Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Russell Procope was born on August 11, 1908 in New York City and grew up in San Juan Hill, attending school with Benny Carter. His first instrument was the violin, but he switched to clarinet and alto saxophone. He began his professional career in 1926 as a member of Billy Freeman’s orchestra. At the age of twenty he recorded with Jelly Roll Morton and went on to play with bands led by Benny Carter, Chick Webb, Fletcher Henderson, Tiny Bradshaw, Teddy Hill, King Oliver and Willie Bryant by the mid-Thirties.
Procope would play with Roy Eldridge, Bill Coleman, Frank Newton, Dizzy Gillespie, Dickie Wells and Chu Berry. He made his first trip to Europe in 1937 as part of Teddy Hill’s band with “The Cotton Club Revue,” an all-Black show, which during its European tour appeared at the London Palladium.
In 1938 Russell replaced Pete Brown in John Kirby’s sextet and made a name for himself until 1945 with a three-year interruption in the Armed Services during World War II. He joined the reed section of the Ellington orchestra in ’46 as an alto saxophonist but made his name and reputation as a clarinetist. During the summer of 1950 the band returned to Europe bringing him back once again as a member and he stayed until the bandleader’s death in 1974,
Playing alto saxophone he recorded the 1956 album “The Persuasive Sax of Russ Procope” under the London Records label. Although his early playing reflected the influence of Benny Carter, alto saxophonist and clarinetist Russell Procope, most highly regarded for his woody, understated clarinet solos, lyrical approach and forceful swinging attack, passed away on January 21, 1981.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Benny Carter was born Bennett Lester Carter on August 8, 1907 in New York City. He received his first piano lessons from his mother but was largely self-taught. Growing up in Harlem under the influence of trumpeter Bubber Miley and was inspired to buy his own. Unable to play like Miley, he switched to saxophone.
By age fifteen he was sitting in at Harlem night spots and from 1924 to 1928, Carter gained valuable professional experience as a sideman in some of New York’s top bands. For the next two years he played with such jazz greats as cornetist Rex Stewart, Sidney Bechet, Earl Hines, Willie “The Lion” Smith, Fats Waller, James P. Johnson, Duke Ellington and others.
His first recordings of a prolific catalogue were made in 1928 with the Charlie Johnson’s Orchestra and he formed his first big band the following year. In the early 30s he played with Fletcher Henderson, led the McKinney’s Cotton Pickers in Detroit, then returned to New York to once again lead his own band. He would work with Sid Catlett, Chu Berry, Teddy Wilson and Dicky Wells.
Benny’s name first appeared on records with a 1932 Crown label, then on Columbia, Okeh and Vocalion. In 1935 he moved to Europe to play trumpet with Willie Lewis’s orchestra, became staff arranger for the BBC dance orchestra, made several records, returned home in 1938, formed another orchestra and spent much of 1939 and 1940 at Harlem’s Savoy Ballroom. He relocated to Los Angeles in 1943, moved increasingly into studio work and arrange for dozens of feature films and television productions, influencing and mentoring Quincy Jones, as well as arranging for Billie Holiday, Sarah Vaughan, Billy Eckstine, Pearl Bailey, Ray Charles, Peggy Lee, Lou Rawls, Louis Armstrong and Mel Torme among others over the course of his career.
Carter has been honored as a jazz master by the National Endowment for the Arts, received the National Medal of Arts from President Clinton, was a Kennedy Center honoree, was awarded the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award, won six Grammy Awards, has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame and was inducted into the Downbeat Jazz Hall of Fame.
Alto saxophonist, clarinetist, trumpeter, composer, arranger and bandleader Benny Carter, who was a major figure known as “King” in the jazz community and the only musician to record in eight different decades, passed away on July 12, 2003 in Los Angeles, California at age 95.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Eric Alexander was born August 4, 1968 in Galesburg, Illinois and began as a classical musician studying piano at six, clarinet at nine, switching to alto saxophone three years later. While at Indiana University he switched to the tenor saxophone and jazz before transferring to William Paterson University where he studied with Harold Mabern, Rufus Reid, Joe Lovano, Gary Smulyan, Ralph LaLama, Norman Simmons, Steve Turre and many others.
