Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Eddie Shu was born Edward Shulman on March18, 1918 in New York City and learned violin and guitar as a child before picking up the saxophone as a teenager. He began his professional career in 1935 in Brooklyn and for the seven years leading up to his service in the U.S. Army, he performed in vaudeville and night clubs as a ventriloquist and played harmonica with the Cappy Barra harmonica Band.
While serving in the Army from 1942 to 1945 with Stan Harper, the two were assigned to a special unit to entertain the troops. He also played in various bans including with Maurice Evans in the Pacific. After the war and through the 1950s Eddie performed with Tadd Dameron, George Shearing, Johnny Bothwell, Buddy Rich, Les Elgart, Lionel Hampton, Charlie Barnet, Chubby Jackson, and Gene Krupa.
By the 1960s Shu moved to Florida, playing locally as well as with the Louis Armstrong All-Stars, Lionel Hampton and Gene Krupa once again. He was a member of the vocal jazz group Rare Silk in 1980. During this period, he performed with this group in and around Boulder, Colorado and also performed a 6-week Department of Defense tour. He would record his final date on the Island Jazz Label “Shu-Swings” With The Joe Delaney Trio, playing tenor and alto saxophones, clarinet, trumpet and also revisit’s his 1954 78 single “Ruby” on chromatic harmonica.
Eddie Shu died on July 4, 1986 in St. Petersburg, Florida while living in Tampa. The swing and jazz multi-instrumentalist also had a high proficiency on the accordion and was a popular comedic ventriloquist.
Dose A Day – Blues Away
Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Louis Armstrong was born on August 4, 1901 in New Orleans, Louisiana and grew up in the poverty-stricken, rough neighborhood known as “The Battlefield”, which was part of the Storyville legal prostitution district. Abandoned by his father while still an infant, he and his sister lived with relatives for a period of years. He attended the Fisk School for Boys, getting his early exposure to music, worked as a paperboy, discarded food reseller, and hauled coal to the brothels and clubs and worked for a Jewish junk haulers who treated him like family.
Dropping out of school at age eleven, Louis joined a quartet of boys singing on the corner for money, and listened to the bands in Storyville. He developed his cornet playing skills by playing in the band of the New Orleans Home for Colored Waifs under the tutelage of Professor Peter Davis who instilled discipline in and provided musical training to the otherwise self-taught Armstrong. He eventually became the bandleader, they played around New Orleans and by thirteen-year-old he began drawing attention by his cornet playing, starting him on a musical career. At fourteen he got his first dance hall job at Henry Ponce’s where Black Benny became his protector and guide. He hauled coal by day and played his cornet at night.
Over the next years he played in the city’s frequent brass band parades and listened to older musicians every chance he got, learning from Bunk Johnson, Buddy Petit, Kid Ory and Joe “King” Oliver, who acted as a mentor and father figure to the young musician. He toured with Fate Marable, replaced King Oliver in Kid Ory’s band, and was second trumpet in the Tuxedo Brass Band.
1922 saw Armstrong in Chicago joining King Oliver’s Creole Jazz Band when the city was the center of the jazz universe. He was challenged to “cutting contests” by hornmen trying to displace the new phenomenon, which could blow two hundred high Cs in a row. He made his first recordings on the Gennett and Okeh labels, he met Hoagy Carmichael through his friend Bix Beiderbecke. Taking the advice of second wife Lil Harden Armstrong, he left Oliver and went to work with Fletcher Henderson in New York and developing his own style. By 1924 he switched to trumpet and his influence upon Henderson’s tenor sax soloist Coleman Hawkins, can be judged by listening to the records made by the band during this period.
During this time, Armstrong made many recordings on the side, arranged by Clarence Williams, with the Williams Blue Five pairing him with Sidney Bechet and backing Bessie Smith, Ma Rainey and Alberta Hunter. He began recording under his own name for Okeh with his famous Hot Five and Hot Seven groups Hot Five and Hot Seven groups, producing hits Potato Head Blues, Muggles and West End Blues, the music of which set the standard and the agenda for jazz for many years to come. His recording of Heebie Jeebies turned on both black and white young musicians to his new type of jazz, including a young Bing Crosby.
