BIRTHDAYS
1939     Tony Archer, Bass, b. London, England.
1930     Polly Bergen, actress/vocals. Not to be confused with Candace Bergen, - Daughter of Edgar Bergen.
1948     Doug Carn, Organ, b. New York, NY. USA
1899     J. Lawrence Cook, Pianist/Piano Roll transcriber and manufacturer/arranger/author, b. Athens, TN, USA. d. April 2, 1976, Mt. Vernon, NY, USA. (Coronary. Age: 76). né: Jean Lawrence Cook. J. Lawrence Cook, well earned his sobriquet "Dean of the Piano Roll". However, while many critics have said that he arranged 20,000 or more Player Piano Music Rolls, he disputed that number, claiming only that he worked very hard to produce everything from Nursery Rhymes to Concertos. His father (Jacob L. Cook -and wife Zella) was a Presbyterian minister and educator. Both parents died when Cook was 3, and he was raised by relatives who cared for him. During this time, he also learned to play the violin, the piano and the clarinet. At just age 15 he became enchanted with piano roll music and purchased a hand operated piano roll perforator for $150, paying it off at $10 a month by working at menial jobs. Moving to New York from his native Pittsburgh, he took a course in piano technique learning harmony and composition. In those days, player pianos were big business and Cook found work with 'U.S. Music Rolls Inc.', one of some fifty companies that flourished in the 1920s. For years, he was one of about 100 top U.S. arranger-perforators. Circa 1930, the Piano Roll business faded away. The three main causes for it's demise were the invention of Radio braadcasting (ca 1921), Movies, especially 'Talking Films' after ca. 1927, and increasing popularity of the electrically operated Phonograph (no more hand cranking), with their electrically recorded shellac discs. Most all Piano Roll companies were forced to cease production. However, Cook, though working a full time job at the U. S. Post Office, continued to serve a small piano roll market with his own "J. Lawrence Cook Rolls." Cook was also a composer in his own right, composing a beautiful full orchestral suite, and other works. He was also fluent in Spanish , French, and had studied Japanese. He finished his days as a retired Postal Worker, but was quite musically active. During his long career, Cook was a friend of such wonderful Jazz pianists as W.C. Handy, Eubie Blake and Jelly Roll Morton. Teddy Wilson was one of his pupils. NOTE: For still more information on J. Lawrence Cook, please see our Tunesmith's Database entry for Max Kortlander, (b. September 1, 1890, Grand Rapids, MI, USA. d. Oct. 11, 1961, Rye, NY, USA. Age: 71 pased away while in the office of the Imperial Industrial Company, 781 East 136th Street, the Bronx, New York City.)
1950     Todd Coolman, Bass.
1975     Tameka Cottle, R&B vocals.
1952     Chris Cross, bassist/synthesizer. né: Christopher St.John, Member: Ultravox, Had many UK Top 40 singles.
1929     George Alan Dawson, Drums, vibraphone, b. Marietta, PA, USA. d. Feb. 23, 1996, age 66.
c.1950     Akua Dixon, cello, b. New York (Bronx), NY, USA. Akua Dixon once told a reporter that she knew she was meant for the cello the first time she heard it, as a fourth-grader at Public School 77 in the Bronx. After Public School, Akua attended and graduated from New York's 'High School for Performing Arts', where she studied cello with Benar Heifetz and composition with Rudolph Schramm. Then, at the 'Manhattan School of Music' Dixon studied arranging with Frank Foster at Jazzmobile. Her first professional job came as a member of the Apollo Theatre Orchestra (in Harlem, NY). In 1973, Dixon formed her own string quartet, Quartette Indigo, which performed not only her Jazz arrangements for strings, but many of Dixon's own original works. Her string quartet arrangements were featured on an eight-country concert tour of Europe and Scandinavia. Among the many noted artists with whom she has worked are Lionel Hampton, the wonderful Eubie Blake, "Duke" Ellington, Max Roach, and singers Tony Bennett, Diana Ross, and Marvin Gaye. She has also worked on many Broadway shows. Akua is the wife of world-renowned trombonist Steve Turre and the mother of two children, Andromeda and Orion. Her vocalizing can be heard on Turre's Sextet with Strings recording 'Right There', and on Archie Shepp's 'Attica Blues Big Band' recording "Live at the Palais de Glace".�Today (2004), she continues active, performing nationally and internationally at concert halls, colleges, and jazz festivals. In 1998, the Northern New Jersey Spelman Alumnae Association awarded her 'The African American Classical Music Award'.