Alexander first achieved fame by finishing second behind Joshua Redman and ahead of Chris Potter at the 1991 Thelonious Monk International Jazz Saxophone Competition. He was quickly signed and began recording his more than three-dozen albums as a leader and collaborator.
Influenced primarily by Sonny Stitt, Dexter Gordon and George Coleman, playing in the hard bop and post-bop styles, he has worked with such notables as Ron Carter, Joe Farnsworth, Pat Martino, Peter Bernstein, Vincent Herring, Grant Stewart and Mike LeDonne among others. Alto saxophonist Eric Alexander continues to record and tour as a leader, extensively with the sextet One For All.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
James Spaulding was born July 30, 1937 in Indianapolis, Indiana and started playing bugle while in grade school. He later learned to play trumpet and saxophone and flute. While in high school he studied clarinet and made his professional debut around his hometown in a rhythm and blues band.
After a three-year enlistment in the Army he settled to Chicago in 1957 leading his own groups. It was during this period he joined the Sun Ra Arkestra, making several recordings and remaining through 1959, while furthering his studies of flute at the Chicago Cosmopolitan School of Music. Spaulding subsequently freelanced as a studio musician and occasionally led his own groups before returning to Indianapolis in 1961.
Relocating to New York City in 1963, he recorded extensively for Blue Note Records as a sideman, and led several sessions as a leader for Storyville, Muse, 32 and High Note. He was also a member of the World Saxophone Quartet and recorded with Grant Green, Freddie Hubbard, Bobby Hutcherson, Lee Morgan, David Murray, Duke Pearson, Sam Rivers, Pharoah Sanders, Wayne Shorter, Stanley Turrentine, Larry Young and others.
As an educator he taught flute as an adjunct professor at Livingston College in New Jersey. Alto saxophonist James Spaulding continues to perform and record.
Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Johnny Hodges was born John Keith Hodges on July 25, 1906 in Cambridge, Massachusetts but soon after the family moved to Boston. Growing up with baritone saxophonist Harry Carney and saxophonists Charlie Holmes and Howard E. Johnson, he started out on drums and piano and was mostly self-taught. He became good enough to play the piano at dances in private homes. By the time he was a teenager, he took up the soprano saxophone and around this time he picked up the nickname “Rabbit”, either for his ability to outrun truant officers or his nibbling on lettuce and tomato sandwiches.
When Hodges was 14 he saw Sidney Bechet, introduced himself, played a tune, received encouragement to continue to play and grew a name for himself in the Boston area till he moved to New York in 1924, able to play both the alto and soprano saxophone.
Hodges started playing with Lloyd Scott, Sidney Bechet, Lucky Roberts and Chick Webb. In 1928 he joined the Ellington orchestra and became one of the identifying voices on both alto and soprano sax. Leaving Duke in 1951 to lead his own band, he returned four years later shortly before Ellington’s 1956 performance at the Newport Jazz Festival. Ellington would write pieces like “Confab with Rab”, “Jeep’s Blues”, “Sultry Sunset”, “Hodge Podge” and “Prelude To A Kiss” among many others that featured Hodge.
Johnny’s pure tone and economy of melody on both the blues and ballads won him admiration from musicians of all eras and styles, from Ben Webster to John Coltrane, who both played with him when he had his own orchestra in the 1950s, to Lawrence Welk, who featured him in an album of standards.
Alto saxophonist Johnny Hodges’ last recordings are featured on the New Orleans Suite album and his final performances were at the Imperial Room in Toronto, less than a week before his death from a heart attack on May 11, 1970. He is considered one of the definitive alto saxophones players of swing in the Big Band Era and of mainstream jazz.
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