Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Chris Barber was born Donald Christopher Barber in Welwyn Garden City, Hertfordshire, England on April 17, 1930. He started learning the violin when he was seven years old, got his education at Hanley Castle Grammar School, Malvern, Worcestershire, to the age of 15, where he started to develop an interest in jazz. After the end of World War II, he attended St Paul’s School in London, and began visiting clubs to hear jazz groups. He then spent three years at the Guildhall School of Music, and started playing music with friends.
The 1950s saw Barber forming the New Orleans Jazz Band, with him on double bass, playing both trad jazz and blues tunes. By 1952 he became a professional musician. With clarinetist Monty Sunshine they formed a band in later that year, and began playing in London clubs, accepting an offer to play in Denmark in early 1953, making its debut in Copenhagen. The bands played Dixieland jazz, and later ragtime, swing, blues and R&B and the band became The Chris Barber Band.
In the late 1950s and early 1960s, Barber was mainly responsible for arranging the first UK tours of blues artists which would spark the British invasion of the U.S. charts in the 1960s. Stunning traditionalists in 1964, he introduced blues guitarist John Slaughter into the line up. This eleven-man “Big Chris Barber Band” offered a broader range of music including Duke Ellington, while reserving a spot in the programme for the traditional six-man New Orleans line-up.
He published his autobiography Jazz Me Blues in 2014, with co-author Alyn Shipton. He retired in 2019 after some 70 years of performing, with an OBE to his credit for services to music, an honorary doctorate from Durham University, and awarded the Blues Louis for his services to popularizing the blues in Europe, and the German Jazz Trophy.
Trombonist Chris Barber, who suffered from dementia in the period before his death, passed away on March 2, 2021 at 90.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Alton Purnell was born in New Orleans, Louisiana on April 16, 1911. He sang before playing piano professionally, beginning to do so locally in New Orleans in 1928. He played in the 1930s with Isaiah Morgan, Alphonse Picou, Big Eye Louis Nelson, Sidney Desvigne, and Cousin Joe, and with Bunk Johnson in the middle of the 1940s.
Purnell joined George Lewis’s band after Johnson’s broke up in 1946, and remained there well into the 1950s, including for international tours. In 1957 Purnell relocated to Los Angeles. There he worked with Teddy Buckner, Young Men from New Orleans, Joe Darensbourg, Kid Ory, Barney Bigard, and Ben Pollack. He also recorded extensively as a leader, including for Warner Bros. Records, GHB, and Alligator Jazz. He toured internationally as a guest soloist from 1964.
He sang before playing piano professionally, beginning to do so locally in New Orleans in 1928. He played in the 1930s with Isaiah Morgan, Alphonse Picou, Big Eye Louis Nelson, Sidney Desvigne, and Cousin Joe, and with Bunk Johnson in the middle of the 1940s. Purnell joined George Lewis’s band after Johnson’s broke up in 1946, and remained there well into the 1950s, including for international tours.
Pianist Alton Purnell, who was a longtime Dixieland performer, passed away January 14, 1987 in Inglewood, California.
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The Quarantined Jazz Voyager
Having completely adapted to a new modus operandi for living this glorious life, I remain vigilant in my social distancing and reminding myself of music I haven’t listened to in a long time. This week I’m pulling out the late great Roy Hargrove who had the vision to record With The Tenors of Our Time. It’s a 1994 release on the Polygram Record label that was recorded at Teatro Mancinelli and Giani Grascinelli Sound Service with executive producer Richard Seidel. The album’s art direction and design is by David Lau, photography by James Minchin, liner notes by Jimmy Katz.
>Others in the team contributing to the production of this album were Larry Clothier ~ production, engineering, mixing; Ed Rak ~ engineering, mastering, mixing; Robert Friedrich ~ assistant engineering; Troy Halderson ~ mastering; Camille Tominaro ~ production coordination; and Nelly Muganda ~ make-up and hair stylist.