1891     Fréhel, singer and actress. b. Paris, France, d February 3, 1951, née: Marguerite Boulc'h Born to a poor and dysfunctional family, as a child she was left to a life on the streets in the dark side of Paris. While still in her teens, female music-hall performer heard her sing and introduced her to show business promoters. She began performing under the stage name "Pervenche", and soon met and married Robert Hollard, a performer who used the stage name of "Roberty." Sadly, alcohol entered her life at an early age and her drinking became a problem for her husband. Their marriage was short-lived and Boulc'h's husband left her for the Parisian singer, 'Damia'. Fréhel then began a relationship with Maurice Chevalier but that too did not last long and after he left her for the much older megastar Mistinguett, the distraught girl, still only 19 years old, attempted suicide.
1939     Karel Gott, (Czech) singer, b. Pilsen, Czechoslovakia. Perhaps the most successful and widely-known contemporary Czech singer.
1909     Walter Gross, piano/composer, b. New York, NY, USA. d. 1967, USA.
1912     Woodie Guthrie, guitar/folksinger/composer, b. Okemah, OK, USA. d. Oct. 3, 1967. né: Woodrow Wilson Guthrie. Composed over 1,000 original songs, - mostly for the Communust Party of America. Father of folk singer Arlo Guthrie.. Worked mostly as a 'singles act' but did appear with The Almanac Singers
1899     Billy Hill, Jazz Piano/vocals/composer, b. Boston, MA, d. Dec. 24, 1940, New York, NY. né: William J. Hill. Worked With: Benny Carter; Coleman Hawkins; Gene Autry; Louis Armstrong; Bunny Berigan; The Boswell Sisters; Bing Crosby; Jimmy Durante; Tommy Dorsey; Benny Goodman; Butch Baldassari; Fletcher Henderson; Jack Bulterman; Alix Combelle; Al Thomas; Jack Pet; Lew Stevenson; Billy Ternent; Les Gilbert; Bruce Trent; Andre Ekyan; George Van Helvoirt; Wim Poppink; Eugene D'Hellemmes; Stanley Roderick; Jack Bentley; Tommy Benford; and Kees Kranenburg.
1949     Hank Johnson, piano, arranger, composer. While still a high-school student, this keyboardist attracted attention as the leader of a unique combo which combined piano with bass, flute, and a pair of conga drummers. Gospel m,usic was part of Johnson's youth. His father was a minister who early on had made professional use of his son's talents on piano. His later release of "House on Elm Street" is now considered by many as the best example of the 'Harold Johnson Sextet'.(Do not confuse with the first "Nightmare on Elm Street" film, which was released 17 years later.) Throughout the 1970s and '80s, Johnson did sessions work including arranging and producing for "the Temptations". The albums he cut in the second half of the 1960s for an independent west coast label named Revue are still sought after
CAUTION: Do not confuse with:
*** Harold Johnson -- Alto Sax, and Soprano singer, who was active with the "Taverner Consort"
*** Harold Johnson --- Rock drummer and singer, whose North Carolinian (Winston-Salem area) band was typical of combos that worked in that state's venues, from honky tonks to college bars.
