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Jazz, Ltd.
Jazz, Ltd. was a Dixieland jazz band, nightclub and a record label in Chicago. The band was active from June 1947 to April 1978 and was led and managed by Bill Reinhardt. The nightclub was active from June 1947 to February 1972 and was managed by his wife, Ruth Sato Reinhardt, Ruth Reinhardt. Bill and Ruth co-owned the nightclub. For 31 years Jazz, Ltd. renewed public interest in Dixieland jazz music—when swing music, then Bebop, then rock and roll were the dominant styles. It was the first jazz club owned by a musician in Chicago. It provided a steady job to many jazz musicians at a time when they needed one. Bill and Ruth Reinhardt estimated that over 700 musicians played at Jazz, Ltd. Some were pioneers of Dixieland jazz. By hiring the best jazz musicians in the country, forbidding singing and dancing (which incurred a 20% war excise tax that put many jazz bands out of business), refusing business with the mob and playing only Dixieland jazz music, Jazz, Ltd. became one of ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sidney Bechet
Sidney Bechet (May 14, 1897 – May 14, 1959) was an American jazz saxophonist, clarinetist, and composer. He was one of the first important soloists in jazz, and first recorded several months before trumpeter Louis Armstrong. His erratic temperament hampered his career, and not until the late 1940s did he earn wide acclaim. Bechet spent much of his later life in France. Biography Early life Bechet was born in New Orleans in 1897 to a middle-class Creole of color family. Bechet's father Omar was both a shoemaker and a flute player, and all four of his brothers were musicians as well. His older brother, Leonard Victor Bechet, was a full-time dentist and a part-time trombonist and bandleader. Bechet learned and mastered several musical instruments that were kept around the house (he began on the cornet), mostly by teaching himself; he decided to specialize in the clarinet (which he played almost exclusively until about 1919). At the age of six, he started to perform w ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Muggsy Spanier
Francis Joseph "Muggsy" Spanier (November 9, 1901 – February 12, 1967) was an American jazz cornetist based in Chicago. He was a member of the Bucktown Five, pioneers of the "Chicago style" that straddled traditional Dixieland jazz and swing. Life and career Spanier was born in Chicago, Illinois, United States. At thirteen, he began playing the cornet and played with Elmer Schoebel in 1921. He borrowed the sobriquet of "Muggsy" from John "Muggsy" McGraw, the manager of the New York Giants baseball team. In the early 1920s, he played with the Bucktown Five. In 1929, he became a member of a band led by Ted Lewis, then spent two years with Ben Pollack. After an illness, he assembled the eight-man group Muggsy Spanier and His Ragtime Band. In 1939, the band recorded several sessions of Dixieland standards for Bluebird Records, that were later called The Great Sixteen and influenced a Dixieland revival. The band's members included George Brunies (later Brunis - trombone and v ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Buddy Bolden
Charles Joseph "Buddy" Bolden (September 6, 1877 – November 4, 1931) was an African American cornetist who was regarded by contemporaries as a key figure in the development of a New Orleans style of ragtime music, or "jass", which later came to be known as jazz. Childhood When he was born, Bolden's father, Westmore Bolden, was working as a driver for William Walker, the former master of Buddy's grandfather Gustavus Bolden, who died in 1866. His mother, Alice (née Harris), was 18 when she married Westmore on August 14, 1873. Westmore Bolden was around 25 at the time, as records show that he was 19 in August 1866. When Buddy was six his father died, after which the boy lived with his mother and other family members. In records of the period the family name is variously spelled ''Bolen'', ''Bolding'', ''Boldan'', and ''Bolden'', thus complicating research. Buddy likely attended Fisk School in New Orleans, though evidence is circumstantial, as early records of this and other ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bunk Johnson
