Daily Dose Of Jazz…
George James was born in Boggs, Oklahoma on December 7, 1906. His career didn’t begin until the late 1920s joining the bands of Charlie Creath and Johnny Neal. He moved to Chicago, Illinois in 1928, where he played with Jimmie Noone, Sammy Stewart, Ida Marples, Jabbo Smith, and Bert Hall.
In 1931 through the first quarter of 1932 he toured with Louis Armstrong, and at the end of the tour he remained in New York City. There he joined the Savoy Bearcats and later played with Charlie Turner’s Arcadians. By the middle of the decade Fats Waller assumed leadership of the Arcadians, and James played under him until 1937.
Finishing the decade playing in the Blackbirds Revue, early in the 1940s he worked with James P. Johnson, Benny Carter, Teddy Wilson, and Lucky Millinder, and led his own bandhttps://notoriousjazz.com/jazz-type/swing/daily-dose-of-jazz-3977↗ in 1943-44. Later in the decade James played with Claude Hopkins and Noble Sissle.
He was active both as a leader and a sideman into the 1970s, playing with Clyde Bernhardt and the Harlem Blues and Jazz Band in that decade. Saxophonist, clarinetist, and flautist George James died on January 30, 1995 in Columbus, Ohio.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Theodor Christian Frølich Bergh, better known as Totti Bergh was born December 5, 1935 in Oslo, Norway. He began playing clarinet, and started learning to play the saxophone in 1952. By the time he turned 21 in 1956, he became a professional musician, becoming a regular member of Kjell Karlsen Sextet for three years, in addition to collaborating sporadically with Rowland Greenberg and other musicians on the Norwegian jazz scene.
He joined the Norwegian America Ships house orchestra on the voyage to New York City. In 1960 Totti succeeded Harald Bergersen as tenor saxophonist in Karlsen’s new big band and in the summer of 1961 he met his future wife Laila Dalseth, who joined the band.
He would go on to play with the bands of Einar Schanke, Rowland Greenberg, Per Borthen and in Dalseth’s orchestra. During the Nineties he played tenor and soprano saxophone with Christiania Jazzband and with Christiania 12.
Saxophonist Totti Bergh, who released several albums as a leader and whose music is reminiscent of Lester Young and Dexter Gordon, died January 4, 2012 in his home city.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Theodore G. Brown was born into a musical family on December 1, 1927 in Rochester, New York. He learned banjo and violin from his father who also taught him to read music at six, and clarinet and tenor sax from his uncle. After playing in army bands from 1945 to 1947 and then in Hollywood, California for the following year, he moved to New York City.
He worked with Lennie Tristano and fellow pupils and associates Lee Konitz and Warne Marsh for two years beginning in 1955. During that time Ted recorded a session for Vanguard, worked with Ronnie Ball, and played a date in Hollywood with Warne Marsh.
>Returning to New York City he worked extensively in clubs. Brown recorded with Konitz in 1959, and again in 1976, while leading his own group in the late Seventies. He also worked and recorded with Art Pepper and Hod O’Brien.
Cool jazz tenor saxophonist Ted Brown, who recorded as a leader or co-leader thirteen albums and as a sideman was a part of five albums with Tristano, Marsh and Konitz, is 97 years old.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Tom Archia was born Ernest Alvin Archia, Jr. on November 26, 1919 in Groveton, Texas, and moved with his family as a child to Rockdale and then Baytown, near Houston, Texas. He played saxophone in the Wheatley High School orchestra. Known during childhood as Sonny, but took the name Tom when he decided that neither his first or middle names were appropriate for a musician.
After graduating from Prairie View A&M University in 1939, he joined Milt Larkin’s band which included Eddie Vinson, Arnett Cobb, and Illinois Jacquet in the reed section and Cedric Haywood as pianist and arranger. 1942 saw Archia arrived in Chicago, Illinois with Larkin for a nine-month residency backing T-Bone Walker at the Rhumboogie Club.
The following year he joined the Roy Eldridge orchestra alongside Ike Quebec, Ted Sturgis, and Doc West that recorded in Chicago for the Brunswick label. He moved to the Rhumboogie Dream Band until mid 1944. Unfortunately he frequently disrupted band discipline and was fired by Marl Young who took over as bandleader.
In 1945 Tom went to Los Angeles, California and joined Howard McGhee’s combo, with Teddy Edwards, among others. Shortly afterwards, he was recording with the brothers Illinois and Russell Jacquet, as well as Helen Humes.
Returning to Chicago in 1946, Archia became a headliner at the Macomba Lounge, recorded extensively for Aristocrat Records during the late Forties, and recorded with Wynonie Harris and Hot Lips Page. He would go on to participate in tenor saxophone duels with Buster Bennett, Gene Ammons, Claude McLin, Hal Singer, Harold Ashby, Porter Kilbert and Lucius Washington.
By the Sixties he was struggling to find gigs and he retired to Houston in 1967, after being temporarily disabled by a broken jaw. After recovering, he played the Houston club circuit for the rest of his life. Tenor saxophonist Tom Archia died on January 16, 1977 at the age of 57.
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