*** Harold Johnson --- senior "doo wop" vocalist with "The Crickets"
*** "Money" Johnson --- Duke Ellington's trumpet player
1905     Bonnie King, vocals. né: Julia Berndt Best recalled for her work with Bob Crosby Orch.
1894     Ted Koehler, lyricist/composer, b. Washingnton, D.C.,USA. d. Jan. 17, 1973, Santa Monica, CA
1914     Billy Kyle, Piano, b. Philadelphia, PA, USA d. 1966.
1952     George E. Lewis, Trombone, b. Chicago, IL. USA.
1930     Louis "Sabu" Martinez, Latin Percussist, b. New York, NY, USA d. Jan. 13, 1979, gastric ulcer. Some of the bands, and musicians, with whom "Sabu" played, include:
Ray Baretto
Count Basie
Harry Belafonte
Tony Bennett
Art Blakey
Ray Bryant
Candido
Xavier Cugat
Sammy Davis, Jr.
Buddy de Franco
Art Farmer
Dizzy Gillespie
Benny Goodman
Lionel Hampton
J.J. Johnson
Jo Jones
Lecuona Cuban Boys
Joe Loco
Herbie Mann
Red Mitchell
Thelonius Monk
Esy Morales
Noro Morales
Charlie Parker
Chano Pozo
Josephine Premice
Louie Ramirez
Max Roach
Arsenio Rodriguez
Tito Rodriguez
Ronnie Scott
Sahib Shehab
Horace Silver
Miguelito Valdez
Carlos "Patato" Valdez
1948     Tommy Matola, CEO CBS records.
1971     Nick McCabe, guitar. Member group: 'The Verve'
1933     Kenny Napper, Bass, b. London, England.
1933     Del Reeves, vocals, b. Sparta, N.C., USA, d. Jan. 1, 2007, Centerville, TN, USA. (emphysema). His age was variously given as 73 and 74. né: Franklin Delano Reeves ( "Del" was named for then-presidential candidate Franklin D. Roosevelt). The youngest of 11 children, Del learned to play guitar with his mother's help and by age 12 was already playing a regular gig on a local radio show. He attended Appalachian State College in Boone, N.C., and served in the U. S. Air Force, performing and writing songs while stationed at Travis Air Force Base in California. In 1962, he moved from California to Nashville, where he was regarded as a rising singer-songwriter. Del soon became a 'Grand Ole Opry' star, and in 1965 hit No. 1 on the Country music charts with the song "Girl on the Billboard" (a million copy seller). Del would go on to spend the next 40 years performing with the Grand Ole Opry. In the late 1960s, Reeves had a syndicated TV show, "The Del Reeves Country Carnival." He also appeared in several movies, including "Sam Whiskey," starring Burt Reynolds and Clint Walker. In the early 1990s, he promoted the career of singer Billy Ray Cyrus, an arrangement that ended up in court with Reeves suing for damages. The case was later settled out of court for an undisclosed sum. Among his other hits were "The Belles of Southern Bell," "Women Do Funny Things to Me," "Looking at the World Through a Windshield," "Good Time Charlie's," "Be Glad" and "The Philadelphia Fillies."
1966     Ellen Reid, keyboard/accordion/vocals, b. Canada. member group: Crash Test Dummies
1933     Stan Rubin, clarinet/saxes
1938     Bob Scholl, vocals, b. Mt. Vernon, NY< USA. Member: 'The Mello-Kings'
1917     Sammy Stokes, bass, b. England, UK Played with Jack Parnell Orchestra and others.
1919     Claude & Cliffton Trenier, 'Cajun' vocals. b. Mobile, AL, USA . ( Twin brothers who sang delightful "Chanky-Chank" music. Claude, d. Nov, 17, 2003, and Cliff, d. Mar. 2, 1983 ) Member: 'The Trenier Twins'
1956     Richard Underwood, vocals/guitar, member of the The Johnson Mountain Boys (C&W) group.
1935     Dick Waterman, promoter, b. Plymouth, MA, USA.
1907     Henry "Rubberlegs" Williams, Vocal/Dancer, b. Atlanta, GA, d. 1962.
1947     Cary Wolfson, ceo: Blues Access Magazine, b. Baltimore, MD, USA.
1929     Dempsey Wright, guitar, b. USA. d. April 24, 2001, Hot Springs, AR, USA
         Notable Events on this date include:
1942.    Helen O'Connell and Bob Eberly recorded the song "Brazil" with the Jimmy Dorsey band. It was their last duet together.