Willie Gary "Bunk" Johnson (December 27, 1879 – July 7, 1949) was an American prominent jazz trumpeter in New Orleans. Johnson gave the year of his birth as 1879, although there is speculation that he may have been younger by as much as a decade. Johnson stated on his 1937 application for Social Security (United States), Social Security that he was born on December 27, 1889. Many jazz historians believe this date of birth to be the most accurate of the various dates Johnson gave throughout his life. Biography Education and early musical career Johnson received lessons from Adam Olivier and began playing professionally in Olivier's orchestra. Johnson probably played a few adolescent jobs with Buddy Bolden, but was not a regular member of Bolden's Band (contrary to Johnson's claim). Johnson was regarded as one of the leading trumpeters in New Orleans in the years 1905–1915, in between repeatedly leaving the city to tour with minstrel shows and circus bands. After he failed to ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Big Chief Russell Moore
"Big Chief" Russell Moore (August 13, 1912 – December 15, 1983) was an American jazz trombonist. Moore, a Pima tribe member, grew up on a Native American reservation before moving to Chicago and then Los Angeles where he learned to play various instruments, eventually settling on trombone. Throughout his career, Moore worked with an array of artists including Frank Sinatra, Lionel Hampton, Alberta Hunter and Pee Wee Russell as well as recording under his own name. He is best remembered for his work as a member of Louis Armstrong's band. Life and career Early life Moore was born in Gila Crossing, Arizona inside the Gila River Indian Community reservation in 1912 and belonged to the Pima tribe. He was one of five children born to mother Amy Bending Moore and father José Newton Moore. Musical performances were important to community life on the reservation particularly due to the inaccessibility of record players and radios. Moore's exposure to music from local school band ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
William Manuel Johnson
William Manuel "Bill" Johnson (died December 3, 1972) was an American jazz musician who played banjo and double bass; he is considered the father of the " slap" style of double bass playing. In New Orleans, he played at Lulu White's legendary house of prostitution, with the Eagle Band, and with the Excelsior Brass Band. Johnson claimed to have started "slapping" the strings of his bass (a more vigorous technique than the classical pizzicato) after he accidentally broke his bow on the road with his band in northern Louisiana in the early 1910s. Other New Orleans string bass players picked up this style, and spread it across the country with the spread of New Orleans Jazz. Johnson was founder and manager of the first jazz band to leave New Orleans and tour widely in the 1910s, The Original Creole Orchestra. They participated in vaudeville skits centered around the "Uncle" character and the "boys," performing in the Midwest, Northwest, and Canada. He brought the Creole Band to Chi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Big Sid Catlett
Sidney "Big Sid" Catlett (January 17, 1910 – March 25, 1951) was an American jazz drummer. Catlett was one of the most versatile drummers of his era, adapting with the changing music scene as bebop emerged. Early life Catlett was born in Evansville, Indiana, United States, and at an early age he was instructed in the rudiments of piano and drums, under the tutelage of a music teacher hired by his mother. When he and his family relocated to Chicago, Catlett received his first drum kit, and immersed himself in the diverse styles and techniques of Zutty Singleton, Baby Dodds, Warren "Baby" Dodds, and Jimmy Bertrand, among others. Later life and career In 1928, Catlett began playing with violinist and clarinet player Darnell Howard, before joining pianist Sammy Stewart's Orchestra in New York City, and making appearances at the Savoy Ballroom. After performing for several lesser established musical acts, Catlett began recording and performing with multiple musicians including Be ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Pete Fountain
Pierre Dewey LaFontaine Jr. (July 3, 1930 – August 6, 2016), known professionally as Pete Fountain, was an American jazz clarinetist. Early life and education LaFontaine was born to Pierre, Sr. and Madeline, in a small Creole cottage-style frame house on White Street (between Dumaine Street and St. Ann Street) in New Orleans.Fountain, Pete, with Bill Neely, ''A Closer Walk, the Pete Fountain Story'' (Henry Regnery Company, 1972), p. 2-3 Pete was the great-grandson of a French immigrant, François Fontaine, who was born in Toulon, circa 1796, and came to the U.S. in the early 19th century, and died on the Mississippi Gulf Coast circa 1885. Pete's father, a truck driver and part-time musician, changed the family name to Fountain. He started playing clarinet as a child at the McDonogh 28 school located on Esplanade Avenue. As a child, young Pete was very sickly, frequently battling respiratory infections due to weakened lungs. He was given expensive medication but it proved to ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Miff Mole
