Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Billy Butler was born William Butler Jr. on December 15, 1924 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania and began his career in the 1940s behind the Harlemaires. The 1950s saw him as a member of a trio led by Doc Bagby and accompanied keyboardist Bill Doggett.
Butler worked with Al Casey, King Curtis, Eddie “Lockjaw” Davis, Bill Davison, Tommy Flanagan, Panama Francis, Dizzy Gillespie, Benny Goodman, Johnny Hodges, Floyd “Candy” Johnson, David “Fathead” Newman, Houston Person, Sammy Price, Jimmy Smith, Norris Turney, and Dinah Washington.
He is credited as the guitarist on the 1961 Peppermint Twist, Parts 1 & 2 by Joey Dee and the Starliters at the Peppermint Lounge in New York City. He co-wrote Honky Tonk, an R&B hit for Doggett.
Guitarist Billy Butler transitioned on March 20, 1991 from a heart attack at home in Teaneck, New Jersey.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Theodore Guy Buckner was born on December 14, 1913 in St. Louis, Missouri but was raised in Detroit, Michigan where he played very early in his career before joining McKinney’s Cotton Pickers.
He became a member of the Jimmie Lunceford Orchestra, remaining from 1937 to 1943. After working with Lunceford, Buckner primarily played locally in Detroit, where he worked well into the 1970s. He played in small jazz combos, worked in the Motown studios, and co-led a big band with Jimmy Wilkins, Ernie Wilkins’s brother.
He toured Europe in 1975, and also appeared in the New McKinney’s Cotton Pickers that decade. Saxophonist Ted Buckner, who was the older brother of pianist Milt Buckner, transitioned on April 12, 1976 in Detroit.
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Three Wishes
While hanging out with Roy McCurdy the Baroness had the pleasure of asking him what he would wish for if magically they could be realized and he told her:
- “For my family to be happy and secure.”
- “To play as often as I wanted to, consistently good.”
- “Oh, I don’t know! To be happy. And peace of mind. That’s probably… probably is it.”
Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Louis Raphael Mucci was born December 13, 1909 in Syracuse, New York and began as a baritone horn player and was appearing in professional settings by the time he was ten years old. As a teenager he switched to trumpet and worked in the late 1930s with Mildred Bailey and Red Norvo before joining Glenn Miller’s ensemble in 1938-1939.
During World War II he played in the bands of Bob Chester, Hal McIntyre, Claude Thornhill, and Benny Goodman. In the first half of the 1950s Lou worked as a house musician for CBS and also recorded with Buddy DeFranco and Artie Shaw. Later in the decade he worked with Helen Merrill, John LaPorta and Miles Davis, the latter lasting into the early Sixties.
Trumpeter Lou Mucci, who also played with Kenny Burrell in 1964, transitioned on January 4, 2000.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Edward Emanuel Barefield was born on December 12, 1909 in Scandia, Iowa, and grew up in Des Moines, Iowa. His father was a guitarist, his mother a pianist. He began playing the saxophone at the age of twelve when his mother bought him the instrument as a Christmas gift, and he took it apart to see how it worked.
He started playing throughout the Midwest, and gained his first major big-band experience with the Bennie Moten Orchestra of 1932. This led to work with Zach Whyte’s band and at 24 was offered a position in Cab Calloway’s orchestra in 1933. Eddie arranged and wrote music for Calloway for over 40 years.
Barefield conducted the orchestra for Ella Fitzgerald after Chick Webb passed away in 1939. In addition, he performed with McKinney’s Cotton Pickers, Les Hite, Fletcher Henderson, Don Redman, and Benny Carter. After the end of the big band era he continued to work by conducting shows, free-lancing, and playing in Europe.
He was the musical director for the original Broadway production of Streetcar Named Desire in 1947. He spent a decade in the band of the Ringling Brothers and Barnum & Bailey Circus, and composed and arranged for Benny Goodman, Glenn Miller, Paul Whiteman, and Jimmy Dorsey. Later in his life, Barefield worked with the Illinois Jacquet big band. Eddie appeared in films, including Cab Calloway’s Hi-De-Ho, Al Jolson’s The Singing Kid, Every Day’s a Holiday, and The Night They Raided Minsky’s.
Saxophonist, clarinetist and arranger Eddie Barefield, who arranged for the ABC Orchestra, transitioned from a heart attack at Mount Sinai Hospital in New York on January 4, 1991.
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