Over the course of his career he appeared in musical, played clubs, added vocals to his repertoire covering most famously Carmichael’s Stardust that became one of the most successful renditions. His approach to melody and phrasing was radical and evolved into scat singing. As with his trumpet playing, Armstrong’s vocal innovations served as a foundation stone for the art of jazz vocal interpretation. The uniquely gritty coloration of his voice became a musical archetype that was much imitated and endlessly impersonated.
After spending many years on the road, in 1943 Louis settled permanently in Queens, New York in 1943 in contentment with his fourth wife, Lucille. During the subsequent thirty years, he played more than three hundred gigs a year, toured Africa, Europe, and Asia under sponsorship of the US State Department earning the nickname “Ambassador Satch” and inspiring Dave Brubeck to compose his jazz musical The Real Ambassadors.
He has been honored posthumously with a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award, won a Male Vocal Performance Grammy for Hello Dolly, has 11 recordings inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame, the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame list his West End Blues as one of the 500 songs that shaped Rock and Roll, had a commemorative U.S. postage stamp issued, and has been inducted into six Halls of Fame, has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, as well as the Louis Armstrong New Orleans International Airport, the US Open main stadium was renamed Louis Armstrong Stadium, and his Hot Five and Hot Seven recordings are now a part of the National Recording Registry in the Library of Congress.
Trumpeter and vocalist Louis Armstrong, also known as Satchmo, Dipper, Pops and the King of Jazz, passed away in his sleep of a heart attack on July 6, 1971. His honorary pallbearers included Bing Crosby, Ella Fitzgerald, Dizzy Gillespie, Pearl Bailey, Count Basie, Harry James, Frank Sinatra, Ed Sullivan, Earl Wilson, Alan King, Johnny Carson and David Frost. Peggy Lee sand The Lords Prayer, Al Hibbler sang Nobody Knows The Trouble I’ve Seen and his long-time friend Fred Robbins gave the eulogy.
Dose A Day – Blues Away
Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Don Ellis was born on July 25, 1934 in Los Angeles, California and started playing th trumpet in his youth. After a move to Minneapolis, Minnesota attended West High School. Upon hearing the Tommy Dorsey Big Band he became interested in jazz as well as being inspired by Louis Armstrong and Dizzy Gillespie. He went on to receive a music composition degree from Boston University.
Ellis’ first job was with the Glenn Miller Band until his enlistment in the U.S. Army Symphony Orchestra and the Soldier’s Show Company. Transferred to Germany he met Cedar Walton, Eddie Harris and Don Menza and got his first opportunity to compose and arrange for a big band. Two years later he was in New York City playing in dance hall bands, toured with Charlie Barnet and by ’59 was in Maynard Ferguson’s band.
Becoming involved in the avant-garde jazz scene he appeared on albums by Charles Mingus, Eric Dolphy and George Russell, staying with the latter for two years. Ellis led several sessions with small groups between 1960 and 1962 that featured Jaki Byard, Paul Bley, Gary Peacock, Ron Carter, Charlie Persip and Steve Swallow among others. He would go on to tour Poland, Germany and Sweden, return to New York, form the Improvisational Workshop Orchestra, studied ethnomusicology, Indian music, be involved with several Third Stream Projects and teach at SUNY Buffalo for a year. He delved into electronic music in the late Sixties on Columbia Records with Electric Bath and garnered a Grammy nomination and a Down Beat Album of the Year Award.
Don’s popularity among educators was also climbing and copies of his band’s charts were being published and played by many high school and college big bands. Accordingly, he taught many clinics and played with many school bands. He composed the music for the film The French Connection, winning Grammy for Best Instrumental Arrangement and later composed music for the film The Seven-Ups.
