Daily Dose Of jazz…
Peanuts Hucko was born Michael Andrew Hucko in Syracuse, New York on April 7, 1918. He moved to New York City in 1939 where he played tenor saxophone with Will Bradley, Tommy Reynolds, and Joe Marsala until 1940.
After a brief time with Charlie Spivak, he joined the Glenn Miller Army Air Force Band while serving in Europe during World War II. During this time, Peanuts began to concentrate on the clarinet. He was featured in Miller’s hard-driving versions of Stealin’ Apples and Mission to Moscow. Post-war, he played in the bands of Benny Goodman, Ray McKinley, Eddie Condon and Jack Teagarden. From 1950 to 1955, he was busy in New York as a studio musician for CBS and ABC.
He continued working with Goodman and Teagarden, When he visited Tokyo, Japan in 1951 as the lead alto saxophonist in Benny Goodman’s Orchestra, he listened to clarinetist Shoji Suzuki and his Rhythm Aces. With Suzuki and his band, they recorded the song Suzukake No Michi, which broke sales records in Japan. He then joined the Louis Armstrong All-Stars for two years from 1958 to 1960.
Hucko led his own group at Eddie Condon’s Club from 1964 to 1966. He became known for his work with Frank Sinatra as the clarinet soloist on Cole Porter’s What Is This Thing Called Love?, which was featured on Sinatra’s album In the Wee Small Hours. In 1964, he opened his own nightclub Peanuts Hucko’s Navarre, in Denver, Colorado which featured his singer wife Louise Tobin and Ralph Sutton. From 1966, he was featured regularly at Dick Gibson’s Colorado jazz parties where he appeared with the Ten Greats of Jazz, later called the World’s Greatest Jazz Band.
The Seventies saw Peanuts leading the Glenn Miller Orchestra and toured across the U.S. and abroad. He also toured with the Million Airs Orchestra, and appeared with the Lawrence Welk Orchestra. The next decade he toured with his Pied Piper Quintet before going into semi-retirement with his wife in Denton, Texas. He recorded his last session Swing That Music in 1992 featuring Tobin, trumpeter Randy Sandke, and pianist Johnny Varro.
As a composer he wrote or co-wrote See You Again, A Bientot, Peanut Butter, Blintzes Bagel Boogie, Falling Tears, First Friday, Tremont Place, and Sweet Home Suite. Big band clarinetist Peanuts Hucko, who sometimes played saxophone, transitioned in Fort Worth, Texas on June 19, 2003 at the age of 85.
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The Jazz Voyager
The Jazz Voyager is on his way to Grosse Pointe Farms, Michigan for a jazz experience at the Dirty Dogg Jazz Cafe. This is the first time in the city and the club, however, it is not the first experience for the talented vocalist of Eugenie Jones.
Opened in 2008, the venue is one of the premier destinations in the United States for world class jazz and cuisine. Combining intimacy, meticulous attention to detail, and hospitality it has the charm of an English-style pub. The atmosphere is relaxed and fun and every visit is memorable and always entertaining.
Jones will bring her talents to the stage Friday and Saturday for two sets each night. An exceptional vocalist and cleverly gifted lyricist she has released highly praised, primarily original, vocal projects. Hopefully we will be listening to selections from her latest Grammy nominated release, Players.
The club is located at 97 Kercheval Avenue, 48236 and the number is 313-882-5299. For more info visit https://notoriousjazz.com/event/eugenie-jones-2.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Manfred Schoof was born April 6, 1936 in Magdeburg, Germany and studied music in Kassel and Cologne, Germany where one of his teachers was the big band leader Kurt Edelhagen.
Schoof performed on Edelhagen’s radio program and toured with Gunter Hampel In the 1960s he started a free jazz band with Alexander von Schlippenbach and Gerd Dudek which became the basis for Manfred Schoof Orchestra. From 1969 to 1971 he was a member of the George Russell Orchestra.He has also worked with Jasper Van’t Hof and the Globe Unity Orchestra.
He composed classical music for the Berlin Philharmonic. His group has participated in performances of Die Soldaten, an operatic work by the contemporary composer Bernd Alois Zimmermann. He was featured in a profile on composer Graham Collier in the 1985 Channel 4 documentary Hoarded Dreams.
Since 2007 he has been chairman of the Union Deutscher Jazzmusiker. Trumpeter and composer Manfred Schoof has been a professor in Cologne since 1990.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
John Bishop was born on April 5, 1959 in Seattle, Washington and raised in Germany, Washington, D.C., San Antonio, Texas, and Eugene, Oregon. He started playing drums at the age of seven with the Patriots drum corp. Through high school and college he performed regularly and studied with Mel Brown and Charles Dowd at the University of Oregon prior to transferring to North Texas State University. A move back to Seattle in 1981 he played an extended engagement with Glider and never left.
The early Eighties saw Bishop as a member of the fusion group Blue Sky and for 20 years was a member of New Stories with pianist Marc Seales and bassist Doug Miller. They had four CDs of their own, six with the late be-bop saxophonist Don Lanphere, and a Grammy nominated recording with Mark Murphy, among others. They were a house trio for 17 years at Bud Shank’s Pt. Townsend Jazz Festival.
In 1997 John started the jazz label Origin Records, which was later named Jazzweek’s 2009 Label Of The Year, and OriginArts, a graphic design & CD production company, to help further the exposure of creative artists and their music. In partnership with his ex-drum student, Matt Jorgensen, and released over 750 recordings by 370 artists from around the world. 2003 saw them begin Seattle’s annual 4-day Ballard Jazz FestivalIn 2002 they added another jazz label, OA2 Records, a classical imprint, Origin Classical in 2008. Bishop has designed over eight hundred recording packages and multiple book covers, banners, posters, and other graphics for clients around the globe.
He has taught drums privately for 40 years, was on the faculty at the University of Washington from 2005-2009, and is presently adjunct at the Cornish College of the Arts. He regularly does drum and jazz workshops throughout the country, often with Hal Galper, including at the University of North Texas, University of Indiana, Dartmouth, Cal Arts, The New School, Purchase Conservatory-NYC, William Paterson University, University of Louisville, San Jose State University, The Jazz School- Berkeley, and Kent State University, to name a few.
He’s appeared on more than a hundred albums, and was inducted into the Seattle Jazz Hall of Fame in 2008, and named a Jazz Hero by the Jazz Journalists Association in 2019. Drummer and record producer John Bishop continues to pursue his endeavors in the industry.
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Three Wishes
Pannonica asked Benny Winestone what his three wishes would be and he said:
- “There’s only one wish in the world I would want: a visa to enter the United States legally.”
- “There’s only two other wishes, and that’s money and youth. What else could I wish for? That’s it!.”
*Excerpt from Three Wishes: An Intimate Look at Jazz Greats ~ Compiled and Photographed by Pannonica de Koenigswarter
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