Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Edgar “Puddinghead” Battle was born on October 3, 1907 into a musical family in Atlanta, Georgia. In 1921 while a student at Morris Brown University he started playing trumpet and formed his own band, the Dixie Serenaders. A few years later the group changed their name to Dixie Ramblers.
Battle played with Eddie Heywood Sr., and toured with the 101 Ranch Boys traveling show. During the 1920s he worked with Gene Coy, Andy Kirk, Blanche Calloway, Ira Coffey, and Willie Bryant. A move to New York City in the early Thirties saw him doing short stints with Benny Carter and Sam Wooding before joining George White’s ensemble on Broadway.
Over time, he began doing more work as a studio musician and arranger, writing charts for Cab Calloway, Paul Whiteman, Fats Waller, Earl Hines, Rudy Vallee, and Count Basie. During World War II, Edgar held a position as an electrician in a shipyard, while simultaneously running a big band with Shirley Clay.
In the 1950s, he founded Cosmopolitan Records and continued to play in big bands part-time through the 1960s. Among his numerous jazz compositions are the pieces Topsy, co-composed with Eddie Durham and Doggin’ Around with Herschel Evans.
Trumpeter, trombonist, saxophonist and pianist Edgar “Puddinghead” Battle, who was also a composer and arranger, transitioned in New York City on February 6, 1977, at the age of 69.
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FRANK LACY QUARTET
Trombonist Frank Lacy, born August 9, 1958 in Houston, Texas has spent many years as a member of the Mingus Big Band, and returns once more to Smalls
Sets:
Walk-in music charge is $25 | Reserve tickets are $35 Sunday through Thursdays and $40 on Friday and Saturday.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
George Matthews was born on September 23, 1912 in Dominica, British West Indies and received classical training in New York City and played with local dance and jazz bands. In the early 1930s he joined Tiny Bradshaw’s group, being adept on tuba, trumpet, and trombone.
Later in the decade he worked with Willie Bryant, Louis Armstrong, Chick Webb, and in the Forties he recorded with Ella Fitzgerald, Lucky Millinder, and Sister Rosetta Tharpe. After World War II, Matthews worked extensively with Count Basie, then joined Erskine Hawkins’s group in the early 1950s, while recording with Dizzy Gillespie, and Dicky Wells. In the 1960s he played with Lucille Dixon, Clark Terry, and recorded with Cannonball Adderley and Ray Charles in the Sixties.
Trombonist George Matthews, who never led a recording session, transitioned on June 28, 1982.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Johnny Lindsay was born John Lindsay on August 23, 1894 in New Orleans, Louisiana and learned both instruments while young. He played trombone in a military band and in ensembles late in the 1910s. While living in his hometown he played with John Robichaux and Armand J. Piron’s Olympia Orchestra.
Lindsay was Piron’s trombonist on recordings made in New York City in 1923 and 1924 and was a member of Dewey Jackson’s riverboat band. Relocating to Chicago, Illinois he played with Willie Hightower, Carroll Dickerson, Lil Hardin, and Jelly Roll Morton’s Red Hot Peppers. Most of his Chicago playing in Chicago was subsequently on bass rather than trombone.
Later in his career Johnny toured nationally with Louis Armstrong in the early 1930s, and then with Richard M. Jones, Jimmie Noone, Punch Miller, Johnny Dodds, Chippie Hill, Georgia White, Harlem Hamfats, and Baby Dodds.
Double-bassist and trombonist Johnny Lindsey, who was active on the New Orleans and Chicago jazz scenes and was sometimes listed as John Lindsey, transitioned on July 3, 1950.
Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Edward Durham was born on August 19, 1906 in San Marcos, Texas to Joseph Durham, Sr., and Luella Rabb Durham. From an early age he performed with his family in the Durham Brothers Band. At the age of eighteen, he began traveling and playing in regional bands.
From 1929 Eddie started experimenting to enhance the sound of his guitar using resonators and megaphones. In 1935 he was the first to record an electrically amplified guitar with Jimmie Lunceford in Hittin’ the Bottle that was recorded in New York for Decca.
In 1938, Durham wrote I Don’t Want To Set The World On Fire with Bennie Benjamin, Sol Marcus, and Eddie Seiler. During the 1940s he created Eddie Durham’s All-Star Girl Orchestra, an all black female swing band that toured the United States and Canada.
That same year Eddie recorded single string electric guitar solos with the Kansas City Five or Six, which were both smallish groups that included members of Count Basie’s rhythm section along with the tenor saxophone playing of Lester Young. The orchestras of Bennie Moten, Jimmie Lunceford, Count Basie and Glenn Miller took great benefit from his composing and arranging skill.
Guitarist, trombonist, composer and arranger Eddie Durham, who was one of the pioneers of the electric guitar in jazz, transitioned on March 6, 1987.
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