Track Listing | 72:56- Soppin’ the Biscuit (composer Roy Hargrove, featuring Stanley Turrentine) ~ 7:59
- When We Were One (composer Johnny Griffin, featuring Johnny Griffin) ~ 5:59
- Valse Hot (composer Sonny Rollins, featuring Branford Marsalis, Ron Blake) ~ 6:57
- Once Forgotten (composer Pamela Watson, featuring Ron Blake on tenor and soprano saxophone) ~ 5:45
- Shade of Jade (composer Joe Henderson, featuring Joe Henderson) ~ 5:24
- Greens at the Chicken Shack (composer Cyrus Chestnut, featuring Johnny Griffin) ~ 5:45
- Never Let Me Go (composer Jay Livingston and Ray Evans, featuring Rodney Whitaker) ~ 5:36
- Serenity (composer Joe Henderson, featuring Joe Henderson) ~ 5:35
- Across the Pond (composer Roy Hargrove, featuring Joshua Redman) ~ 6:47
- Wild Is Love (composer Robert Mickens and G. Brown, featuring Stanley Turrentine) ~ 6:50
- Mental Phrasing (composer Roy Hargrove, featuring Ron Blake, Joshua Redman) ~ 6:25
- April’s Fool (composer Ron Blake) ~ 3:54
- Roy Hargrove – trumpet, flugelhorn (2,4,7,10), production
- Cyrus Chestnut – piano
- Rodney Whitaker – bass
- Gregory Hutchinson – drums
- Ron Blake – soprano, tenor saxophone
- Johnny Griffin – tenor saxophone
- Joe Henderson – tenor saxophone
- Branford Marsalis – tenor saxophone
- Joshua Redman – tenor saxophone
- Stanley Turrentine – tenor saxophone
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Theodore “Wingy” Carpenter was born on April 15, 1898 in St. Louis, Missour. Losing his left arm as the result of an accident during his early teens, the amputation was performed by a noted surgeon who was an uncle of jazz musician Doc Cheatham. Sometime later, he took up the trumpet and by 1920 he was working in traveling carnival shows. In 1921 he toured with Herbert’s Minstrel Band.
By 1926 he had settled in Cincinnati, Ohio, where he worked with Wes Helvey, Clarence Paige, Zack Whyte, and Speed Webb. In 1927, he played in Buffalo, New York, with Eugene Primus. Off and on from late 1926 through 1928, he was featured on the Whitman Sisters’ Show with pianist Troy Snapp’s band.
During the early 1930s, Wingy was featured with Smiling Boy Steward’s Celery City Serenaders and another Florida band led by Bill Lacey. In the mid-1930s, he began regular touring with bandleaders including Jack Ellis, Dick Bunch, and Jesse Stone. In the late 1930s, he settled in New York City, where he worked with Skeets Tolbert and Fitz Weston.
From 1939 on working as the leader of his own band, Carpenter had periods at well-known clubs such as The Black Cat, The New Capitol, Tony Pastor’s The Yeah Man, and other venues. He continued to lead his band through the 1960s, playing occasional dance dates. Several of his works are still accessible as MP3 downloads, including Look Out Papa Don’t You Bend Down, Preachin’ Trumpet Blues, Put Me Back in the Alley, Rhythm of The Dishes and Pans, and Team Up.
Trumpeter, vocalist and bandleader Wingy Carpenter, one of several one-armed trumpeters who worked in the music business, passed away on July 21, 1975, in New York City.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Gil Fuller was born Walter Gilbert on April 14, 1920 in Los Angeles, California. In the 1930s and 1940s, Fuller did extensive work writing and arranging for bandleaders such as Les Hite, Floyd Ray, Jimmie Lunceford, Billy Eckstine, and Tiny Bradshaw. He also worked with Benny Carter, Benny Goodman, Woody Herman, Count Basie, Machito, and Tito Puente.
Post World War II, he found himself increasingly in demand as a bebop arranger along with fellow modern arrangers Tadd Dameron, Gil Evans, and George Russell. Fuller’s work with Dizzy Gillespie was of particular note, yielding the tunes Manteca, Swedish Suite, Tin Tin Deo, and One Bass Hit. He is the composer of the jazz standard ballad I Waited For You, co-credited with Dizzy Gillespie.
Starting his own publishing company in 1957, he continued to work with some jazz musicians including Stan Kenton in 1955 and again during the 1960s. Gil also branched out into film music and pop with Ray Charles, among others. Arranger Gil Fuller passed away on May 26, 1994 in San Diego, California.
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