Daily Dose Of Jazz…

Andy Raphael Thomas Hamilton, MBE was born March 26, 1918 in Port Maria, Jamaica, and learned to play saxophone on a bamboo instrument. He formed his first band in 1928 with friends who were influenced by American musicians such as Duke Ellington and Count Basie and by the Kingston-based bands of Redver Cook and Roy Coburn.

While in the U.S. he worked as a cook and farm laborer but also held short jazz residencies in Buffalo and Syracuse, New York. Returning to Jamaica, he worked as musical arranger for Errol Flynn at his hotel The Titchfield, and on his yacht the Zaka.

Hamilton emigrated to the United Kingdom in 1949 as a stowaway and eventually lived in Birmingham and worked in a factory, while at night he played jazz with his own group, the Blue Notes formed with fellow Jamaican pianist Sam Brown in 1953. He would go on to play local gigs, promote numerous Jamaican bands like Steel Pulse, and established a regular weekly venue in Bearwood, inviting visiting musicians such as Joe Newman, Al Casey, Teddy Edwards, Art Farmer, Harry Sweets Edison, and David Murray.

In 1988 EndBoards Production produced a documentary called Silver Shine about Andy Hamilton’s migration to the UK and the hurdles experienced in growing his music career, the changing musical taste of Windrush generation and their descendants. The documentary features Andy’s Band the Blue Notes with lead vocalist Ann Scott; his first youth band The Blue Pearls, Tony Sykes, Millicent Stephenson, his children Graeme and Mark.

Having recovered from a diabetic coma in 1986, he celebrated his 70th birthday in 1988 playing at his regular venue, The Bear, performed at the Soho Jazz Festival, and in 1991 at the age of 73, Hamilton made his first-ever recording with Nick Gold, Silvershine on World Circuit Records. It became the biggest selling UK Jazz Album of the Year, The Times Jazz Album of the Year, and one of the 50 Sony Recordings of the Year. It was followed two years later by Jamaica at Night, which led to Caribbean and European concerts and national tours. Playing regularly until his death, his 90th birthday concert featured Courtney Pine, Sonny Bradshaw, Myrna Hague, Lekan Babalola, Nana Tsiboe, son Mark and The Notebenders.

Saxophonist Andy Hamilton, appointed Member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE) in the 2008 New Year Honours among other awards, continued to play, teach and promote music even as he approached his 94th birthday, passing away peacefully on June 3, 2012.

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Daily Dose Of Jazz…

Frankie Carle, born Francis Nunzio Carlone on March 25, 1903 in Providence, Rhode Island. The son of a factory worker who could not afford a piano, he practiced on a dummy keyboard devised by his uncle, pianist Nicholas Colangelo, until he found a broken-down instrument in a dance hall. By 1916, now a teenager, he began working with his uncle’s band as well as a number of local bands around the state. To overcome prejudice against Italians he changed his name to Carle.

In the Thirties, he started out working with a number of mainstream dance bands that included the Mal Hallett Orchestra, had his own orchestra and at one time was billed in an ad for a night club as America’s Greatest Pianist. Joining Horace Heidt and His Musical Knights in 1939, Frankie later became co-leader of the band. His popularity during his time with Heidt’s band allowed him to leave the band in 1944 and form his own band, The Frankie Carle Orchestra and his daughter, Marjorie Hughes, sang with his band. During World War II, with his orchestra, he recorded a couple of V-Disc in a program of the U.S. War Department that featured his new compositions Moonlight Whispers and Sunrise Serenade. Some eleven years later he disbanded, embarked on his solo career in 1955 and until the 1980s, maintained a close following of loyal fans.

He had early exposure on the radio as a pianist for The Four Belles, a singing group distributed by the World Broadcasting System. In the mid-1940s, he and singer Allan Jones starred in the Old Gold Show on CBS radio and was also featured on the shows Pot o’ Gold, Treasure Chest, and The Chesterfield Supper Club. Over the course of his career, he recorded some four-dozen albums, composed over two-dozen popular romantic dance melodies. Pianist and bandleader Frankie Carle, whose #1 hit Sunrise Serenade sold over a million copies, passed away on March 7, 2001.

