Daily Dose Of Jazz…

James Edward Davis was born in 1915 in Madison, Georgia. He and his family moved to Gary, Illinois, and then to Englewood, New Jersey, where he completed his high school education. Being musically gifted, he was accepted into the Juilliard School in New York City to study piano and composition, his fees being paid by a benefactress.

In the late 1930s he wrote the song Lover Man (Oh, Where Can You Be?) with Ram Ramirez but could not initially place it, until he offered it to Billie Holiday in 1942. However, due to the 1942–44 musicians’ strike Holiday didn’t record the song until 1944. Although at first it was only a minor hit, it soon achieved widespread success and went on to become a jazz standard.

During the early 1940s Davis struggled to make a living as a songwriter and supplemented his meagre royalties by giving piano lessons. Drafted in 1942, but as a member of the NAACP, refused enlistment into the segregated regiment, was ultimately imprisoned for thirteen days, then inducted into the army, serving three and a half years. By 1945, as a warrant officer, he was sent to France for six months, and learned the language. Back home, upon his discharge he left for Hollywood, joined the Actors’ Laboratory Theatre, however his acting career only offered stereotypical racial roles. At the end of 1947 he emigrated to France.

Warmly welcomed in Paris, in part, due to the fame of the song Lover Man, he styled himself Jimmy “Lover Man” Davis and entered a highly creative period, writing a number of songs and placing them with major French performers, such as Yves Montand, Maurice Chevalier, and Joséphine Baker. His songwriting royalties were still insufficient to live on, so he began singing his own songs in solo performances, touring through France, Italy, Holland, Spain, Switzerland and other countries.

Composer, songwriter, vocalist, pianist and actor Jimmy Davis, whose birth and death dates are currently unknown, and who was a close friend of Langston Hughes, transitioned in Paris, France in 1997. His biography, In Search of Jimmy ‘Lover Man’ Davis, was written by Professor François Grosjean.

More Posts: composer,history,instrumental,jazz,music,piano,songwriter,vocal

Daily Dose Of Jazz…

Loonis McGlohon was born on September 29, 1921 in Ayden, North Carolina, and graduated from East Carolina University. After a spell in the Air Force during World War II, he played with the Jimmy Dorsey and Jack Teagarden orchestras and became involved with broadcasting in Charlotte, North Carolina, working as music director for radio and television.

An accompanist to many well-known singers that included Judy Garland, Mabel Mercer and Eileen Farrell. He co-hosted the Peabody Award-winning NPR radio series American Popular Song with his friend and collaborator, Alec Wilder. He also composed and wrote lyrics for several songs with Wilder.

For his hometown of Charlotte he wrote the music for The Hornet’s Nest, and in 1980, Frank Sinatra recorded two of his songs with Alec Wilder, South to a Warmer Place and A Long Night on the album She Shot Me Down. He received a commission to write a piece in celebration of North Carolina’s 400th birthday, which resulted in North Carolina Is My Home. a symphonic work. McGlohon was inducted into the North Carolina Music Hall of Fame in 1999.

NationsBank Performance Place in Charlotte’s Spirit Square was named Loonis McGlohon Theatre in 1998, and the following year he was inducted into the North CArolina Music Hall of Fame. A 2004 biography, Loonis! Celebrating a Lyrical Life by Jerry Shinn was published posthumously by the East Carolina University Foundation in 2004. Pianist and songwriter Loonis McGlohon passed away  at the age of 80 following a long-term battle with lymphoma on January 26, 2002.

More Posts: bandleader,history,instrumental,jazz,music,piano,songwriter

Daily Dose Of Jazz…

Preston Haynes Love was born on April 26, 1921 in Omaha, Nebraska, grew up in North Omaha and graduated from North High.

He became renowned as a professional sideman and saxophone balladeer in the big band heyday, being a member of the bands of Nat Towles, Lloyd Hunter, Snub Mosley, Lucky Millinder and Fats Waller before getting his big break with the Count Basie Orchestra at age 22. Love played and recorded with the Count Basie band from 1945–1947 and played on Basie’s only #1 hit record, Open The Door Richard.

He eventually became a bandleader himself, playing with Lena Horne, Billie Holiday, his friends Johnny Otis and Wynonie Harris, with whom he had several hits. In 1952, he launched the short-lived Spin Records, as a joint effort with songwriter Otis René (When It’s Sleepy Time Down South). The label released material by the Preston Love Orchestra, among others.

