Luis Russell and Sonny White: 2 Panamanian JazzMen


Luis Russell (6 August 1902 - 11 December 1963) was a jazz pianist and bandleader.

Luis Carl Russell was born on Careening Cay, near Bocas del Toro, Panama, in a family of Afro-Caribbean ancestry. His father was a music teacher, and young Luis learned to play violin, guitar, trombone, and piano. He began playing professionally accompanying silent film by 1917 and later at a casino in Colón, Panama. In 1919 he won $3000 (USD) in a lottery, and used it to move to the United States with his mother and sister, settling in New Orleans, Louisiana. He began performing with New Orleans bands, and took lessons on New Orleans style jazz piano from Steve Lewis. He played with Albert Nicholas's band, then moved to Chicago, Illinois in 1924.

In Chicago he played with Doc Cook and King Oliver, in addition to occasional jobs under his own name and pick up bands in recording studios. With Oliver's band Russell moved to New York City in May of 1927. In October of that year he left Oliver to start his own band.

Russell's band became one of the top jazz groups in New York. It was borrowed for gigs and recording dates by such jazz notables as Red Allen, Jelly Roll Morton, and Louis Armstrong; Armstrong wound up taking over the band as front man in 1929 although Russell remained the music director.

The band returned to Russell's name while Armstrong played in California and Europe in the early 1930s; Russell and Armstrong were reunited in 1935. They again split paths in 1943 when Russell formed a new band under his own name, which played at the Savoy and Apollo in Manhattan as well as in Atlantic City, New Jersey.

Between 1926 and 1934, Russell recorded only 38 sides (mostly using his own name), plus those issued under Henry "Red" Allen (1929) and a handful where Louis Armstrong fronted his band. Of these, his 1929-1930 OKeh sides are considered jazz milestones. A 6 song session for ARC (Melotone, Perfect, Oriole, Banner, Romeo) in 1934 yielded 6 very precise modern recordings (3 featured Sonny Woods' novelty vocals, 1 featured the great, although obscure Palmer Brothers). The two instrumental sides, "Primitive" and "Hokus Pokus" are amazing examples of hot jazz precision.

In 1935 Louis Armstrong took it over the orchestra altogether and for the next eight years they functioned as back-up band for Armstrong with Russell acting as the musical director. Russell led a new band from 1943-48 that played at the Savoy and Apollo and made a few recordings.

In 1948 Russell retired from full time music and opened a notions shop, with irregular band gigs and teaching music on the side. In 1959 he visited Panama where he gave a piano recital of classical music.

Luis Russell died of cancer in New York City, aged 61.

Taken from WIKIPEDIA

.:::


Sonny White was a pianist was born Ellerton Oswald, in Panama on November 11, 1917, a name that surely doesn't sound as jazzy as the one he would later adopt when he began working in the mid-'30s in a combo led by Jesse Stone. He continued playing piano until his death in 1969, sticking religiously to one form of jazz or the other without ever compromising. Although not a big name in jazz, his stylistic range is broader than some other players who are much more famous, spreading from the early hot jazz sounds of master soprano chirper Sidney Bechet to the speeding-down-the-turnpike hard bop of tenor player Dexter Gordon's The Chase! projects. He played and recorded with Willie Bryant, Sidney Bechet, Teddy Hill, and Frankie Newton in the late '30s, but it was his recording sessions with jazz vocalist supreme Billie Holiday that form his most enduring legacy from this period. He can be heard accompanying two of the singer's favorite moods; dark and cynical on her classic "Strange Fruit" and groovy and upbeat on "Fine and Mellow." The bands on these sessions combine fitting and swinging rhythm sections with tremendous soloists, and being part of one of these groups was the jazz equivalent of having been sprinkled with fairy dust. That seems to have been the case with White, whose employment through the '40s was with major players, including popular bandleader Artie Shaw and brilliant reed man and arranger Benny Carter, the latter gig preempted by World War II and continued immediately thereafter. Listeners exploring the works of several other of the finest singers in jazz and R&B will come across White again even after leaving Holiday heaven. He appears on recordings by blues shouter Big Joe Turner, one of the guys who put the zip into rock & roll, as well as that classy disciple of Lady Day's, the wonderful Lena Horne. Between 1944 and 1946, he got in on Dexter Gordon sessions that helped establish the tenor player as a new Sir Galahad. The pianist needed strong chops in order to feed the horn players chords while they soloed at great length. These popular loose jams were released under titles such as the previously mentioned The Chase! as well as Blowin' the Blues Away, a title that, considering the zesty music it accompanies, ought to come with a money back guarantee. In 1947, he was sucked into the band of Hot Lips Page, a trumpeter whose hot jazz background echoed White's previous employment with Bechet. Trumpeter Harvey Davis is an obscure character who is no relation to another slightly more famous trumpeter with the same last name, but he did hold down an eight-year residency at the Cinderella Club in New York City, and for many musicians staying in one place is something of a dream. This group moved on to Jimmy Ryan's in 1954. White worked with Wilbur DeParis until the early '60s, then in several groups including a combo led by Eddie Barefield in 1968. His final employer was swing trumpeter Jonah Jones, with whom he was still gigging when he died in the early '70s. He died in New York, USA, on April 28, 1971. ~ Eugene Chadbourne, All Music Guide

Thanks to The Melting Pot Blog

Posted by el doctor at 11/7/2010 12:33 PM
Categories: Articulos
Tags: jazz panama
Previous Post
Next Post

 

What did you think of this article?




Trackbacks
Trackback specific URL for this post
  • No trackbacks exist for this post.
Comments
Display comments as (Linear | Threaded)
Page: 1 of 3
Page: 1 of 3
Leave a comment

 Name

 Email (will not be published)

 Website

Your comment is 0 characters limited to 3000 characters.