Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Nathaniel Charles Gonella was born March 7, 1908 in East London, England and took up cornet as a child while at St. Mary’s Guardian School, an institution for underprivileged children. His first professional job interrupted his stint as a furrier’s apprentice when he joined Archie Pitt’s Busby Boy’s Band in 1924. He remained with the band until 1928, and it was during this period that he became acquainted with the early recordings of Louis Armstrong and the New Orleans jazz style.
Nat played and recorded with many prominent jazz musicians, including Billy Cotton, Archie Alexander, Digby Fairweather, Lew Stone, Bob Bryden and Roy Fox. His distinctive vocal style was reminiscent of his idol, Louis Armstrong, though his voice was often eclipsed by his achievements as a bandleader and trumpeter.
Gonella’s standing grew even more quickly after the formation of his own band, “The Georgians”, in 1935, taking the name from his highly popular recording of “Georgia On My Mind” in 1932. He later formed a big band and quickly became a headliner on the variety circuit.
Nat flirted briefly with bebop but returned to the variety stage until a revival of tradition jazz came in the late Fifties. His performing and recording success lasted until the advent of The Beatles in the Sixties, however he toured the northern club circuit and over the next thirty years he continued to sing occasionally with various bands until his death in Gosport on August 6, 1998 at age 90.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Don Elliott was born on October 21, 1926 in Somerville, New Jersey. He played mellophone in his high school band and played trumpet for an army band. After study at the University of Miami he added vibraphone to his arsenal of instruments. He recorded with Terry Gibbs and Buddy Rich before forming his own band.
From 1953 to 1960 he won the Down Beat readers poll several times for “miscellaneous instrument-mellophone.” Known as the “Human Instrument”, Elliott additionally performed jazz as a vocalist, trombonist, flugelhornist and percussionist. He pioneered the art of multi-track recording, composed over 5000 jingles with a countless number being prize-winning advertising jingles, prepared film scores, recorded over 60 albums and built a thriving production company.
Don scored several Broadway productions, such as The Beast In Me and A Thunder Carnival, the latter of which he performed with the Don Elliott Quartet, provided one of the voices for the novelty jazz duo the Nutty Squirrels, and lent his vocal talents to such motion picture soundtracks as The Getaway, $ (Dollars), The Hot Rock and The Happy Hooker.
His album Calypso Jazz is considered by some jazz enthusiasts to be one of the definitive calypso jazz albums. He worked with Paul Desmond, Bill Taylor, Billy Eckstine, Bill Evans, Urbie Green, Michel Legrand, George Shearing and Mundell Lowe among others over his career. Multi-instrumentalist, vocalist, publisher and producer Don Elliott, who was a longtime associate of Quincy Jones, passed away of cancer in Weston, Connecticut on July 5, 1984.
More Posts: flugelhorn,mellophone,percussion,trombone,trumpet,vibraphone,vocal