Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Shep Fields was born Saul Feldman in Brooklyn, New York on September 12, 1910, He played the clarinet and tenor saxophone in bands during college. In 1931 he played at the Roseland Ballroom and by 1933 he led a band that played at Grossinger’s Catskill Resort Hotel. In 1934 he replaced the Jack Denny Orchestra at the Hotel Pierre in New York City. He left the Hotel Pierre to join a roadshow with the dancers,Veloz and Yolanda. In 1936 his performance at Chicago’s Palmer House was broadcast on the radio.
The sound of his wife was blowing bubbles into her soda became his trademark that opened each of his shows. Holding a contest in Chicago for fans to suggest a new name for the band and with “rippling” suggested in more than one entry, Fields came up with “Rippling Rhythm.”
By 1936 he received a recording contract with Bluebird Records and had hits Cathedral in the Pines, Did I Remember? and Thanks for the Memory. In 1937 Fields replaced Paul Whiteman in his time slot with a radio show called The Rippling Rhythm Revue with Bob Hope as the announcer. In 1938, Fields and Hope were featured in his first feature-length motion picture, The Big Broadcast of 1938.
In 1941 Fields revamped the band into an all-reeds group, with no brass section. “Shep Fields and His New Music,” featuring band vocalist Ken Curtis. He reverted to Rippling Rhythm in 1947.
He disbanded the group in 1963, moved to Houston, Texas and became a disc jockey, later worked at Creative Management Associates with his brother Freddie. Shep Fields, who made a mark during the Big Band era, passed away on February 23, 1981 at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles, California from a heart attack.
Dose A Day-Blues Away
Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Norris Turney was born on September 8, 1921 in Wilmington, Ohio. He began his career in the Midwest, playing in territory bands such as the Jeter-Pillars Orchestra. He played with Tiny Bradshaw in Chicago, Illinois before moving to New York City, where he played with the Billy Eckstine Orchestra from 1945 to 1946.
Turney had little luck in New York and returned to Ohio to play in local ensembles through the 1950s. He toured with Ray Charles in 1967, then was hired by Duke Ellington, staying from 1969 to 1973. He was hired to play alto saxophone as an “insurance policy” due to the failing health of Johnny Hodges. He also played tenor saxophone and was the first flute soloist to ever play in Ellington’s orchestra.
Following his tenure with Ellington, he joined the Savoy Sultans, the Newport All-Stars and played in several pit orchestras. By the 1980s, he toured and recorded as a member of the Oliver Jackson Quintet, with Ali Jackson, Irvin Stokes, and Claude Black.
He recorded as a leader between 1975 and 1978, with I Let A Song with Booty Wood, Aaron Bell, Sam Woodyard and Raymond Fol. He released Big, Sweet ‘n Blue in 1993 with Larry Willis, Walter Booker and Jimmy Cobb. As a sideman he recorded with Randy Weston, Oliver Jackson and Red Richards. Flautist and saxophonist Norris Turney passed away of kidney failure on January 17, 2001, Kettering, Ohio.
Put A Dose In Your Pocket
Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Ron Blake was born on September 7, 1965 in San Juan, Puerto Rico. He was eight when he began studying the guitar, and at the age of ten, he started learning to play the saxophone after being exposed to the record collection of his father, who was seriously into hard bop, soul-jazz and organ combos.His first saxophone was an alto, but eventually, he learned the tenor, soprano, and baritone saxes, as well as the flute.
After leaving home for the Midwest, Ron graduated from the Interlochen Arts Academy in Michigan before moving to the Chicago area and attending Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois. Though studying classical saxophone with Dr. Frederick Hemke, jazz ultimately won out. By the late Eighties he was playing a lot of bop gigs in Chi-Town, crossing paths with tenor man Von Freeman and pianist Jodie Christian.
Blake moved to Florida in 1991 to accept a teaching position at the University of South Florida. Then it was off to New York City the following year where he spent five years in trumpeter Roy Hargrove’s quintet and seven years in flugelhornist Art Farmer’s group. By the early 2000s, he was leading his own quartet, which included pianist Shedrick Mitchell, bassist Reuben Rogers, and drummer Greg Hutchinson.
Releasing his first album as a leader, Up Front & Personal on the Tahmun label in 2000, was followed in 2003 with a Christian McBride-produced Lest We Forget on the Mack Avenue release that found Ron paying tribute to three soul-jazz greats who had died: saxophonists Grover Washington, Jr. and Stanley Turrentine, and organist Charles Earland.