1943.    Jules Bledsoe, vocals/gospel, died in Los Angeles, CA, USA. Age: 44
1965.    Spencer Williams, piano/composer, died in New York (Flushing), NY, USA. Age: 66
1969.    Ernie Farrow, multi-instrumentalist who played piano, bass, and drums, died (b. Nov. 13, 1928, Huntington, West Virginia, USA, He was the half-brother of Alice Coltrane)
1972.    Brother Joe May, gospel, died in Thomasville, GA, USA. Age: 59
1975.    Zutty Singleton, drummer, died in New York, NY, USA. (b. May 14, 1898 in Bunkie, Louisiana, USA.)
1978.    Lennie Hastings drummer, died ( b. Jan. 5,.1925)
1989.    Fats Waller, Jr. piano/composer, died in New York (Jamaica), NY, USA. Age: 61 né: Maurice Waller Jr
1993.    Moses Dillard, guitar/producer/songwriter, died in Nashville, TN, USA. Age: 46
1995.    Earl Coleman, vocalist died in New York, NY, USA. (b. Aug. 12, 1995, Port Huron, Michigan, USA.. CAUTION: some sites confuse his Dates of Birth and Demise. )
1998.    Beryl Bryden, , jazz vocalist, died due to cancer complications. (b. May 11, 1920, Norwich, England). Ella Fitzgerald, called her "Britain's queen of the blues''
2005.    Joe Harnell, piano, composer, arranger died in Sherman Oaks, California , USA. (b. Aug. 2, 1924, New York (Bronx ), NY, USA. )
         Songs Recorded/Released this date include:
       1916 "American Jubilee Rag", - Conway's Band
       1925 "She Was Just A Sailor's Sweetheart", - Earl Gresh's Gangplank Orch.
       1926 "For My Sweetheart", - Mike Merkel and his Orch.
       1930 "I'm Only Human After All", - Colonial Club Orch. (Bob Haring Band.)
       1930 "Mushmouth Shuffle", - Jelly Roll Morton's Red Hot Peppers
       1932 "Oodles of Noodles", - Jimmy Dorsey Clarinet Solo.
       1932 "Love Me Tonight", - Earl Hines and his Orch.
       1932 "Down Among The Sheltering Palms", - Earl Hines and his Orch.
       1933 "You Never Saw A Fish Like The Saw Fish I Saw", - Dick Robertson Orch
       1937 "Danger, Love At Work", - Hal Kemp Orch.
       1939 "A Study In Scarlet", - Larry Clinton Orch.
       1942 "That Hot Lick Fiddlin'", - Bob Wills and His Texas Playboys
       1942 "Dearly Beloved", - Glenn Miller Orch.
       1942 "Caribbean Clipper", - Glenn Miller Orch.
       1958 "If Dreams Came True", - Pat Boone
       1962 "You'll Lose A Good Thing", - Barbara Lynn
       1962 "Roses Are Red", -Bobby Vinton's single hit No. 1 in USA.
       1962 "Ahab, The Arab", - Ray Stevens
       1968 "I Love How You Love Me", -Bobby Vinton's release hit No. 9 on USA charts.
       1973 "Get Down", - Gilbert O'Sullivan
       1973 "Morning After, The", - Maureen McGovern
       1973 "Brother Louie", - Stories
       1974 "Roses Are Red", - Bobby Vinton's single hit No.15 in the UK
       1990 "Epic", - Faith No More
       1990 "Come Back To Me", - Janet Jackson
       1990 "Unskinny Bop", - Poison
       1990 "Jerk Out", - Time