Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Fred Ramsey was born Charles Frederic Ramsey, Jr. on January 29, 1915 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania and received his BA at Princeton University in 1936. After graduation he took jobs at Harcourt Brace until 1939, the United States Department of Agriculture from 1941 to 1942, and then with Voice of America.
In 1939 with Charles Edward Smith, he wrote Jazzmen, an early landmark of jazz scholarship particularly noted for its treatment of the life of King Oliver. After receiving Guggenheim fellowships, Fred visited the American South in the middle of the 1950s to make field recordings and do interviews with rural musicians, some of which were used in releases by Folkways Records and in a 1957 documentary, Music of the South.
He curated an anthology of early jazz recordings for Folkways, titled simply Jazz. Ramsey worked with the Institute of Jazz Studies at Rutgers University from 1970. He researched Buddy Bolden’s life with a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities in 1974–75 and continued with a Ford Foundation grant in 1975–76. He presented early jazz interviews on National Public Radio in 1987.
Writer and record producer Fred Ramsey, who authored six books on jazz, passed away on March 18, 1995 in Paterson, New Jersey.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Malcolm Cecil was born on January 9, 1937 in London, England. By the time he came of age he was a founding member of the UK’s leading jazz quintet of the late 1950s, The Jazz Couriers, before going on to join a number of British jazz combos led by Dick Morrissey, Tony Crombie and Ronnie Scott into the early 1960s.
Malcolm later joined Cyril Davies and Alexis Korner to form the original line-up of Blues Incorporated. With Robert Margouleff he formed the duo TONTO’s Expanding Head Band, a project based on a unique combination of synthesizers. This led to them collaborating on and co-producing several of Stevie Wonder’s Grammy-winning albums Talking Book, Music of My Mind, Innervisions and Fulfillingness’ First Finale of the early 1970s. They are also credited as engineers for the Stevie Wonder produced 1974 album Perfect Angel by Minnie Riperton.
Their unique sound made them highly sought-after and they went on to venture in not only jazz, but rock and r&b to collaborate with, amongst others, Quincy Jones, Gil Scott-Heron, Weather Report, Bobby Womack, The Isley Brothers, Billy Preston, Stephen Stills, The Doobie Brothers, Dave Mason, Little Feat, Joan Baez and Steve Hillage. Bassist, engineer and record producer Malcolm Cecil continues to perform and produce.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Simon Brehm was born on December 31, 1921 in Sweden and learned to play the double~bass. He recorded three albums with Quincy Jones. Later in life, he became a record producer and owner of Karusell Records.
Very little is known or written about this musician, but he managed singer Lill-Babs and was the leader of the orchestra that played in the TV show Hylands hörna from 1962.
Double~bassist, composer, and record producer Simon Brehm passed away on February 11, 1967 at the age of 45
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Gil Rodin was born in Russia on December 9, 1906 and studied saxophone, clarinet, flute, and trumpet in his youth. He played in Chicago, Illinois with Art Kahn in the middle of the 1920s. Moving to California and played with Harry Bastin before joining Ben Pollack in 1927, remaining in his band until 1934.
He simultaneously did studio work and played with Red Nichols’s radio band. Making his only recordings as a leader in 1930-31, amounting to four tracks which included Jack Teagarden on vocals, he also enlisted Eddie Miller and Benny Goodman as sidemen.
After Pollack’s band dissolved in 1934, Gil played with some of the players in the group until Bob Crosby regrouped them into his own ensemble. Rodin remained with Crosby through 1942, when he was drafted. While serving in the Army he played in the Artillery Band and after his discharge in 1944 he played with Ray Bauduc for a year, then with Crosby again.
His major composition was Big Noise from Winnetka, for which he wrote the lyrics with Bob Crosby. The music was written by Ray Bauduc and Bob Haggart. The song appeared in the films Raging Bull, Cannery Row, Manhattan Murder Mystery, Saving Mr. Banks, and What If.
Later in his career, Gil worked radio and television production, with Bill Cosby among others. He produced the soundtracks to the films American Graffiti and The Sting. Saxophonist, songwriter, and record producer Gil Rodin passed away on June 10, 1974.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Harry Lim was born on February 23, 1919 in Batavia, Jakarta, Indonesia. He grew up in the Netherlands where he became very fond of jazz, moving to the U.S. in 1939. After working as a freelance record producer, he was the Keystone label’s jazz producer from 1943-46, putting together scores of classic sessions. His emphasis was on small-group jazz that ranged from Dixieland to bop but mostly focused on top swing all-stars.
Although he was a lifelong fan of jazz, he was primarily active in jazz during two different periods. The quality of the music under Harry’s guidance was very high but unfortunately, however, in 1946 John Hammond replaced him and Keynote subsequently declined and became defunct. Lim had his own short-lived HL label in 1949, produced a few obscure sessions for Seeco, and tried reviving Keynote in 1955, but ended up working at Sam Goody’s New York record store from 1956-73.
During his years at Keystone he was able to produce sessions by Count Basie, Roy Eldridge, Cozy Cole, Barney Bigard, George Barnes, Paul Gonsalves, Bud Freeman, Ann Hathaway, Coleman Hawkins, J.C. Heard, Neal Hefti, Earl Hines, Milt Hinton, Chubby Jackson, Ted Nash, Jonah Jones, Paul Robeson, Red Rodney, Charlie Shavers, Wilie Smith, Rex Stewart, Juan Tizol, Dinah Washington, Lennie Tristano, George Wetting, Lester Young, and the list just goes on.
Harry didn’t return to producing until 1972 when he formed the Famous Door label, a top mainstream record company that recorded a variety of valuable and now hard-to-find sessions with Bill Watrous, Red Norvo, Zoot Sims, and others up until his death.
Record producer Harry Lim passed away on July 27, 1990 in New York City. He was most active on the jazz scene between 1940s to through the 1950s, and happily was still living when Polygram reissued all of the Keynote jazz sessions on a huge LP box set in 1986.
Dose A Day – Blues Away
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