Michel Gaudry (23 September 1928 – 29 May 2019) was a French
jazz
Jazz is a music genre that originated in the African-American communities of New Orleans, Louisiana in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, with its roots in blues and ragtime. Since the 1920s Jazz Age, it has been recognized as a major ...
double-bassist
The double bass (), also known simply as the bass () (or #Terminology, by other names), is the largest and lowest-pitched Bow (music), bowed (or plucked) string instrument in the modern orchestra, symphony orchestra (excluding unorthodox addit ...
and
World War II
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...
historian.
Biography
Michel Gaudry was born in
Eu, France
Eu () is a commune in the Seine-Maritime department in the Normandy region in northern France.
Eu is located near the coast in the eastern part of the department, near the border with Picardy.
Its inhabitants are known in French as the ''Eudois ...
on 23 September 1928. He learned clarinet and piano as a child before switching to bass. Following studies at the
Michel Hausser Michel Hausser (born February 7, 1927, Colmar) is a French jazz vibraphone, vibraphonist.
Hausser played accordion as a child and taught the instrument in his early twenties before switching to vibraphone in 1948. Initially, he studied the instrume ...
, beginning his professional career in 1955. In the latter half of the 1950s he worked with
Billie Holiday
Billie Holiday (born Eleanora Fagan; April 7, 1915 – July 17, 1959) was an American jazz and swing music singer. Nicknamed "Lady Day" by her friend and music partner, Lester Young, Holiday had an innovative influence on jazz music and pop si ...
Carmen McRae
Carmen Mercedes McRae (April 8, 1920 – November 10, 1994) was an American jazz singer. She is considered one of the most influential jazz vocalists of the 20th century and is remembered for her behind-the-beat phrasing and ironic interpre ...
, and
Art Simmons
Arthur Eugene Simmons (February 5, 1926 – April 23, 2018) was an American jazz pianist.
Simmons was born in Glen White, West Virginia in February 1926. He played in a band while serving in the U.S. military in 1946, then remained in Germany aft ...
. He was very active in the early 1960s, playing with
Elek Bacsik
Elek Bacsik (22 May 1926 – 14 February 1993) was a Hungarian-American jazz guitarist and violinist. He was the cousin of guitarist Django Reinhardt.
Career
Bacsik was born in Budapest, Hungary. He was the son of Árpád Bacsik and Erzséb ...
,
Kenny Clarke
Kenneth Clarke Spearman (January 9, 1914January 26, 1985), nicknamed Klook, was an American jazz drummer and bandleader. A major innovator of the bebop style of drumming, he pioneered the use of the ride cymbal to keep time rather than the hi-ha ...
,
Sonny Criss
William "Sonny" Criss (23 October 1927 – 19 November 1977) was an American jazz musician.
An alto saxophonist of prominence during the bebop era of jazz, he was one of many players influenced by Charlie Parker.
Biography
William Criss wa ...
,
Stephane Grappelli Stephane may refer to:
* Stéphane, a French given name
* Stephane (Ancient Greece)
A stephane (''ancient Greek'' στέφανος, from ''στέφω'' (stéphō, “I encircle”), '' Lat.'' Stephanus = wreath, decorative wreath worn on the head ...
,
Bud Powell
Earl Rudolph "Bud" Powell (September 27, 1924 – July 31, 1966) was an American jazz pianist and composer. Along with Charlie Parker, Thelonious Monk, Kenny Clarke and Dizzy Gillespie, Powell was a leading figure in the development of modern ...
,
Stuff Smith
Hezekiah Leroy Gordon Smith (August 14, 1909 – September 25, 1967), better known as Stuff Smith, was an American jazz violinist. He is well known for the song "If You're a Viper" (the original title was "You'se a Viper").
Smith was, alo ...
, and
Billy Strayhorn
William Thomas Strayhorn (November 29, 1915 – May 31, 1967) was an American jazz composer, pianist, lyricist, and arranger, who collaborated with bandleader and composer Duke Ellington for nearly three decades. His compositions include "Take ...
, as well as continuing a longtime slot as a member of
Jack Diéval
Jacques "Jack" Diéval (born December 21, 1920, Douai) was a French jazz pianist, composer, and bandleader.
Diéval's parents were also jazz musicians, who led an ensemble known as the DéDé Jazz Band. He studied music at the Douai Conservatory w ...
's group. In the 1970s, he played with
Gérard Badini
Gérard Badini (born April 16, 1931, Paris, France), known as Mr. Swing, is a French jazz bandleader, composer, reedist, and pianist.
Badini's father was an opera singer. Badini began playing professionally in the early 1950s, playing clarinet in ...
's group, Swing Machine, and was a regular performer at the Grande Parade du Jazz in
Nice
Nice ( , ; Niçard: , classical norm, or , nonstandard, ; it, Nizza ; lij, Nissa; grc, Νίκαια; la, Nicaea) is the prefecture of the Alpes-Maritimes department in France. The Nice agglomeration extends far beyond the administrative c ...
Irvin Stokes
Irvin Stokes (born November 11, 1926, Greensboro, North Carolina) is an American jazz trumpeter.
Stokes moved to New York City in 1947 and recorded with a Charlie Singleton sextet in 1949. Throughout the 1950s he worked in the big bands of Tiny B ...
Barry Kernfeld
Barry Dean Kernfeld (born August 11, 1950) is an American musicologist and jazz saxophonist who has researched and published extensively about the history of jazz and the biographies of its musicians.
Education
In 1968, Kernfeld enrolled at U ...