Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Jimmy Cleveland was born May 3, 1926 in Wartrace, Tennessee but didn’t start playing the trombone until he was sixteen. His first important gig didn’t happen until 1950 with Lionel Hampton and a subsequent European tour.
Leaving Hampton in 1953, Cleveland went to moved to New York and became a successful freelance musician recoding with the likes of Dizzy Gillespie, Gil Evans, Oliver Nelson, Antonio Carlos Jobim, Sarah Vaughan, Gigi Gryce, Oscar Pettiford, Lucky Thompson, James Moody and Gerry Mulligan.
As a leader Jimmy recorded a series of albums for EmArcy/Mercury records in the ‘50s and later in the decade toured Europe once again this time with Quincy Jones and in 1967 recorded with Thelonious Monk. He moved to Los Angeles to work with the Merv Griffin show and continued recording with Quincy.
Although he moved into a season of obscurity once he moved to the West coast, he continued to play till shortly before his death on August 23, 2008 in Lynwood, California at age 82. Jimmy Cleveland remains one of the most technically skilled of the bop-based jazz trombonists.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Slide Hampton was born Locksley Wellington Hampton on April 21, 1932 in Jeannette, Pennsylvania, one of twelve children born to Laura and Clarke Hampton, who taught them to play instruments. One of the few left-handed trombonists, not naturally having received a left-handed trombone from his father, by age twelve the Hamptons were living in Indianapolis and Slide was playing in the Duke Hampton Band, led by his father.
Just eight years later Slide was on stage at Carnegie Hall playing with Lionel Hampton in 1952. Throughout the 1950s Slide played with Buddy Johnson, played and arranged for Maynard Ferguson, and recorded with master trombonist Melba Liston. As his reputation grew he began working with Art Blakey, Tadd Dameron, Barry Harris, Thad Jones, Mel Lewis, and Max Roach, contributing both original compositions and arrangements. In the early Sixties he formed an octet with Freddie Hubbard, Booker Little and George Coleman that toured and recorded throughout the U.S. and Europe.
Over the course of fifty plus years Hampton has played with Woody Herman, lived in Europe for ten years, taught at Harvard, University of Massachusetts, DePaul University and Indiana State. He has led a nine trombone 3 rhythm band – World Of Trombones, co-led a quintet with Jimmy Heath called Continuum and freelanced as a writer and player.
This gifted jazz musician has been inducted into the Indianapolis Jazz Hall of Fame, is a two-time Grammy winner, and was honored in 2005 with the NEA Jazz Masters Award. Trombonist, bandleader, educator, master composer, arranger Slide Hampton, who is among the most distinguished assembly of careers in music, passed away on November 18, 2021 in Orange, New Jersey.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Bennie Green was born on April 16, 1923 in Chicago, Illinois. After playing locally around Chicago, at nineteen he teamed up with the Earl Hines Orchestra alongside Dizzy Gillespie and Charlie Parker from 1942-1948, gained some fame for his work with Charlie Ventura, played with Gene Ammons-Sonny Stitt, Charlie Ventura then joined Earl Hines’ small group in the early Fifties.
Following this last tenure with Hines, Bennie led his own groups for the rest of the decade. In the Sixties he played with sidemen Charlie Rouse, Paul Chambers, Louis Hayes, Sonny Clark, Jimmy Forrest and many others. He recorded as a leader for Decca, Blue Note, Bethlehem, Jazzland, Vee-Jay and Prestige during this same period.
By the end of the 60s, Green worked with Duke Ellington but then moved to Las Vegas where he spent his final years playing in hotel bands emerging only to play the Newport Jazz Festival and New York jam sessions. He was one of the few trombonists of the 1950s who played in a style not influenced by J.J. Johnson. He possessed a witty sound and full tone that was reminiscent of the swing era phrasing with an influence of R&B.
It has been speculated that Green was the first trombonist to consort with beboppers and whose ear enabled him to adopt aspects of their harmonic approach. On March 23, 1977 swing and bop trombonist Bennie Green passed away in San Diego, California at age 53.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz….
Santo Pecoraro was born on March 31, 1902 in New Orleans, Louisiana but was better known as Santo Pecora. The jazz trombonist distinguished his name due to a cousin, a drummer with the same name, though the two sometimes performed together in ensembles.
Santo began his musical endeavors playing the French horn but settled on the trombone while still a teenager. He played in orchestras accompanying silent films as well as in big bands led by Johnny De Droit and Leon Roppolo. He toured with Bee Palmer, a singer in the early 20’s, and then joined the New Orleans Rhythm Kings by the middle of the decade.
Towards the end of the twenties he moved to Chicago, playing both jazz bands and theatre palaces. He became a big band sideman in the thirties, toured with Sharkey Bonano and played with Wingy Manone in California.
Returning to New Orleans in the 40’s, he gigged on the riverboats and in nightclubs while continuing to work with Bonano. He longtime association with Dixieland and the New Orleans music scene established him as a staple well into the Sixties. Santo Pecora passed away on May 29, 1984 in his beloved Crescent City.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Trombonist and bandleader Grover Curry Mitchell was born on March 17, 1930 in Whatley, Alabama. By age eight he was living in Pittsburgh where jazz took hold of him. During his teen years after an initial desire to play trumpet, the school took note of his long arms and trained him to play the trombone.
After high school he enlisted playing in the U.S. Marine Band, then went on to play with Lionel Hampton and Duke Ellington. But his best-known association was with Count Basie from 1962 to 1978, when he founded his own band, the Jazz Chronicles.
In the seventies he started writing music for television and film including the 1972 Lady Sings The Blues. returned to the Count Basie Band in 1980 and continued to lead the band and served as the director from ’95 until his death, winning a Grammy for the Best Large Jazz Ensemble Album twice.
The mellow-toned trombonist lost a quiet battle with cancer on August 6, 2003 in New York City’s Sloan Kettering Hospital. Grover Mitchell was inducted posthumously into the Alabama Jazz Hall of Fame in 2008.
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