Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Herbie Fields was born May 24, 1919 in Asbury Park, New Jersey and attended Juilliard School of Music. He served two years in the Army during WWII until 1943. He began recording in 1944 with two sides for Bob Thiele’s Signature label and over the next year and a half he recorded for Savoy, and shared a date with “Rubberlegs” Williams that featured teenaged Miles Davis’ recording debut.
Fields replaced Earl Bostic as alto saxophonist in Lionel Hampton’s band and was fluent in a variety of reed instruments, from clarinet to baritone saxophone. In 1945, he won Esquire Magazine’s New Star Award on the Alto Sax. In 1946, RCA Victor signed Fields as leader of his own big band.
Herbie would lead the big band with sidemen Neal Hefti, Bill Evans, Eddie Bert, Manny Albam, Marty Napoleon and Serge Chaloff among others and Dardanella was their biggest hit. He formed a septet in 1949 based in Chicago that backed numerous stage shows and in 1950 accompanied Billie Holiday 3-month East Coast tour.
Fields gravitated toward an R& B conception in the Fifties without success and recorded sporadically. He moved to Miami, Florida, opened a restaurant and on September 17, 1958 alto saxophonist Herbie Fields died of an overdose of sleeping pills at his home.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Ken Peplowski was born May 23, 1959 in Cleveland, Ohio. He began playing clarinet and saxophone in Polish polka bands as a child and played his first professional gig while still in elementary school. With his trumpeter brother they played local radio and television shows, dances and weddings all through high school. By his teens Ken was experimenting with jazz, playing in the school bands, jamming with the local jazz musicians and teaching at the local music store.
After a year of college, he joined the Tommy Dorsey Orchestra under the direction of Buddy Morrow. It was during this time that he met Sonny Stitt who became a great inspiration. In 1980 Peplowski moved to New York City and played from Dixieland to avant-garde jazz. He would work for Benny Goodman, recorded some 20 albums for Concord Records, toured around the world, recorded film soundtracks and most recently signed with Nagel-Heyer Records.
His collaborations include Mel Tormé, Leon Redbone, Charlie Byrd, Peggy Lee, Madonna, George Shearing, Hank Jones, Rosemary Clooney, Tom Harrell, James Moody, Cedar Walton, Houston Person, Steve Allen and Woody Allen among others. Jazz clarinetist and saxophonist Ken Peplowski continues to perform, tour, record, conduct student workshops, has been named the jazz advisor for the Oregon Festival of American Music and music director at the Jazz Party at the Shedd.
Clarinetist and tenor saxophonist Ken Peplowski passed away quietly in his cabin on February 2, 2026 while participating in the Jazz Cruise aboard the Celebrity Summit sailing in the Gulf of Mexico.
Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Charles Davis was born on May 20, 1933 in Mississippi but was raised in Chicago, Illinois. Graduating from DuSable High School he continued his musical study of the saxophone at the Chicago School of Music and privately under John Hauser. In the 1950s he played in the bands of Billie Holiday, Ben Webster, Dinah Washington and extensively with Sun Ra and Archie Shepp. He teamed up with Kenny Dorham, performing and recording for many years together.
An accomplished tenor and alto saxophonist, Charles was widely known for his baritone, winning Downbeat Magazine’s 1964 International Jazz Critics Poll for the baritone saxophone. Throughout his career he would perform in the musical production of “The Philosophy of The Spiritual – A Masque of the Black”, teach public school in Brooklyn, the Jazzmobile Workshop and at the New School, be the musical director of The Turntable, a nightclub owned by Lloyd Price, and tour Europe several times.
Davis would be a member of the cooperative group “Artistry in Music” with Hank Mobley, Cedar Walton, Sam Jones and Billy Higgins, and was the co-leader and composer/arranger for the Baritone Saxophone Retinue. His numerous collaborations, performances and recordings both as a leader and sideman with a who’s who of his contemporaries such as Elvin Jones, Jimmy Garrison, Illinois Jacquet, Freddie Hubbard, Johnny Griffin, Steve Lacy, Ahmad Jamal, Blue Mitchell, Erskine Hawkins, John Coltrane and Clifford Jordan among many others. Alto, tenor and baritone saxophonist Charles Davis continued to enjoy a prolific career until his passing on July 15, 2016.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Virginia Mayhew was born on May 14, 1959 in San Francisco, California and took up the saxophone as a child. Early in her career she worked with trombonist Al Grey and contributing arrangements for several recordings. In 1987 she became active on the New York jazz scene, playing with the likes of Earl “Fatha” Hines, Junior Mance, Toshiko Akiyoshi, Doc Cheatham, Joe Williams, Kenny Barron, Ingrid Jensen, Chico O’Farrill and the list continues.
She has performed all over the world in concert and festivals, and has twice been a U.S. Jazz Ambassador. Mayhew would go on to work with Brazilian trumpeter Claudio Roditi, become a member of the Howard Williams Big Band, Carl Thompson and Friends, and the Lou Caputo “Not So Big Band” in conjunction with freelancing around New York.
Virginia is currently the Musical Director and saxophonist of the 9-piece Duke Ellington Legacy group, leads her own quartet and septet, recorded and released a Mary Lou Williams project featuring Wycliffe Gordon, and is working on a project that replaces drums with tap dancing.
As an educator she teaches privately, is on the faculty of the summer jazz camps at Stanford Jazz Workshop, Monterey Jazz Festival, Litchfield Jazz Camp along with conducting clinics at U-Mass, University of Louisville, Bloomington University, Williams College among others. She has worked with Don Braden’s “Jazz For Teens” and Melissa Walker’s “Jazz House Kids”. Tenor saxophonist Virginia Mayhew continues to perform, compose, arrange, adjudicate and teach and establish the “Jazz Workshop” at the Greenwich House Music School in New York City.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Klaus Doldinger was born on May 12, 1936 in Berlin, Germany. By age eleven he entered a Dusseldorf conservatory originally studying piano and then clarinet, graduating in 1957. During his student years, he gained professional performing experience in 1953 with the German Dixieland band The Feetwarmers, recording with them in 1955. Later that same year he founded Oscar’s Trio, modeled on Oscar Peterson’s work.
During the 1960s Klaus worked as a tenor saxophonist, working with visiting American jazz musicians and recording in his own right. Doldinger is perhaps best known for his film scores to the acclaimed German U-boat film Das Boot and The Never Ending Story. He was an honored recipient of the Bavarian Film Awards in 1997.
Doldinger created a recurring jazz project Passport in 1971 that mirrors Weather Report and still enjoys huge success in Germany. He has worked with Johnny Griffin, Brian Auger, Ernst Stroer, Pete York and Michael Hornek among others. Saxophonist Klaus Doldinger died on the evening of October 16, 2025 at his home in Icking, Germany at the age of 89.
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