Daily Dose Of Jazz…
John W. Russell was born on June 4, 1909 in Charlotte, North Carolina but was raised in New York City. He began on violin at age nine, later picking up saxophone and clarinet. He played in both capacities with Jimmy Campbell in 1926, then worked at the Strand Danceland under Earle Howard.
While continuing to play violin in live settings, there are no known recordings of him as a violinist. In the early 1930s after working with Harry White, he replaced Chu Berry in Benny Carter’s ensemble in 1933-34, then joined up with Willie Bryant in 1935-36. Johnny toured with Bobby Martin’s orchestra in Europe in 1938, and played with this group on the soundtrack to the 1938 Erich von Stroheim film, L’alibi; it is for his solos in this recording that he is best known.
Following this Russell remained in Europe to play with Willie Lewis from 1939 to 1941. Upon his return to the U.S. he played with Garvin Bushell briefly before being drafted. He played in military bands, including Russell Wooding’s, during World War II, then played following the war with Cecil Scott in 1945 and Eddie Cornelius.
Tenor saxophonist, clarinetist, and violinist Johnny Russell, who stopped playing full-time later in the 1940s, but occasionally did club dates later in his life, passed away on July 26, 1991 in New York City.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Ray Perry was born on February 25, 1915 in Boston, Massachusetts to a musical family and began playing the violin at a young age, and didn’t pick up the alto saxophone till he was twenty. He organized his first band, the Arabian Knights, in 1932.
Working the bread and butter gigs, he performed with the best in the business from 1935 to 1943, among numerous others, Dean Earl in the Little Harlem Orchestra, Clarence “Chick” Carter Orchestra with Gerald Wilson, then with Joe Nevils band when it masqueraded as the Blanche Calloway Orchestra, before joining the Lionel Hampton band. In the mid-thirties Ray developed a technique of simultaneously singing an octave below his playing as he bowed his violin. Hearing him, bassist Slam Stewart adopted the same technique, except he sang an octave above his playing.
Poor health forced him to return to Boston in late 1942, where he found work with Sherman Freeman, Sabby Lewis, and his fraternal band, the Perry Brothers Orchestra with Joe on tenor saxophonoe and Bey on drums, Performing more frequently on alto saxophone, despite his short career, Perry worked with Shadow Wilson, Illinois Jacquet Vernon Alley, J. C. Heard, Joe Newman, Fred Beckett, Sabby Lewis, Sir Charles Thompson, and Irving Ashby.
Health problems continued to dog him for almost a decade leading to the passing away of violinist and alto saxophonist Ray Perry from kidney disease at age 35 in November 1950 in New York City. However, his final record date was with Illinois Jacquet earlier that year. Some of his best surviving violin work was recorded with a Hampton septet in late 1940.
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Edgar Melvin Sampson, born October 31, 1907 in New York City, he started playing violin at the age of six and picked up the saxophone in high school. He started his professional career in 1924 with a violin-piano duo with Joe Colman and through the rest of the 1920s and early ’30s, he played with many bands, including those of Charlie “Fess” Johnson, Duke Ellington, Rex Stewart and Fletcher Henderson.
1933 saw him joining Chick Webb’s band. It was during his tenure with Webb that he created his most enduring work as a composer, writing Stompin’ at the Savoy and “Don’t Be That Way“. Leaving the Webb band in 1936 with a reputation as a composer and arranger, he was able to freelance with Benny Goodman, Artie Shaw, Red Norvo, Teddy Hill, Teddy Wilson, and Chick Webb.
Becoming a student of the Schillinger System in the early 1940s, Edgar continued to play saxophone through the late ’40s and led his own band from 1949 to 1951. Through the Fifties, he worked as an arranger for Latin performers Marcelino Guerra, Tito Rodríguez and Tito Puente.
He recorded one album under his own name, Swing Softly Sweet Sampson, in 1956. Due to illness, he stopped working by the late 1960s. Saxophonist, violinist, composer, arranger Edgar Sampson passed away on January 16, 1973 at the age of 65 in Englewood, New Jersey.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Glen Moore, born October 28, 1941 in Portland, Oregon started his performing career began at age 14 with the Young Oregonians in Portland. It was at this time where he met and played with Native American saxophonist, Jim Pepper.
Graduating with a degree in History and Literature from the University of Oregon, his formal bass instruction started after college with Jerome Magil in his hometown, James Harnett in Seattle, Washington, Gary Karr in New York City, Plough Christenson in Copenhagen, Denmark, Ludwig Streicher in Vienna, Austria, and Francois Rabbath in Hawaii.
Moore is a founding member of Oregon but worked also regularly with Rabih Abou-Khalil, Vasant Rai, Nancy King, and Larry Kar. For the past 30 years, has played a Klotz bass fiddle crafted in Tyrol circa 1715 on which he has made extensive use of a unique tuning with both a low and high C string. He has recorded ten albums as a leader, twenty~eight with Oregon, and twenty as a sideman. Double bassist Glen Moore, who also plays piano, flute, and violin continues to perform and record.
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Jan Savitt was born Jacob Savetnick on September 4, 1907 in Shumsk, U.S.S.R. (now Ukraine) and reared in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. He exhibited musical ability at an early age and began winning conservatory scholarships in the study of the violin. He was offered the position of concertmaster in Leopold Stokowski’s Philadelphia Symphony Orchestra, but turned it down, preferring to continue his studies at Curtis Institute. A year later, believing himself ready, he joined Stokowski and the association continued for seven years, during which time Savitt gained further laurels as a concert soloist and leader of a string quartet.
In 1938, Jan Savitt & His Top Hatters broadcast from 5–5:30 pm every Tuesday, thru Friday as the KYW staff orchestra at KYW/NBC in Philadelphia. Saturday’s weekly broadcast was one hour, coast-to-coast. The group also played at the Earl Theatre and performed with The Andrews Sisters and The Three Stooges.
He got his start in popular music sometime later as music director of KYW, Philadelphia, where he evolved the unique “shuffle rhythm” which remained his trademark. Numerous sustaining programs created such a demand for the “shuffle rhythm” that Savitt left KYW to form his own dance crew.
His band was notable for including George “Bon Bon” Tunnell,[3] one of the first Black singers to perform with a white band. Tunnell’s recording with Jan included Vol Vistu Gaily Star, co-composed by Slim Gaillard, and Rose of the Rio Grande. Helen Englert Blaum, known at the time as Helen Warren, also sang with him during the war years.
In the 1940s Savitt recorded short pieces used a filler before network shows for the National Broadcasting System’s Thesaurus series. Some of the pieces he created were I’m Afraid the Masquerade Is Over; If I Didn’t Care; Ring Dem Bells; and Romance Runs in the Family.
Violinist, bandleader and arranger Jan Savitt, known as “The Stokowski of Swing” from having played violin in Leopold Stokowski’s orchestra, passed away on October 4, 1948.
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