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Hal Singer was born Harold Joseph Singer on October 8, 1919 in Greenwood, the Black section of Tulsa, Oklahoma. After surviving the Tulsa Race Massacre of 1921, he grew up in Greenwood where he studied violin as a child but, as a teenager, switched to clarinet and then tenor saxophone, which became his instrument of choice. From the late 1930s he began playing in local bands, including Ernie Fields’, before joining Jay McShann’s orchestra in 1943. Moving to New York he worked in other bands, then joined Oran “Hot Lips” Page’s band in 1947 and began working as a session musician with King Records.
By early 1948 Hal left Page, formed his own small group, and was signed to Mercury Records where he cut his first single Fine As Wine with a B side Rock Around the Clock co-written with Sam Theard and not the same title made famous by Bill Haley. He got his nickname when he recorded the tune Corn Bread for the Savoy label in Newark, New Jersey after the instrumental reached #1 on the R&B charts later that year.
The early to mid 1950s he continued recording with Mercury, toured with The Orioles and Charles Brown, and increased his work as a session musician. In 1958 he began recording with Prestige Records as a jazz soloist and performing at the Metropole Cafe in New York with jazz musicians such as Roy Eldridge and Coleman Hawkins. In 1965, after touring Europe with Earl “Fatha” Hines’ band, Singer stayed in France and settled near Paris. He continued to record and tour extensively around Europe and Africa, performing with various bands including Charlie Watts’ and the Duke Ellington Orchestra.
Hal’s 1969 album, Paris Soul Food, featured him on saxophone and singing; Robin Hemingway, vocals, arrangements and album production; and Manu Dibango, saxophone, organ and arrangements that won a French Record Academy award for best international LP in 1969. He went on a State Department tour of Africa in 1974 with Horace Parlan, appeared on the 1981 live recording Rocket 88 with the UK-based boogie-woogie band and in the summer of 1981 recorded two albums for John Stedman’s JSP record label, Swing On It, with Jim Mullen, Peter King, Mike Carr and Harold Smith, while the second Big Blues, recorded a day later with the same group, also featured Jimmy Witherspoon.
Singer shared artist billing along with Al Copley for 1989’s Royal Blue, appeared as an actor in the award-winning 1990 feature film Taxi Blues and in 1992 was awarded the title of Chevalier des Arts by the French government. A documentary film, Hal Singer, Keep the Music Going, was made by Haitian-American director Guetty Felin in 1999, in which he shares a duet with Jessica Care Moore. He was also an educator teaching jazz to younger generations of French jazz musicians. Bandleader and tenor saxophonist Hal Cornbread Singer recorded sixteen albums as a leader and currently is 96 years of age.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Born Martin Flachsenhaar, Jr. in New York City on October 7, 1924, Marty Flax played flute, clarinet and trombone in addition to baritone saxophone. He was a mainstay in the bands of Louis Jordan, Dizzy Gillespie, Perez Prado, and Tito Puente. He was also a member of the bands that performed on the soundtracks composed by Raymond Scott.
Marty worked with Les Elgart and Claude Thornhill in the late 1950s, then with Quincy Jones, Melba Liston and Gillespie, including on the State Department tours of the Middle East and South America.
Early in the 1960s he again toured South America with the Woody Herman Orchestra. When not on tour he led a house band at the Cafe Society and worked with Sammy Davis, Jr. and Buddy Rich recording on the Reprise, Norgran and Verve labels.
Baritone saxophonist Marty Flax, a consummate sideman and bandleader who never recorded under his own name, passed away on July 3, 1972.
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Carmen Leggio was born on September 30, 1927 in Tarrytown, New York. His last name literally translates to “music stand” and he taught himself to play at the age of nine. He began on clarinet, imitating Artie Shaw on the radio. At 14, he switched to tenor sax and began playing in clubs in his hometown of Tarrytown, a suburb just north of New York City.
He quit high school because he knew he was destined to be a musician and after playing the local scene, he moved to New York City in 1950. There he first worked with Terry Gibbs and became a studio musician.
His notable associations from the Fifties through the Seventies were with Marty Napoleon, Sol Yaged, Benny Goodman, the Maynard Ferguson Orchestra, Woody Herman and the Thad Jones/Mel Lewis Orchestra.
He went on to play with Gene Krupa, Buddy Rich, Dizzy Gillespie, and Doc Severinsen. Carmen has appeared on television, in movies, at the Newport Jazz Festival, Birdland and Carnegie Hall. Since 1961 and for the rest of his career Leggio played the same instrument, a Gold Medal SML made in France by Strasser, Marigaux & Lemaire with a Selmer D mouthpiece. He continued to perform Stardust, Nightmare and Begin the Beguine on an old King metal clarinet.
In his final years, he performed in various clubs and restaurants throughout Westchester. Tenor saxophonist Carmen Leggio passed away in Tarrytown on April 17, 2009.
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Raymond Kenneth Warleigh was born on September 28, 1938 in Sydney, New South Wales, Australia. He migrated to England in 1960, where he quickly established himself as an in-demand session player.
He played and recorded with many major figures and bands of the UK jazz and blues scene, including Alexis Korner, Tubby Hayes, Humphrey Lyttelton, Terry Smith, Ronnie Scott, Long John Baldry, John Mayall, Allan Holdsworth, Soft Machine, Georgie Fame, Mike Westbrook, Dick Morrissey and Kenny Wheeler, as well as Mike Oldfield, Nick Drake, and Charlie Watts. He accompanied visiting artists such as Champion Jack Dupree and his successful 30-year career partnered him with Dusty Springfield, Marianne Faithfull, Scott Walker and Stevie Wonder, among others.
Warleigh’s First Album was released in 1968 and in 1971 he played saxophone and clarinet with the loosely connected UK folk group P. C. Kent. In 1973 he joined Latin fusion band Paz, led by vibist and composer Dick Crouch. He featured with the band for 8 years playing a weekly Sunday residency at the Kensington, a pub in Holland Park.
He recorded seven albums as a leader as well as his sideman sessions with for Spotlite, Magnus and Paladin Record labels producing Kandeen Love Song, Paz Are Back , Paz Live at Chichester Festival and Look Inside. Members of the band were Dick Crouch leader and vibes, guitarist Ed Speight, Geoff Castle on keyboards, bass guitarist Ron Mathewson, drummer Dave Sheen and percussionist Chris Fletcher. His critically acclaimed last album Rue Victor Massé was issued in 2009 and is an improvisation with free-jazz drummer Tony Marsh.
In his leisure time he was an accomplished yachtsman before serious illness struck in 2011. Alto saxophonist and flautist Ray Warleigh passed away of cancer on September 21, 2015.
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Lynn Hope was born on September 26, 1926 in Birmingham, Alabama and was noted for his apparel and instrumental remakes of established pre-rock pop anthems. He joined King Kolax’s band when he graduated from high school during the 1940s. He later converted to Islam becoming known for wearing a turban, though few ever called him by his Muslim name, Al Hajji Abdullah Rascheed Ahmed.
He signed with Miracle Records in 1950, but the contract proving invalid moved to Premium Records, There he cut Tenderly, a song that was later picked up by the Chess label. Hope recorded often for Aladdin Records between 1951 and 1957, doing interpretations of such jazz standards as September Song and Summertime. While these numbers were often performed with little or no melodic embellishment or improvisation, the flip sides were often fierce up tempo blues or jump tunes.
Tenderly earned him his only hit in 1950, reaching number eight R&B and #19 pop charts. He made his last sessions for King in 1960, then fell from sight. Tenor saxophonist Lynn Hope passed away on February 24, 1993.
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