Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Booker Pittman was born on March 3, 1909 in Fairmount Heights, Maryland, was the son of Portia Pittman and a grandson of Booker T. Washington. He became an accomplished jazz clarinetist and played with greats like Louis Armstrong and Count Basie in the US and Europe in the 1920s and 1930s.
Leaving the States for the first time in 1933, he went with Lucky Millinder’s orchestra to France and stayed there for four years. During that period, he met a Brazilian musician named Romeo Silva, who took him on a tour of Brazil along with other musicians. They sailed to Bahia aboard the Siqueira Campos.
In 1937, Booker moved to Brazil, where he was known by the nickname “Buca“, and continued his musical career there, playing at the Urca Casino. He lived in Copacabana and befriended Jorge Guinle and Pixinguinha. He also played in Argentina and other countries.
He performed and recorded with his singer/actress stepdaughter Eliana Pittman. On October 19, 1969 clarinetist and saxophonist Booker Pittman, sometimes spelled Pitman, transitioned in his home in the São Paulo quarter of Vila Nova Conceição of laryngeal cancer at the age of 60. On behest of his wife Ofélia he was transferred to Rio de Janeiro and there laid to rest at the Cemitério São João Batista in the quarter of Botafogo.
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JESSE JONES JR.
The Miami native is a virtuoso saxophonist who started his first band, the Melt-Jess Jazz Quintet, in high school with trumpeter brother Melton Mustafa, who later left to play with Count Basie. Jones formed his own quartet and remains a longtime fixture in Miami’s jazz scene.
He continues to be at the forefront of a burgeoning jazz renaissance in South Florida. He is renowned for his mastery of the saxophone and captivating vocals, has left an indelible mark on the genre over decades.
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LENORA ZENZALAI HELM & TRIBE JAZZ ORCHESTRA NONET
Throughout her 40+-year span of musical achievements as a jazz vocal musician specializing in classic, traditional standard jazz, Dr. Lenora Zenzalai Helm Hammonds has toured, recorded, and performed with her various groups worldwide.
She is a lyricist, guest artist, background singer, composer, and educator at North Carolina Central University where she is a tenured Associate Professor in the Department of Music and Jazz Studies Program. Lenora was a former United States Jazz Ambassador under the State Department and Kennedy Center.
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ORRIN EVANS
During his kaleidoscopic quarter-century as a professional jazz musician, pianist Orrin Evans has become the model of a fiercely independent artist who pushes the envelope in all directions. Never supported by a major label, Evans has ascended to top-of-the-pyramid stature on his instrument, as affirmed by his #1-ranking as “Rising Star Pianist” in the 2018 DownBeat Critics Poll. Grammy nominations for the Smoke Sessions albums The Intangible Between and Presence, by Evans’ raucous, risk-friendly Captain Black Big Band, stamp his bona fides as a bandleader and composer.
In addition to CBBB, Evans’ multifarious leader and collaborative projects include the Eubanks Evans Experience (a duo with eminent guitarist Kevin Eubanks); the Brazilian unit Terreno Comum; Evans’ working trio with bassist Luques Curtis and drummer Mark Whitfield, Jr.; and Tar Baby (a collective trio of 20 years standing with bassist Eric Revis and drummer Nasheet Waits). One of Tar Baby’s two 2022 releases will be released on Evans’ imprint, Imani Records, which he founded in 2001 and relaunched in 2018.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Minor Hall was born in Sellers, Louisiana on March 2, 1897 and was the younger brother of Tubby Hall. He studied at New Orleans University until 1914, then began playing with Kid Ory in the middle of the decade. He played in various New Orleans ensembles, including the Superior Band, then moved to Chicago, Illinois in 1918. He briefly took his brother’s spot in Lawrence Duhe’s band before serving in the U.S. Army during World War I. By the time he returned, King Oliver was leading Duhe’s band, which Hall rejoined in 1921.
In 1926 he played with Jimmie Noone, then moved to California for an extended run with Mutt Carey’s Jeffersonians from 1927 to 1932. He played in the Winslow Allen Band during the Thirties, but took a hiatus from music for part of the decade. He served briefly in the Army again in 1942.
In 1945 he rejoined Ory in his Creole Jazz Band, becoming one of his most long standing members. He remained with Ory’s ensemble until 1956, when he retired on account of poor health, having never led his own recording date, though he recorded extensively with Ory and with Louis Armstrong in the 1940s.
Drummer Minor Hall, better known as Ram Hall, died in Sawtelle, California at the age of 61 on October 16, 1959.
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