Daily Dose Of Jazz…
George Roland Bohanon, Jr. was born on August 7, 1937 in Detroit, Michigan. The jazz trombonist and session musician studied in his youth and by his late teens he was a part of Detroit’s Workshop Jazz ensemble, with Johnny Griffin, Paula Greer, David Hamilton, Lefty Edwards and Herbie Williams.
Following his appearance on several Motown recordings, together with leading musicians such as Hank Cosby of the Funk Brothers, George moved to California.
In 1962, he replaced Garnett Brown in the Chico Hamilton Quintet. 1963 and 1964 witnessed two recorded albums for Motown’s unsuccessful jazz Workshop label, “Boss: Bossa Nova” and “Bold Bohanon”, with the latter be unreleased according to several sources.
By 1971, he was a member of the Ernie Wilkins Orchestra playing alongside trombonist Benny Powell that backed Sarah Vaughan on her album “A time In My Life”. Between 1984 and 1993, Bohanon played in orchestras backing Frank Sinatra. He has performed and/or recorded as a sideman with Charles Kynard, Hampton Hawes, Stanley Clarke, Ry Cooder, Etta James and Diana Krall. Trombonist George Bohanon continues to perform and record.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Elmer Crumbley was born on August 1, 1908 in Kingfisher, Oklahoma. The trombonist joined the Dandie Dixie Minstrels in 1926 in between stints with bandleader Lloyd Hunter and his Serenaders. By 1930 Elmer made it east to Kansas City and the George E. Lee band.
During the 30s he continued to work with Lloyd Hunter as well as with western swing pioneer Tommy Douglas in Nebraska, then with Bill Owens, Jabbo Smith and in Chicago with Erskine Tate. He led an ensemble in Omaha in 1934 then joined up with Jimmie Lunceford, enjoying a thirteen-year stint playing with band mates Eddie Wilcox, Lucky Millinder and Erskine Hawkins.
By the late ’50s Crumbley was touring Europe with Sammy Price and became part of the combo scene at the Apollo in Harlem. The Sixties saw him playing with Cab Calloway and Earl Hines, keeping him in slide oil.
Little is known about him after this period and trombonist Elmer Crumbley passed away in 1993 at the age of 85.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Delfeayo Marsalis was born July 28, 1965 in New Orleans, Louisiana into the musical family in which father and three brothers are musicians. Lying under the piano as a child while his father played, he eventually tried the bass and the drums but by the sixth grade gravitated to the trombone. His early influences were J.J. Johnson, Curtis Fuller, Al Grey, Tyree Glenn and Tommy Dorsey.
He went on to attend the New Orleans Center for Creative Arts high school and was classically trained at the Eastern Music Festival and Tanglewood Institute. He graduated from Berklee School of Music and the University of Louisville with degrees in performance and audio production.
While a gifted trombonist, Delfeayo has recorded only five albums as a leader and is more prolific and better known for his work as a producer of over 100 acoustic jazz recordings. Since the age of 17 he has produced such artists as Harry Connick Jr., Marcus Roberts, Spike Lee, Terence Blanchard, Nicholas Payton, Marcus Roberts, the Preservation Hall Jazz Band and his family members – Ellis, Branford and Wynton.
Along with Tonight Show engineer Patrick Smith, he coined “to obtain more wood sound from the bass recorded without usage of the dreaded bass direct”, a phrase that became the single sentence to define the recorded quality of many acoustic jazz recordings since the late ’80s.
Forming Uptown Music Theatre in 2000, the organization has trained over 300 youth and staged 8 original musicals, all of which are based upon the mission of “community unity.” Marsalis has toured with internationally renowned bandleaders Art Blakey, Slide Hampton, Max Roach, Elvin Jones and Abdullah Ibrahim. In addition he has performed and toured with the Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra, was a part of the Ken Burns documentary Jazz and is an integral part of Marsalis Family: A Jazz Celebration DVD.
Delfeayo Marsalis, along with his father and brothers, are group recipients of the 2011 NEA Jazz Masters Award. He continues to perform, record, tour and produce.
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Dicky Wells was born William Wells on June 10, 1907 in Centerville, Tennessee but came to fame playing trombone as Dicky or Dickie Wells. He moved to New York City in 1926 and joined the band of Lloyd Scott.
He played two stints with Count Basie between 1938-1945 and 1947-1950. Dickie also played with Cecil Scott, Spike Hughes, Fletcher Henderson, Benny Carter, Teddy Hill, Jimmy Rushing, Buck Clayton and Ray Charles.
In his later years, Wells suffered a severe beating that affected his memory, but he recovered and continued to perform. He played frequently at the West End jazz club at 116th and Broadway, most often with a band called “The Countsmen”, led by alto saxophonist Earle Warren, his colleague from Count Basie days. His trademark was a “pepper pot” mute that he made himself.
Jazz trombonist Dickie Wells died on November 12, 1985, in New York City. Shortly after his death, his family donated his trombone to Rutgers University.
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Al Grey was born in Aldie, Virginia on June 6, 1925 but grew up in Pottstown, Pennsylvania. After serving in the Navy during WWII, where he started playing trombone, he joined Benny Carter’s band, later moving to Lionel Hampton’s trombone section. After some solo worked he joined Dizzy Gillespie’s big band in ’56 and a year later was touring Europe with Count Basie.
Trummy Young inspired Al’s early trombone style and he developed a wild, strong and full sound. Solos often consisted of short, pronounced phrases with precisely timed syncopation. He became known for his plunger mute technique, later writing an instructional book title “Plunger Techniques”. When playing with the plunger, however, he would produce the most mellow fill-ins and shape melodic answers to the lead voice.
After 1961 Grey performed only occasionally with the Count and apart from leading his own combos, he collaborated with many jazz greats such as Herbie Hancock, Melba Liston, J. J. Johnson, Quincy Jones, Ray Charles, Jack McDuff, Ella Fitzgerald and Frank Sinatra. His trombone skills were also featured on the award-winning soundtrack for The Color Purple.
Al Grey, who passed away on March 24, 2000, greatly contributed to the post-swing era jazz-trombone vocabulary and will be remembered for his charming personality as well as his ability to bond with audiences around the world.
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