Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Henry Levine was born on November 26, 1907 in London, England but his family emigrated to the United States in 1908. In 1917, he heard Nick LaRocca with the Original Dixieland Jazz Band and decided to become a musician and learn trumpet.
From 1925 he worked as a professional musician with the Original Dixieland Jazz Band, and from the mid-1920s in various studio bands with Nat Shilkret and Vincent Lopez. From 1927 he performed with the British bandleader Bert Ambrose, and also made recordings with Fred Elizalde in London.
Returning to the States he played with Cass Hagan and Rudy Vallee before working again as a studio musician. He was head of the NBC Chamber Music Society of Lower Basin Street Jazz Group, recording several sessions with them. After the end of the Second World War Levine worked as a director of radio, television and hotel orchestras.
In 1961 he went moved to Las Vegas, Nevada and retired in 1982. He has been lauded by Allmusic as an excellent lead trumpeter and effective soloist. Under his own name, he recorded a single with jazz standards such as Rockin ‘Chair and I’ve Found a New Baby for RCA Victor. British-American trumpeter Henry “Hot Lips” Levine passed away in May 1989.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Colin Ranger Smith was born in London, England on November 20, 1934. Initially joining the Terry Lightfoot band in 1957, he moved on to playing with Cy Laurie, in 1958. He had a long tenure in the Acker Bilk band that began in 1959, taking a break in 1966 to sail across the Atlantic in a 45-foot ketch, rejoining Bilk in 1968. During that period he also worked at the same time in the band with saxophonist Tony Coe and the trombonist John Picard, as well as with Stan Greig’s London Jazz Big Band.
1977 saw Colin together with Picard, Ian “Stu” Stewart, Dick Morrissey and Charlie Watts. He played in the Bob Hall/George Green Boogie Woogie Band, an ad hoc band which would eventually become known as Rocket 88.
Other big bands he played with included those led by the American clarinettist Bob Wilber, and later the one led by Charlie Watts and the revisionist Midnite Follies Orchestra, Stan Greig’s Boogie Band and Brian Leake’s Sweet and Sour. From 1983 he played with the Pizza Express All Stars and, in 1992, returned to playing with Bilk.
Trumpeter Colin Smith was struck with congenital liver problems that sidelined him during the last years of his life, eventually passing away on March 29, 2004 in London.
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Requisites
Soaring is an album recorded in 1973 by trumpeter Don Ellis and released on the MPS label. The album features Hank Levy’s composition which provided the title for, and was the title song for the 2014 film Whiplash. The film stars Miles Teller, J. K. Simmons, Paul Reiser, and Melissa Benoist and depicts the relationship between an ambitious jazz student (Teller) and an aggressive, abusive instructor (Simmons).
Four of the eight tracks are composed by Ellis and include Whiplash, Sladka Pitka by Milcho Leviev, The Devil Made Me Write This Piece, Go Back Home composed by Sam Falzone, Invincible, Image of Maria, Sidonie by Alexej Fried and closes out with Nicole.
Twenty multi-instrumentalists and four arrangers comprised the orchestra that brought this session to life playing a myriad of instruments, making it one for the collection. They are Don Ellis, Fred Seldon, Vince Denham, Sam Falzone, Gary Herbig, Jack Caudill, Bruce Mackay, Gil Rathel, Sidney Muldrow, Mike Jamieson, Ken Sawhill, Doug Bixby, Jay Graydon, Milcho Leviev, Dave McDaniel, Ralph Humphrey, Ron Dunn, Lee Pastora, Earle Corry, Joel Quivey, Renita Koven, Pat Kudzia, Alexej Fried and Hank Levy.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
John LaBarbera was born November 10, 1945 in Mount Morris, New York and studied trumpet in his youth. During the late Sixties he worked with Buddy Rich but has performed and recorded with many big bands.
His career accomplishments to date include recording and/or performing with Woody Herman, Count Basie, Dizzy Gillespie, Sammy Davis, Jr., Mel Tormé, Chaka Khan, Harry James, Bill Watrous, the Glenn Miller Orchestra, Al Cohn, Bill Perkins, and Phil Woods.
A two-time recipient of the National Endowment For the Arts award for Jazz Composition, John is also an educator teaching jazz and music industry courses at the University of Louisville.
Leading his own big band, trumpeter and arranger John LaBarbera has released two CDs, On the Wild Side and Fantazm, the former of which was nominated for a Grammy award in 2004. He continues to educate, perform and arrange.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Cyril Blake was born October 22, 1900 in Trinidad and moved to England about 1918, where he sometimes performed under the stage name of “Midnight,” and quite often appearing well after midnight. He was an essential part of the freewheeling music scene of London in the decades both before and after World War II.
He became well versed in jazz, blasted away in rhythm & blues bands of various ethnic persuasions. and played in a British group called the Southern Syncopated Orchestra. Being a trumpet player and was working in both London and Paris clubs whilst the ’20s roared helped to skyrocket his career.
Working in Paris, France and London as a musician throughout the 1920s, in the 1930s he played in the bands of Leon Abbey, Happy Blake, Rudolph Dunbar, Leslie Thompson’s Emperors of Jazz, Joe Appleton, and Lauderic Caton. 1938 saw Cyril putting together his own band, which was centred on Jig’s Club in London but was also the house band for several other venues around Soho. He recorded several times with this ensemble and in the 1940s led his band behind Lord Kitchener for recordings on Parlophone Records, playing in a calypso style.
Late in his life he returned to Trinidad, where he continued to lead bands. Trumpeter Cyril Blake, along with Bertie King, Lauderic Caton and Brylo Ford were credited in the Who’s Who of British Jazz by John Chilton and influenced generations of British jazz musicians, passed away of an illness on December 3, 1951.
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