| T h e D a n c e T h a t D e f i n e d a G e n e r a t i o n . |
| All material © Mark R. Jones, 2008 |
| JENKINS' ORPHANAGE ALUMNI |
| Jabbo Smith Jabbo’s career with the Jenkins’ Band started at age eight; He escaped the orphanage several times to musical freedom, only to be brought back into the fold. However, as a teenager, he ran off the New York, where he has the audacity to challenge Louis Armstrong in after hours cutting contests in black night clubs. At age 17 Jabbo was performing in the show Keep Shufflin' with James P. Johnson (composer of the song 'Charleston') and Fats Waller. During 1929 Jabbo recorded several dozen songs that are now considered some of the best quality recordings of the Dixieland / ragtime / scat style that Armstrong had popularized, and Jabbo perfected. Due to alcohol and drugs, Jabbo’s career was over by the time he was 30. Through the years players such as Dizzy Gillespie and Miles Davis have cited Jabbo as a major influence on their playing style. He spent most of the rest of his life in Wisconsin running a car rental agency. However, in the 1970’s Jabbo made a comeback on the New York stage in the show One Mo’ Time. |
| Jabbo Smith c. 1929 |
| Jabbo Smith & Winton Marsalis |
| William Alonzo Anderson, known as Cat Anderson (b. September 1916) was best-known for his long period playing with Duke Ellington's orchestra, and for his extremely wide range (more than five octaves), especially his playing in the higher registers. Born in Greenville, South Carolina, Anderson lost both parents when he was four years old, and was sent to live at the Jenkins Orphanage in Charleston, where he learned to play trumpet. Classmates gave him the nickname "Cat" (which he used all his life) based on his fighting style. He toured and made his first recording with the Carolina Cotton Pickers, a small group based at the orphanage. After leaving the Cotton Pickers, Anderson played with guitarist Hartley Toots, Claude Hopkins' big band, Doc Wheeler's Sunset Orchestra (1938–1942), with whom he also recorded, Lucky Millender, the Erskine Hawkins Orchestra, Sabby Lewis's Orchestra, and Lionel Hampton, with whom he recorded the classic "Flying Home #2". Anderson's career took off, however, in 1944, when he joined Duke Ellington's orchestra at the Earle Theater in Philadelphia. He quickly became a central part of Ellington's sound. Anderson was capable of playing in a number of jazz styles, but is best remembered as a high-note trumpeter. He had a big sound in all registers, but could play in the extreme high register (up to triple C!) with great power (videos exist showing him playing high-note solos without a microphone, clearly audible over an entire big band with all the members individually miked). Wynton Marsalis has called him "one of the best ever" high note trumpeters. More than just a high-note trumpeter, though, Anderson was also a master of half- valve and plunger-mute playing. He played with Ellington's band from 1944 to 1947, from 1950 to 1959, and from 1961 to 1971, with each break corresponding to a failed attempt to lead his own big band. After 1971, Anderson settled in the Los Angeles area, where he continued to play studio sessions, to gig with local bands (including Louie Bellson's and Bill Berry's big bands), and occasionally to tour Europe. Although his erratic behavior over the last decade (or more) of his life was well documented, it took many by surprise when he died on April 29, 1981 of a brain tumor. |
| Great video link of Cat playing a solo with the Duke Ellington Orchestra |
| Another great clip of Cat /w the Eliington Orchestra. Cat is the last trumpet player to solo. Truly amazing! |
| Here is a clip of Jabbo at age 79 still playing ... a concert in Paris. |
| Clip of Count Basie Rhythm Section doing what is does best ... SWING! Freddie Green (guitar), Basie (piano), Norman Keenan (bass) and Sonny Payne (drums). |
| This 1950 Count Basie Sextet features Clark Terry, Wardell Gray, Buddy DeFranco, Freddie Green, Jimmy Lewis and Gus Johnson playing One o'clock Jump. Starting at 1:45 into the song, great camera shot of Green jamming. |
| Freddie Green was born in Charleston, South Carolina, on March 31, 1911. Green began to develop an interest in music by the time he was about ten, although it was a further ten years before he started to teach himself guitar. Even though he was not an orphan, he was featured in the Jenkins Orphanage Band as a vocalist. Like so many others before him, he decided to try his luck in New York, a decision he was not, as it turned out, to regret. He became known as the definitive jazz rhythm guitarist. He rarely soloed (briefly on a few records early on), he stuck to acoustic guitar, and was often more felt than heard. Although he had originally played banjo, Green was playing guitar in New York in early 1937 when producer John Hammond heard him and immediately recommended him to Count Basie. A quick audition and Green had the job, forming a classic rhythm section with Basie, Walter Page , and Jo Jones. After 13 years with the orchestra, Green was not originally included in Basie's small group in 1950, but one night sat down uninvited on the bandstand and never left. |
| Freddie Green, 'Mr. Rhythm' on guitar with the Basie band. |
| Duke Ellington, Freddie Green & Count Basie |
| Cover of 'Mr. Rhythm" Green's only solo LP. |
America's professional jazz musicians are hardly renowned for their charity towards colleagues of mediocre talent, but this renders their praise all the more meaningful. Hence, Freddie Green's nickname, "Mr. Rhythm", conferred upon him by fellow musicians, represents praise indeed. Freddie Green is the very personification of rhythm, the unfailing pulse of the most consistent rhythm section jazz has known. Back in 1941 he won the guitar section of the magazine "Metronome" reader's poll, even though he was, and always has remained, an accompanist, a musician whose solo contributions are almost non-existent - and this within a career stretching back ove rfifty years. He stayed with the Basie band after Basie's death, making a recording with Dianne Schuur and the Frank Foster-led Basie orchestra in 1987, shortly before he passed on after nearly 50 years of service. Billie Holliday said: I've loved three men. One was a Marion Scott, when I was a kid. He works for the post office now. The other was Freddie Green, Basie's guitar man. But Freddie's first wife is dead and he has two children and somehow it didn't work out. The third was Sonny White, the pianist, but like me, he lives with his mother and our plans for marriage didn't jell. That's all. |