Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Patrick John Halcox, born March 18, 1930 in Chelsea, London, was originally offered a band spot earlier but elected to continue his studies as a research chemist. Ken Colyer was invited to fill the vacancy in 1953, which became known as the Ken Colyer Jazz Band, playing in a New Orleans style with Chris Barber, Lonnie Donegan and Monty Sunshine.
The band effectively parted company with Colyer in 1954 after a dispute about its musical direction. Halcox took Colyer’s place, in what then become Barber’s group and as the original six-piece band eventually grew to eleven members, he remained present. Although primarily the trumpet player, he had a fine singing voice and led the band’s various renditions of Ice Cream, one of their most popular standards. He also played piano on the Lonnie Donegan recording of Digging My Potatoes.
The Pat Halcox Allstars did make a recording of their own during a Chris Barber Band summer break, now re-released as a Lake Records CD. Trumpeter and vocalist Pat Halcox announced his retirement from the Chris Barber Band at the age of 78, effective in 2008 and passed away on February 4, 2013 at the age of 82.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Ray Ellington was born Henry Pitts Brown on March 17, 1916 at 155 Kennington Road, Kennington, London, England, the youngest of four children. His father, a Black music-hall comedian, and entertainer, his mother a Russian Jew. When his father died when he was four years old, he was brought up as an Orthodox Jew and attended the South London Jewish School before entering show business at the age of twelve, when he appeared in an acting role on the London stage.
His first break came in 1937 when he replaced Joe Daniels in Harry Roy and His Orchestra as the band’s drummer. His vocal talents were put to good use too, from the time of his first session when he recorded Swing for Sale. Ellington was called up in 1940, joined the Royal Air Force (RAF) as a physical training instructor where he served throughout the war. He played in various service bands including RAF Blue Eagles.
After demobilisation, Ellington resumed his career, fronting his own group, playing at The Bag O’Nails club. Early in 1947, he rejoined the Harry Roy band for a few months. The Ray Ellington Quartet was formed in the same year, specializing in jazz, while experimenting with many other genres. His musical style was heavily influenced by the comedic jump blues of Louis Jordan. His band was one of the first in the UK to feature the stripped-back guitar/bass/drums/piano format that became the basis of rock and roll, as well as being one of the first groups in Britain to prominently feature the electric and amplified guitar of Lauderic Caton. The other members of his quartet were pianist Dick Katz and bassist Coleridge Goode until 1955 when the players changed.
Vocalist, drummer and bandleader Ray Ellington passed away from cancer on February 27, 1985.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Joe Mooney was born in Paterson, New Jersey on March 14, 1911 and went blind when he was around 10 years of age. His first job, at age 12, was playing the piano for requests called in to a local radio station. He and his brother, Dan, played together on radio broadcasts in the late 1920s, and recorded between 1929 and 1931 as the Sunshine Boys and the Melotone Boys, both sang while Joe accompanied on piano. They continued performing together on WLW in Cincinnati, Ohio until 1936, after which time Dan Mooney left the music industry.
In 1937, he began working as a pianist and arranger for Frank Dailey, a role he reprised with Buddy Rogers in 1938. Through the early 1940s, Joe arranged for Paul Whiteman, Vincent Lopez, Larry Clinton, Les Brown, and The Modernaires. Putting together his own quartet in 1943, he sang and played the accordion with accompaniment on guitar, bass, and clarinet.
In the last half of the 1940s his group experienced considerable success in the United States. By 1946, a newspaper columnist wrote that Mooney’s music “has the most cynical hot jazz critics describing it in joyous terms, such as exciting, new, the best thing since Ellington, and as new to jazz as the first Dixieland jazz band was when it first arrived”. As for Mooney himself, the columnist wrote that he “played in virtuoso fashion … a fellow who knows not only his instrument, but jazz music, both to just about the ultimate degree.”
In the 1950s, Mooney sang with the Sauter-Finegan Orchestra and played with Johnny Smith in 1953. After moving to Florida in 1954 he concentrated more on the organ and recorded in 1956. 1963 saw a group of friends form a company to produce a record, Joe Mooney and His Friends. He recorded again in the middle Sixties. Accordionist, organist, and vocalist Joe Mooney passed away after a stroke at age 64, on May 12, 1975, in Fort Lauderdale, Florida.
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Three Wishes
The question of three wishes arose when Pannonica asked Sonny Nevius of his:
- “To have my wife and baby to be, like, happy. Very happy. As happy as could be.”
- “For my music career to be just like moving up ~ up tot he top, man! As far as I could go. But to be the same Sonny, man, all the time.”
- “Just to be able to live relaxed, like, contented, you know, with my family, in my own home and forget about the world. That’d be my three wishes..”
*Excerpt from Three Wishes: An Intimate Look at Jazz Greats ~ Compiled and Photographed by Pannonica de Koenigswarter
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Hazy Osterwald was born Rolf Osterwald on February 18, 1922 in Bern, Switzerland. He began his career as a pianist, arranged for Fred Böhler in the late 1930s and joined him as a trumpeter in 1941. Around this time he also worked with Edmond Cohanier, Philippe Brun, Bob Huber, Eddie Brunner and Teddy Stauffer.
Hazy led his own ensemble starting in 1944, recording through the 1970s, with sidemen including Ernst Höllerhagen and Werner Dies. In the late 1940s he recorded with Gil Cuppini and played at the Paris Jazz Fair with Sidney Bechet and Charlie Parker. Trumpeter, vibraphonist, vocalist and bandleader Hazy Osterwald passed away on February 26, 2012 in Lucerne Switzerland.
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