Daily Dose Of Jazz…

William James “Count” Basie was born on August 21, 1904 in Red Bank, New Jersey. His father played the mellophone, his mother played the piano and gave him his first piano lessons. Taking in laundry and baking cakes for sale for a living, she paid 25 cents a lesson for his piano instruction. The best student in school, he inished junior high school and spent much of his time at Red Bank’s Palace Theater, where he quickly learned to improvise music appropriate to the acts and the silent movies.

A natural pianist but preferring drums he was discouraged by the obvious talents of Sonny Greer, who also lived in Red Bank and became Duke Ellington’s drummer in 1919, He let the idea of drumming go and concentrated on the piano exclusively at age 15. He and Greer played together in venues until Greer set out on his professional career. By then, Basie was playing with pick-up groups for dances, resorts, and amateur shows, and Harry Richardson’s Kings of Syncopation.

By 1920 Basie was in Harlem where he bumped nto Greer and started meeting the musicians making the scene like Willie “The Lion” Smith and James P. Johnson. Before he was 20 years old, he toured extensively on the Keith and TOBA vaudeville circuits as a solo pianist, accompanist, and music director for blues singers, dancers, and comedians. This provided an early training that was to prove significant in his later career.

Back in Harlem in 1925, he met Fats Waller, who taught him how to play that instrument. As he did with Duke Ellington, Willie “the Lion” Smith helped Basie out during the lean times by arranging gigs at house-rent parties, introducing him to other leading musicians, and teaching him some piano technique.

In 1928, Basie joined Walter Page and his Famous Blue Devils. It was at this time that he picked up the moniker of Count. The next year saw him in Kansas City holding down the piano chair with Bennie Moten. After a couple of re-organizations of the band, Basie formed his own nine-piece band, Barons of Rhythm who played regularly at the Reno Club and on the radio. Moving to Chicago, Illinois the band eventually became the Count Basie Orchestra where they did their first recordings for Vocalion under the name Jones-Smith, as Basie had already signed with Decca.

Over the course of the fifty years he led the band he was instrumental in creating innovations like the use of two “split” tenor saxophones, emphasizing the rhythm section, riffing with a big band, using arrangers to broaden their sound, which any other bands copied. He also brought to prominence such players as Lester Young, Herschel Evans, Freddie Green, Buck Clayton, Harry “Sweets” Edison, Al Grey, Jimmy Rushing, Helen Humes, Thelma Carpenter, and Joe Williams.

Pianist, organist, bandleader, and composer Count Basie, who recorded close to two hundred albums and in 1958 became the first Black man to win a Grammy Award, passed away on April 26, 1984.

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Daily Dose Of Jazz…

Jack Teagarden was born Weldon Leo Teagarden on August 20, 1905 in Vernon, Texas into a musical family, two brothers, a sister and father all musicians. His father started him on baritone horn but by age seven he had switched to trombone. His first public performances were in movie theaters, where he accompanied his mother, a pianist.

By 1920, Teagarden was playing professionally in San Antonio, Texas with the band of pianist Peck Kelley. In the mid-1920s he started traveling widely around the United States in a quick succession of different bands. 1927 saw him in New York City where he worked with several bands and by 1928 he was playing with the Ben Pollack band.

In the late 1920s, he recorded with such bandleaders and sidemen as Louis Armstrong, Benny Goodman, Bix Beiderbecke, Red Nichols, Jimmy McPartland, Mezz Mezzrow, Glenn Miller, and Eddie Condon. Miller and Teagarden collaborated to provide lyrics and a verse to Spencer Williams’ “Basin Street Blues”, which in that amended form became one of the numbers that Teagarden played until the end of his days.

Seeking financial security during the Great Depression, Jack signed an exclusive contract to play for the Paul Whiteman Orchestra from 1933 through 1938. In 1946, he joined his lifelong friend Louis Armstrong and his All Stars. In late 1951, he left to again lead his own band.

Suffering from pneumonia, trombonist and singer Jack Teagarden, considered the most innovative jazz trombone stylist of the pre-bebop era, passed away in New Orleans at the age of 58 on January 15, 1964.

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Three Wishes

When Pannonica inquired what his three wishes would be Bob Cranshaw  replied with these three answers: 

1. “That Barry Harris would go to Chicago with us for two weeks.”
2. “That I might learn how to play the bass!”
3. “That my family will be proud of me.”

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Daily Dose Of Jazz…

Rabih Abou-Khalil ربيع أبو خليل‎, was born August 17, 1957 in Beirut, Lebanon and studied the oud at the Beirut Conservatory with oudist Georges Farah. After moving to Munich, Germany at 21, he studied classical flute at the Academy of Music under Walther Theurer.

Combining elements of Arabic music with jazz, rock, or classical music, he has earned praise as a world musician years before the phrase became a label. Along with Tunisian oud virtuosos Anouar Brahem and Dhafer Youssef, he has helped establish the oud as an important instrument of Ethno jazz and world fusion.

Among other musicians, Abou-Khalil has worked with ARTE Quartett, Alexander Bălănescu, Luciano Biondini, Milton Cardona, Sonny Fortune, Michel Godard, Joachim Kühn, Howard Levy, Charlie Mariano, Ricardo Ribeiro, Steve Swallow, Kenny Wheeler. He has recorded for ECM, Enja, MMP, Granit, and World Village record labels.

Rabih has hosted the 13 part documentary television series Visions of Music, that explores the blending of jazz with different music styles of the world. The music of the TV-series was released on the album Visions of Music – World Jazz by Enja Records.

Oudist Rabih Abou~Khalil continues to be active in music, composing, recording and performing worldwide.

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Daily Dose Of Jazz…

Lennie Felix was born in Stamford Hill, London, England on August 16, 1920. He learned piano from the age of ten and his playing style reflected the influence of Fats Waller, Art Tatum and Earl Hines. His later influences drew from Keith Jarrett, Charlie Parker and Vladimir Horovitz.

From the 1960s, Lennie performed increasingly more as a solo pianist and appeared regularly at the PizzaExpress Jazz Club, where he also accompanied US visitors like Bud Freeman and Buddy Tate.

He worked in the bands of Nat Gonella, Harry Gold, and Sid Philips, and enjoyed a 20-year association with trumpeter Freddy Randall. Pianist Lennie Felix passed away on December 29, 1980 in a hospital after he was hit by a speeding car near to the 606 Club in Fulham, West London.

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