He became interested in Brazilian music and created the Organic Band utilizing a vocal quartet and indigenous musicians. He would continue performing and touring well into the Seventies and his last known public performance took place on April 21, 1978, at the Westside Room in Century City. After this date, his doctor ordered him to refrain from touring and playing trumpet because it was too stressful on his heart. On December 17, 1978, after seeing a Jon Hendricks concert, trumpeter, composer, arranger, bandleader and educator Don Ellis suffered a fatal heart attack at his North Hollywood home where his parents were staying with him. He was 44.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Scott Wendholt was born on July 21, 1965 in Denver, Colorado. He first picked up the trumpet in the third grade and began improvising in the fifth. Linda Walker and Ed Barnes, were two teachers he was inspired by, the latter ran a citywide elementary school group that played some Blues and a reasonable facsimile of jazz and provided at least some tools for jazz improvisation.
His major influences at the time were Al Hirt, Chuck Mangione, and Spyro Gyra until the ninth grade, when Greg Gisbert, a classmate and trumpeter, hipped him to Art Blakey’s “Straight Ahead,” featuring Wynton Marsalis and he started taking trumpet lessons in high school. Scott went on to study At Indiana University in David Baker’s Jazz Studies Program earning his bachelor degree.
A move to Cincinnati was fortuitous for the young trumpeter getting on the scene, landing him at the King’s Island amusement park with a Rock-and-Roll band. From there he went to work with the Blue Wisp Big Band, and working sideman gigs. It was a good training ground to be a leader, for learning appropriate tunes for small group gigs and learning how to hang out.
In 1991 Scott put together a quartet to play at Augie’s, a Harlem bar near Columbia University and the group lasted three and a half years. Then 1992, saw Vincent Herring hiring him for his first real legitimate sideman gig. Then a year later in 1993 Scott recorded his debut album The Scheme of Things on the Criss Cross Jazz label. He would go on to work inside the big band culture in New York City with the likes of Toshiko Akiyoshi, Bob Mintzer, the Maria Schneider Orchestra, the Carnegie Hall Big Band and the Vanguard Jazz Orchestra.
Wendholt has worked with Gisbert, Javon Jackson, John Gunther, Ralph Bowen, Chris Botti, Don Braden, Rim Ries, Roberta Piket, Bobby McFerrin, Dwayne Burno, Mike Abbott, Al DiMeola, Lounge Lizards, Sophie B. Hawkins, Peter Abbott, Brad Leali, John Fedchock, Woody Herman, Ira Coleman, Billy Drummond, Eric Alexander, Anthony Wonsey, Bob Mintzer, Bill Cunliffe, Phil DeGreg, Vincent Herring, Jim McNeely, Mingus Big Band, Buddy Rich and the list goes on and on.
Not one to reside in a single musical genre, the Mile High City trumpeter and flugelhorn player Scott Wendholt continues to perform, record and compose.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Carol Morgan was born on July 11, 1968. Originally from Texas, she decided to matriculate through and graduated from The Julliard School, subsequently making her home in New York City. A definitive voice unto herself, the influences of Woody Shaw, Freddie Hubbard, Miles Davis and Louis Armstrong can be heard in her playing. She has released five CDs as a leader working in trio, quartet and quintet setings with her latest in 2013 titled Retroactive.
She has worked with Chris Gekker, Mark Gould, Ingrid Jensen, Dennis Dotson Mike Stern, Chris Cortez, Danielle Reich, Harvie S, Rich DeRosa, Joel Frahm, Martin Wind and Matt Wilson among others. She has been a side-woman on recording dates with the DIVA Jazz Orchestra, Hawk-Richard Jazz Orchestra, the Manhattan Chamber Orchestra, and NPR’s The Engine Of Our Ingenuity.
As a composer Carol has been commissioned to create works for the Diverse Works, the Michele Brangwen Dance Ensemble, the Archdiocese of Houston/Galveston and the St. Thomas Presbyterian Church in Houston. She has authored The Practicing Improviser, a highly regarded method for jazz improvisation.
She is a member of the DIVA Jazz Orchestra, a variety of ensembles under the name of Stiggall & Associates and the group Gingerbread led by Brad Linde. Trumpeter, composer, educator and author Carol Morgan continues to record and perform across the United States and in Europe.
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