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Three Wishes

Chief Bey told Baroness de Koenigswarter his three wishes were: 

1. 1. “To live in a world of complete freedom, where man does not lose his creative ability and his senses, and where his respect for the next man broadens by the day. And that the ultimate end of all his troubles, trials and tribulations would turn out to be for the good of every man. And that it will be a perpetuating thing, like the evergreen tree.”

   2. “That man should always worship in that which he believes, and live what he believes to such an extent that it shows in his every action. And  then he does not have to preach it to the world, that I am.”

   3. “My third and final wish: that there be no hunger. A little pain, a little suffering ~ enough to make one understand himself. So that I, as one of God’s creatures, that every time I perform, may it be for Him. And let me re-create again and yet again without repeating myself. And when I play, for dancers to dance to my drums. May there always be communication.”

*Excerpt from Three Wishes: An Intimate Look at Jazz Greats ~ Compiled and Photographed by Pannonica de Koenigswarter

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Daily Dose Of Jazz…

David Burns was born on March 24, 1924 in Perth Amboy, New Jersey and began playing trumpet when he was nine years old.  As a teenager, he heard bebop performances at Minton’s Playhouse, among others Dizzy Gillespie. His first ensemble was in Al Cooper’s Savoy Sultans, with whom he played from 1941 to 1943, prior to joining the Army Air Force. There he led a band from 1943 to 1945 that included James Moody as a sideman.

He joined Gillespie’s band in 1946 and appeared with Gillespie in Jivin’ in Bebop in 1947. After leaving Gillespie’s band in 1949, he worked with Duke Ellington from 1950 to 1952 and then with James Moody until 1957.

The late 1950s saw Dave playing shows in New York City and in the Sixties recorded for Vanguard Records. He worked with Billy Mitchell, Al Grey, Willie Bobo, Art Taylor, Dexter Gordon, Johnny Griffin, Leo Parker, and Milt Jackson. From the 1970s through the end of his career he increased his work as an educator. Trumpeter, flugelhornist, arranger, composer, and teacher Dave Burns passed away on April 5, 2009 in Freeport, New York.

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Daily Dose Of Jazz…

Harry Hayes was born Henry Richard Hayes in Marylebone in the West End of London, England on March 23, 1909, a bookmaker’s son. Winning a scholarship to his local grammar school, he was given a soprano saxophone by his father when he was 11 and by age 16, made his professional debut as an alto player at the Regent dance hall in Brighton. He was soon playing at London’s Kit Kat Club and the Piccadilly hotel. In 1927, he joined Elizalde at the Savoy, working alongside Americans like saxophonists Adrian Rollini, Fud Livingstone and Bobby Davis, trumpeter Chelsea Quealey, and pianist Jack Russin.

He became highly successful during the big band era of popular music that dominated by radio and bands playing London hotels and clubs. The late 1920s through the 30s, Hayes worked with musicians and bands such as Sydney Kyte at Ciro’s Club, pianist Billy Mason at the Cafe de Paris, Spike Hughes’s Orchestra at the Empress Rooms, Leslie “Hutch” Hutchinson, and Maurice Winnick at the Carlton, with Harry Roy at the Mayfair and with Sydney Lipton at the Grosvenor House. In 1932, he was featured in the band that accompanied Louis Armstrong’s first British tour.

Called up in 1940, Hayes served in the Welsh Guards band but continued to perform with others. After his discharge in 1944, he formed an eight-piece band, which went on to record sessions for HMV at Abbey Road featuring some of the best players of the day including Harry Roche, Norman Stenfalt, a young George Shearing and tenor saxophone Tommy Whittle. He played with Benny Carter, and appeared in a London Jazz At The Philharmonic concert with Oscar Peterson, Ella Fitzgerald, and Lester Young.

By 1947, Hayes was playing Charlie Parker bebop, and opening his first music shop in Shaftesbury Avenue. He was also active as a music teacher. While working with Kenny Baker in the 1950s, he led his own band at various London nightspots. Retiring from regular playing in 1965, he continued to run his shops until 1985. He was granted the freedom of the City of London in 1988 nd his last performance was at the Birmingham international jazz festival in 1992. Saxophonist and shopkeeper Harry Hayes passed away at the age of 92 on March 17, 2002.

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