He is a member of the Saturday Night Live Band, Dion Parson & 21st Century Band and the Grammy-winning Christian McBride Big Band. As an educator he holds a position as professor of Jazz studies at The Juilliard School. His discography has four albums as a leader/co-leader and has more than fifty credits as a sideman for Roy Hargrove, Art Farmer, Reuben Rogers, Joey DeFrancesco, Razor & Tie, Ropeadope, Gerald Wilson, Latin pop group, Yerba Buena, Jack DeJohnette, Michael Cain, Regina Carter, among others.
Saxophonist Ron Blake is also a band leader, composer and music educator who continues to compose, record, and perform.
More Posts: saxophone
Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Ernie Henry was born on September 3, 1926 in Brooklyn, New York. He played in the late 1940s with Tadd Dameron, Fats Navarro, Charlie Ventura, Max Roach, and Dizzy Gillespie. From 1950 to 1952 he was in the band of Illinois Jacquet.
After a few years in the shadows, in the 1950s he returned to play with Thelonious Monk, Charles Mingus, Kenny Dorham, Kenny Drew, Wynton Kelly, Wilbur Ware, Matthew Gee, Art Taylor, Philly Joe Jones and Gillespie again in 1956.
He recorded four albums as a leader for the Riverside label shortly before his death Presenting Ernie Henry, Seven Standards and a Blues, Last Chorus and 2 Horns / 2 Rhythm.
Alto saxophonist Ernie Henry passed away of a heroin overdose at the age of 31 on December 29, 1957 in New York City.
Give A Gift Of Jazz – Share
More Posts: saxophone
Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Buster Smith was born Henry Smith on August 24, 1904 Alsdorf, Texas, the third boy of five and earned the name “Buster” from his parents as he was an overweight baby when his mother gave birth. His early musical influences were his mother, and his father, who played guitar. At the age of four years, Buster and his brother Boston, a pianist, were playing organ, he played the keys and his brother stepped on the pedals. Soon thereafter, believing it would lead to a life of sin, his grandfather gave away the organ.
In 1919, Smith picked cotton for a week to earn himself the money to buy a $3.50 clarinet. He went on to learn to play several instruments by the time he was eighteen years old. Moving to Dallas in 1922, he joined the Voodie White Trio, playing alto saxophone and clarinet. The following year he began his professional career as an alto saxophonist with the medicine shows, though he had to play very loudly to draw in more customers. This experience defined his musical style, becoming known for being loud.
This period led to Oran “Hot Lips” Page inviting Smith to join his group, the Oklahoma City Blue Devils, in 1925. Over the next few years Buster wrote much of the group’s music, learning from banjo player Johnny Clark, writing lyrics with co-workers from the bank that he worked in.
As a Blue Devils he worked alongside Walter Page, Oran Page, Lester Young, Count Basie, Jimmy Rushing, and Emir “Bucket” Coleman. They toured the Kansas City area and the Midwest, playing jazz for a year, bringing all of its members into prominence. Basie and Page both left the group; and shortly afterwards so did Smith. He and Basie formed the Buster Smith-Count Basie Band of Rhythm, where the two innovated a louder style of jazz. Buster’s contribution to the unique sound was by using a tenor saxophone reed in his alto saxophone to achieve a louder, “fatter” sound. Young opted for a heavier reed, using a baritone saxophone reed on his tenor saxophone. This sound was later labelled the Texas Sax Sound.
Smith gained influence in the Texan music community and industry. He mentored saxophonist Charlie Parker during the 1930s, developing a father-son relationship. He played with a host of musicians including Duke Ellington, Ella Fitzgerald and Earl Hines but in 1941 he returned to Dallas and ceased touring but remained active in the local music scene. In the years that followed he wrote for jazz and blues bands, played often, and known as Professor Smith, taught many young Texan musicians, including Aaron “T-Bone” Walker and Red Garland among others. He also performed session work with Pete Johnson’s Boogie-Woogie Boys, Eddie Durham, Leo “Snub” Mosley, Bon and His Buddies, and the Don Redman Orchestra.
In the 1960s, Smith was involved in auto accident, his injuries causing him to give up the saxophone. Not to be dissuaded from performing he took up the bass guitar, led a dance band and played into the mid-Eighties with the Legendary Revelations. Alto saxophonist Buster Smith, who recorded only one album as a leader in 1959, passed away on August 10, 1991 of a heart attack in Dallas, Texas.
Jazz Is Global – Share
More Posts: saxophone