Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Kathy Stobart was born Florence Kathleen Stobart in the coastal town of South Shields, England on April 1, 1925. She first learned piano and alto saxophone as a child. After picking up her brother’s tenor saxophone and a month’s trial, she first played in Don Rico’s all-girl band at the age of 14 and then locally in Newcastle.
It wasn’t until her joining the Peter Fielding ballroom orchestra that her interest in jazz peaked. She met saxophonists Keith Bird and Derek Neville, who were then stationed at a local RAF camp. They bought her ten jazz records for my 17th birthday and Bird painstakingly took her through various harmonic exercises and saw to it that she succeeded him when he vacated a quartet job in London in late 1942.
Moving to London in the 1940s she began playing with Denis Rose, Ted Heath and Jimmy Skidmore. Later in the decade Stobart played with Art Pepper and Peanuts Hucko. Before the end of the Forties she played with and had a brief marriage with Art Thompson.
She toured with Vic Lewis in 1949 and led her own group in early 1950s, among its members was Derek Humble, Dill Jones and Bert Courtley, whom she married in 1951 until his death in 1969. Throughout the 1950s and 60s Kathy went into semiretirement to raise her family.
Returning to performing, from 1969 to 1977 she played with Humphrey Lyttelton. Following this she led her own groups, with Harry Beckett, John Burch and Lennie Best among others. Aside from this she played with Johnny Griffin, Al Haig, Earl Hines, Buddy Tate, Zoot Sims, Marian McPartland and Dick Hyman.
From 1992 she was paying with Lyttelton again adding flute, clarinet and baritone saxophone to her arsenal of instruments. Tenor saxophonist Kathy Stobart, who held lengthy teaching assignments at City Literature Institute in London, passed away on July 5, 2014.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Lanny Morgan was born March 30, 1934 in Des Moines, Iowa and raised in Los Angeles, California. In the 1950s he played with Charlie Barnet, Si Zentner, Terry Gibbs and Bob Florence.
He did a stint in the U.S. military and had to turn down an offer to play in the Stan Kenton orchestra. From 1960-65 he played in Maynard Ferguson’s orchestra after a few years in New York City Morgan returned to Los Angeles in 1969. There he did frequent studio work, performed sessions with Nancy Sinatra and Carmen McRae,
He was a member of Supersax and played in the big bands of Bill Berry, Bob Florence and Bill Holman. Alto saxophonist Lanny Morgan has chiefly been active on the West Coast jazz scene.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
James Hal Kemp was born March 27, 1904 in Marion, Alabama. He studied and learned to play the saxophone and clarinet and while at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill he formed his own campus jazz group, the Carolina Club Orchestra. They recorded for English Columbia and Perfect/Pathé Records in 1924 and toured Europe that same summer under the sponsorship of bandleader Paul Specht.
Kemp returned to UNC in 1925 and put together a new edition of the Carolina Club Orchestra, featuring classmates and future stars John Scott Trotter, Saxie Dowell and Skinnay Ennis. By 1927 he turned professional and turned over the orchestra to Kay Kyser.
Basing his band in New York City, Hal’s group included Trotter, Dowell, and Ennis, and later joined by trumpeters Bunny Berigan and Jack Purvis. The sound was 1920s collegiate jazz and in the Thirties he toured Europe again and recorded regularly for Brunswick, English Duophone, Okeh and Melotone record labels.
During the height of the Depression in 1932 Kemp changed the orchestra’s style to a dance band. He incorporated an early version of the echo effect using large megaphones for the clarinets, muted trumpets and a double-octave piano. Vocalists with the band during the 1930s included Ennis, Dowell, Bob Allen, Deane Janis, Maxine Gray, Judy Starr, Nan Wynn and Janet Blair.
Hal’s band was one of the most popular bands in the 1930s and was often featured performing on NBC and CBS radio shows. The band also appeared in numerous motion-picture short subjects and was featured in the 1938 RKO film Radio City Revels. He had hits with There’s A Small Hotel, Lamplight, I Got A Date With An Angel, You’re The Top, Lullaby Of Broadway and Where or When.
On December 19, 1940, alto saxophonist, clarinetist, bandleader, composer and arranger Hal Kemp while driving from Los Angeles to a booking in San Francisco, his car collided head-on with a truck. Breaking a leg and several ribs, one of which punctured a lung, he developed pneumonia while in the hospital and died two days later in Madera, California. He was inducted into the Big Band and Jazz hall of Fame in 1992.
Dose A Day-Blues Away
Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Sherman Irby was born and raised in Tuscaloosa, Alabama on March 24, 1968. He found his calling to music at age 12 and in high school he played saxophone and recorded with gospel immortal James Cleveland. Graduating from Clark Atlanta University with a B. A. in Music Education, in 1991, he joined Johnny O’Neal’s Atlanta-based quintet.
1994 saw Irby moving to New York City and immediately became a part of the jazz scene at Smalls jazz club. Catching the attention of Blue Note Records. He subsequently recorded his first two albums, Full Circle in 1996 and Big Mama’s Biscuits in 1998 on the label. He toured the U.S. and the Caribbean with the Boys Choir of Harlem in 1995, and was a member of the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra from 1995 to 1997. During that tenure, he also recorded and toured with Marcus Roberts, Roy Hargrove and was part of Betty Carter’s Jazz Ahead Program.
After a four-year stint with Roy Hargrove, he focused on his own group, in addition to being a member of Elvin Jones’ ensemble and Papo Vazquez’s Pirates Troubadours. Since 2003, Irby has been the regional director for the Jazz Masters Workshop, mentoring young children, and a board member for the CubaNOLA Collective. Saxophonist and composer Sherman Irby formed Black Warrior Records and has released Black Warrior, Faith, Organ Starter and Live at the Otto Club under the new label. Post-bop alto saxophonist Sherman Irby has re-joined Jazz At Lincoln Center Orchestra with Wynton Marsalis and currently continues to perform with his quartet and his group Organomics.
Put A Dose In Your Pocket
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Willie Maiden was born William Ralph “Willie” Maiden in Detroit, Michigan on March 12, 1928. He began on piano at age five and started playing saxophone at 11. He spent most of his career playing in big bands, and while he copiously recorded as a sideman, he never led his own session.
Willie worked with Perez Prado in 1950 and arranged for Maynard Ferguson from 1952 into the 1960s. He played with Charlie Barnet in 1966, and played baritone sax in addition to arranging for Stan Kenton between 1969 and 1973.
As an educator, hard bop tenor saxophonist and arranger Willie Maiden who also played alto and baritone, taught at the University of Maine in Augusta until his passing on May 29,1976.
Inspire A Young Mind
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