suffering from a viral infection. He was 78.

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Daily Dose Of Jazz…

Ronald V. Myers, Sr. was born February 29, 1956 in Chicago, Illinois but moved with the family to Milwaukee, Wisconsin when his parents became employed as teachers in the Milwaukee Public Schools. He attended Rufus King High School in Milwaukee and was a soloist in the high school jazz ensemble on trumpet and piano.

Attending the University of Wisconsin–Madison he majored in Black Studies and was a member of the Experimental Improvisational Black Music Ensemble, under the mentorship of trombonist and professor Jimmy Cheatham. He graduated from the University of Wisconsin Medical School in 1985 and completed his residency in Family Medicine at LSU Medical Center’s Washington St. Tammany Parish Charity Hospital in Bogalusa, Louisiana in 1988.

He took part-time courses at Reformed Theological Seminary at Mississippi Valley State University in 1989 and 1990 and was ordained by Pilgrim Rest Missionary Baptist Church in Milwaukee, and commissioned by the Wisconsin Baptist Pastors Conference as a medical missionary to the Mississippi Delta.

Pianist and trumpeter Ron Myers, who was instrumental in solidifying Juneteenth as a national holiday and chairman of the National Association of Juneteenth Jazz Presenters, died on September 7, 2018.

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Daily Dose Of Jazz…

William Douglass was born on February 28, 1923 in Sherman, Texas. His extended family relocated to Los Angeles, California when he was six months old in an effort to escape Jim Crow laws. As a member of a musical family he took an early interest in music and when he heard drummer Gene Krupa performing Sing, Sing, Sing on the radio his path was set. He met and befriended Dexter Gordon while attending McKinley Junior High School in Los Angeles, at which point he first began playing drums.

At Jefferson High School, both he and Gordon began taking band under teacher Lloyd Reese, and took private keyboard instructions. Never taking private drum lessons, Bill eventually made the acquaintance of drummer Cozy Cole, who allowed him to watch him practice. What he learned by watching him and other drummers helped him evolve a style of his own.

While  still in schoo he, Dexter and Lammar Wright, Jr. he began playing in Central Avenue night clubs. Eventually he began drumming for pianist Gerald Wiggins, along with double bass and tuba player Red Callender, until he and Callender left to form a trio with blind pianist Art Tatum.

In 1941 upon graduating from high school he enlisted in the United States Army and was assigned to the Black 10th Cavalry Regiment at Camp Lockett. This led to his start to seeing the world being stationed in Casablanca, Oran, Algiers, Naples and Rome. During these travels, Bill became drum major of his 28-piece ensemble, a position he attributed to his great height.

Leaving the service he went on to a  stint with Benny Goodman, where he was at the time the only black member of the band. Bill eventually became part of the union struggle for integration and equality. Even as a working musician, Douglass expanded into teaching drums at Drum City. Among his students, were Ray Brown, Jr., Karen Carpenter, and Ella Fitzgerald.

Drummer and educator Bill Douglass, who was an active proponent of desegregation in the American Federation of Musicians, died on December 19, 1994.

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Daily Dose Of Jazz…

Jesse Powell was born in Smithville, Bastrop County, Texas, on February 27, 1924. He received his formal music training before he began his professional career at age eighteen, when he toured with fellow Texan, Oran “Hot Lips” Page beginning at the age of eighteen during 1942–43.

During the war years he went on to play with Louis Armstrong in 1943–44, then with the Luis Russell Orchestra in 1944–45. He replaced fellow Texas tenorist Illinois Jacquet in the Count Basie Band for a tour of California in 1946. At this time Powell also worked with blues singers Champion Jack Dupree and Brownie McGhee.

1947 saw Jesse joining Curly Russell’s band, and in 1948 he formed his own band in New York City. That same year he performed with trumpeter Howard McGhee at the first international jazz festival in Paris. In 1949–50, he was a member of the Dizzy Gillespie Big Band, with whom he recorded a solo on Tally Ho. In 1953 he once again formed another jump-rhythm band, and in 1964 a Powell quintet played at Birdland in New York City.

Tenor saxophonist Jesse Powell died on October 19, 1982 in New York City.

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Daily Dose Of Jazz…

Colin Thomas Purbrook was born February 26, 1936 in Seaford, East Sussex, England and learned piano from the age of six from his father, who was also a professional pianist. As an eleven year old, in 1947 he won three Challenge Cups at the Brighton Music Festival. He went on to study music at the Fitzwilliam College, Cambridge. As well as playing piano, he also played the trombone with the Cambridge University Jazz Band.

Leaving Cambridge in 1957 he joined Sandy Brown’s quintet on double bass for a six-month period at the popular Oxford Street 100 Club. He played piano for three years with Al Fairweather’s All Stars, and also played with Kenny Ball, both as a pianist, trumpeter and double bassist. In the early 1960s he worked with Kenny Baker, Ian Carr, Tony Coe, Bert Courtley, Jimmy Deuchar, Wally Fawkes, Alan Ganley, Derek Hogg, Dudley Moore, John Picard, Don Rendell, Ronnie Ross, and Ronnie Scott.

In 1961 he worked alongside composer and musician Charles Mingus on the music score for the film All Night Long which was eventually released in 1962. Later in the decade he continued working with Brown and Coe, as well as with Brian Lemon, Humphrey Lyttelton, and Phil Seamen on drums. He played piano for the BBC 2’s music programme Jazz 625 with Dakota Staton and the Keith Christie All Stars respectively and was a member of Benny Goodman’s sextet when the clarinetist recorded a special gala performance for BBC2 in 1964.

He often played with drummer Phil Seamen, joining his trio during the late 1960s and early ’70s. Colin was a frequent sideman for Americans touring the UK, and worked over the course of his career with Chet Baker, Ruby Braff, Benny Carter, Doc Cheatham, Eddie Lockjaw Davis, Art Farmer, Dexter Gordon, Barney Kessel, Howard McGhee, James Moody, Annie Ross, Zoot Sims, and Buddy Tate. He was involved with the production of a number of stage plays from the 1970s through the 1990s. He led trios and quartets into the 1990s, took up a couple of residencies as a solo pianist, and continued to tour and appear on radio and television and, despite the fact that he began to suffer from rheumatoid arthritis in 1995.

Pianist, double bassist, trumpeter and songwriter Colin Purbrook, who also led his own smaller and larger ensembles, died in London, England of cancer on February 5, 1999.

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