By the early 1960s he was working with Ray Charles in California and Aretha Franklin, eventually becoming Motown’s West Coast house bandleader. He  played and toured with The Four Tops, The Temptations, Tammi Terrell, Marvin Gaye, Gladys Knight and others. Preston also recorded with Nichelle Nichols, Janis Joplin, Frank Zappa, Shuggie Otis, T-Bone Walker, Charles Brown, Ruth Brown, Smokey Robinson, Diana Ross and Stevie Wonder, among numerous others.

Love continued touring the U.S. and Europe into the 2000s, additionally lecturing and writing about the history he was part of. In his later years he returned to Omaha, wrote a book, led bands, the last of which featured his daughter vocalist Portia Love, drummer Gary E. Foster, pianist Orville Johnson, and bassist Nate Mickels. He also held down the position of advertising agent for the city’s local newspaper, Omaha Star, a local newspaper serving the city’s Black community. He appeared in the Clint Eastwood film Play Misty For Me with the Johnny Otis band.

Saxophonist, bandleader, and songwriter Preston Love, who was inducted into the Omaha Black Music Hall of Fame, passed away on February 12, 2004 after a battle with prostate cancer.

More Posts: bandleader,history,instrumental,jazz,music,saxophone,songwriter

Daily Dose Of Jazz…

Gil Rodin was born in Russia on December 9, 1906 and studied saxophone, clarinet, flute, and trumpet in his youth. He played in Chicago, Illinois with Art Kahn in the middle of the 1920s. Moving to California and played with Harry Bastin before joining Ben Pollack in 1927, remaining in his band until 1934.

He simultaneously did studio work and played with Red Nichols’s radio band. Making his only recordings as a leader in 1930-31, amounting to four tracks which included Jack Teagarden on vocals, he also enlisted Eddie Miller and Benny Goodman as sidemen.

After Pollack’s band dissolved in 1934, Gil played with some of the players in the group until Bob Crosby regrouped them into his own ensemble. Rodin remained with Crosby through 1942, when he was drafted. While serving in the Army he played in the Artillery Band and after his discharge in 1944 he played with Ray Bauduc for a year, then with Crosby again.

His major composition was Big Noise from Winnetka, for which he wrote the lyrics with Bob Crosby. The music was written by Ray Bauduc and Bob Haggart. The song appeared in the films Raging Bull, Cannery Row, Manhattan Murder Mystery, Saving Mr. Banks, and What If.

Later in his career, Gil worked radio and television production, with Bill Cosby among others. He produced the soundtracks to the films American Graffiti and The Sting. Saxophonist, songwriter, and record producer Gil Rodin passed away on June 10, 1974.

More Posts: history,instrumental,jazz,music,record producer,saxophone,songwriter

Daily Dose Of Jazz…

Sippie Wallace was born Beulah Belle Thomas on November 1, 1898 in Plum Bayou, Jefferson County, Arkansas,  one of thirteen children. Coming from a musical family, two of her brothers and a niece had prolific music careers. As a child, her family moved to Houston, Texas, and growing up she sang and played the piano in Shiloh Baptist Church but at night she and her siblings would sneak out to tent shows. By her mid-teens, they were playing in those tent shows, performing in various Texas shows, building a solid following as a spirited blues singer.

Along with her brother Hersal, Wallace moved to New Orleans, Louisiana in 1915 and two years later she married Matt Wallace and took his surname. She followed her brothers to Chicago, Illinois in 1923 and worked her way into the city’s bustling jazz scene. Hersal died three years later, but her reputation led to a recording contract with Okeh Records that same year with her first recorded songs, Shorty George and Up the Country Blues, sold well enough to make her a blues star in the early 1920s. Moving to Detroit, Michigan in 1929, she would lose her husband and her brother George in 1936.

For some 40 years, Sippie sang and played the organ at the Leland Baptist Church in Detroit. From 1945 she basically retired from music until launching a comeback in 1966, recording an album, Women Be Wise, on October 31st in Copenhagen, Denmark, with Roosevelt Sykes and Little Brother Montgomery playing the piano. Over the course of her career, she worked with Louis Armstrong,  Johnny Dodds, Sidney Bechet, King Oliver, and Clarence Williams.

Singer, songwriter, pianist, and organist Sippie Wallace, who was nominated for a Grammy Award in 1982 and was posthumously inducted into the Michigan Women’s Hall of Fame in 1993, passed away at Sinai Hospital in Detroit, Michigan from complications of a severe stroke suffered post~concert in Germany on November 1, 1986. She was 88.

More Posts: history,instrumental,jazz,music,organ,piano,songwriter,vocal