Irving Milfred Mole, known professionally as Miff Mole (March 11, 1898 – April 29, 1961) was an American jazz trombonist and band leader. He is generally considered one of the greatest jazz trombonists and credited with creating "the first distinctive and influential solo jazz trombone style." His major recordings included "Slippin' Around", "Red Hot Mama" in 1924 with Sophie Tucker on vocals, "Miff's Blues", and "There'll Come a Time (Wait and See)", which is on the film soundtrack to the 2008 movie '' The Curious Case of Benjamin Button''. Career Miff Mole was born in Greenwich Point, later renamed Roosevelt, Long Island, New York. He studied violin and piano as a child and switched to trombone when he was 15.Yanow 2003, 90. He played in Gus Sharp's orchestra for two years and in the 1920s became a significant figure on the New York scene: he was a member of the Original Memphis Five (1922), played with Ross Gorman, Roger Wolfe Kahn, Sam Lanin, Ray Miller and many others. H ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Albert Nicholas
Albert Nicholas (May 27, 1900 – September 3, 1973) was an American jazz clarinet player. Career Nicholas's primary instrument was the clarinet, which he studied with Lorenzo Tio in his hometown of New Orleans, Louisiana, United States. Late in the 1910s, he played with Buddy Petit, King Oliver, and Manuel Perez. He spent three years in the Merchant Marines and then joined Oliver in Chicago from 1925 to 1927. After time in East Asia and Egypt, he returned to New York City in 1928 and played with Luis Russell until 1933, playing there with Red Allen, Charlie Holmes, and J. C. Higginbotham. Later he played with Chick Webb, Louis Armstrong (with Russell) and Jelly Roll Morton. The Dixieland jazz revival of the late 1940s reinvigorated his career; he played with Art Hodes, Bunk Johnson, and Kid Ory, and had a regular gig with Ralph Sutton in 1948. In 1953, he moved to France; except for recording sessions in the U.S. in 1959-60, he remained there for most of the rest of his ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Barrett Deems
Barrett Deems (March 1, 1914 – September 15, 1998) was an American swing drummer from Springfield, Illinois, United States. He worked in bands led by Jimmy Dorsey, Louis Armstrong, Red Norvo, and Muggsy Spanier. In ''High Society'', a 1956 film, performing drum solo during a scene on the back of the bus. Louis Armstrong and His All Stars play the song "Now You Has Jazz", the movie's star, Bing Crosby, introduces the band members, including Deems, who then performs a short drum solo. Deems was married twice. He died of pneumonia in Chicago aged 84 in September 1998. He left behind his wife, Jane Johnson who is living as of 2022 and resides in Illinois."Obituary; Barrett Deems"; ''The Times''; 28 September 1998, p. 23 References External links Barrett Deems page at Drummerworld NAMM Oral History Library ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Don Ewell
Donald Tyson Ewell (November 14, 1916 – August 9, 1983) was an American jazz stride pianist. He worked with Sidney Bechet, Kid Ory, George Lewis, George Brunis, Muggsy Spanier, and Bunk Johnson. Biography Born in Baltimore, Maryland, Ewell played with Bill Reinhardt's Jazz, Ltd. band in Chicago in 1947, 1948, and 1949. From 1956 to 1962, Ewell was a member of the Jack Teagarden band. After Teagarden died, Ewell toured Europe, then returned to New Orleans and performed in clubs and hotels. From 1976 to 1978, he concertized and suffered from alcoholism while living with his friend King Denton, the manager of a jazz club where Ewell was Artist-in-residence. Ewell moved back to his native Maryland. After his daughter's death from cancer and after suffering two strokes, Ewell died on August 9, 1983, aged 66, in Pompano Beach, Florida. Discography As leader * ''Mama Yancey Singer/Don Ewell Pianist'' (Windin' Ball, 1955) * ''Music to Listen to Don Ewell By'' ( Good Time ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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