Big Joe Turner (vocal) 1911 -1985 :: was an American “blues shouter” (a blues-music singer capable of singing unamplified with a band) known variously as The Boss of the Blues, and Big Joe Turner (due to his 6’2”, 300+ lbs stature), Turner was born in Kansas City.
According to the songwriter Doc Pomus, “Rock and roll would have never happened without him.” Although he had his greatest fame during the 1950s with his rock and roll recordings, particularly “Shake, Rattle and Roll”, Turner’s career as a performer endured from the 1920s into the 1980s.
Turner was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1987.
He first discovered a love of music by involvement with his church. He began singing on street corners for money, quitting school at age fourteen to begin working in Kansas City’s nightclubs, first as a cook, and later as a singing bartender. He became known eventually as The Singing Barman, and worked in such venues as The Kingfish Club and The Sunset, where he and his piano playing partner Pete Johnson became resident performers. The Sunset was managed by Piney Brown. It featured “separate but equal” facilities for caucasian patrons. Turner wrote “Piney Brown Blues” in his honor and sang it throughout his entire career.
His partnership with boogie-woogie pianist Pete Johnson proved fruitful. Together they went to New York City during 1936, where they appeared on a playbill with Benny Goodman, but as Turner recounts, “After our show with Goodman, we auditioned at several places, but New York wasn’t ready for us yet, so we headed back to K.C.”.
Eventually they were witnessed by the talent scout, John H. Hammond during 1938, who invited them back to New York to appear in one of his “From Spirituals to Swing” concerts at Carnegie Hall, which were instrumental in introducing jazz and blues to a wider American audience.
During 1939, along with boogie players Albert Ammons and Meade Lux Lewis, they began a residency at Café Society, a nightclub in New York City, where they appeared on the same playbill as Billie Holiday and Frank Newton’s band.
During 1951, while performing with the Count Basie Orchestra at Harlem’s Apollo Theater as a replacement for Jimmy Rushing, he was spotted by Ahmet and Nesuhi Ertegün, who contracted him with their new recording company, Atlantic Records.Turner recorded a number of successes for them, including the blues standards, “Chains of Love" and "Sweet Sixteen".
Turner’s records scored at the top of the rhythm-and-blues charts; although they were sometimes so risqué that some radio stations would not play them, the songs received much play on jukeboxes and records.
Turner had a great success during 1954 with “Shake, Rattle and Roll”, which not only enhanced his career, turning him into a teenage favorite, but also helped to transform popular music. During the song, Turner yells at his woman to “get outa that bed, wash yo’ face an’ hands” and comments that she’s “wearin’ those dresses, the sun comes shinin’ through!, I can’t believe my eyes, all that mess belongs to you.” He sang the number on film for the 1955 theatrical feature Rhythm and Blues Revue.
On May 26, 1958, “(I’m Gonna) Jump for Joy,” the twentieth and last of Turner’s successes, entered the US R&B record chart.
After a number of successes in this vein, Turner quit popular music and resumed performing as a singer with small jazz combos, recording numerous albums with that style during the 1960s and 1970s.
During 1983, only two years before his death, Turner was inducted into the Blues Hall of Fame.
Kai Winding (trombone) 1922-1983 :: was a popular Danish-born American trombonist and jazz composer. He is well known for a successful collaboration with fellow trombonist J. J. Johnson.
In 1934 his family immigrated to the United States. He graduated in 1940 from Stuyvesant High School in New York City, plus that same year he began his career as a professional trombonist with Shorty Allen's band. Subsequently, he played with Sonny Dunham and Alvino Rey until he entered the United States Coast Guard during World War II.
After the war, Winding joined Benny Goodman's band, and later moved on to Stan Kenton's orchestra. Winding participated in the first of the Birth of the Cool sessions in 1949, appearing on 4 of the 12 tracks (while J. J. Johnson appears on the other eight, having participated on the other two sessions).
In 1954, at the urging of producer Ozzie Cadena, he joined forces with Johnson to produce a highly successful series of trombone duet recordings, which were initially on Savoy Records and then on the Columbia Records label.
While at Columbia, Winding experimented with different instrumentation in brass ensembles: the 1956 album Jay & Kai + 6 features a trombone octet, as well as Winding and Johnson performing on the trombone-like valved horn called the trombonium.
During the 1960s, Kai had a long stint at Verve Records and under producer Creed Taylor made some of his most memorable jazz-pop albums. His best-known recording from this period is More, the theme from the movie Mondo Cane. Arranged and conducted by Claus Ogerman, “More” featured what is probably the first appearance of the French electronic music instrument the Ondioline on an American recording.
Pops Foster (bass acoustic) 1892-1969 :: George Murphy “Pops” Foster was a jazz musician best known for his vigorous playing of the string bass. He also played the tuba and trumpet professionally.
Pops Foster was playing professionally by 1907 and worked with Jack Carey, Kid Ory, Armand Piron, King Oliver and other prominent hot bands of the era.
In 1921 he moved to St. Louis to play with the Charlie Creath and Dewey Jackson bands, in which he would be active for much of the decade. He also joined Ory in Los Angeles. He acquired the nickname “Pops” because he was far older than any of the other players in the band.
In 1929 Foster moved to New York City, where he played with the bands of Luis Russell and Louis Armstrong through 1940. He gigged with various New York-based bands through the 1940s, including those of Sidney Bechet, Art Hodes, and regular broadcasts on the national This Is Jazz radio program. He also recorded for the Mezzrow-Bechet Quintet (Sidney Bechet, Mezz Mezzrow, Fitz Weston, and Kaiser Marshall) and Septet (on two consecutive dates in 1945, with Pappa Snow White, Jimmy Blythe, Jr., Danny Barker and Sid Catlett, and on the second session with Pleasant Joe on vocals).
In the late 1940s he began touring more widely and played in many countries in Europe, especially in France, and throughout the United States including returns to New Orleans and California.
In 1952, Foster toured Europe with Jimmy Archey’s Band. He played regularly at Central Plaza in New York and briefly in New Orleans with Papa Celestin in 1954.
In the late 1950s and early 1960s, he played with Earl Hines’ Small Band. In 1966, he toured Europe with the New Orleans All-Stars but remained based in San Francisco, where he died.
Mike Zwerin (trombone) 1930-2010 :: Mike Zwerin was an American cool jazz musician and author. Zwerin as a musician played the trombone and bass trumpet within various jazz ensembles. He was active within the jazz and prog. jazz musical community as a session musician.
Zwerin found a way to pursue both his interests as an author living in New York, where he was born, and his passion for music by taking positions as a broadcaster, and other journalistic and media positions while maintaining his musical career as well.
Although he gained notoriety for his writing, he may be best known to the public for his work with Miles Davis in 1948 as part of his Birth of the Cool band. Additionally, Zwerin also worked with Maynard Ferguson, Claude Thornhill, and Bill Russo, among many others.
After a period as jazz critic of New York’s Village Voice (1964–69), he was the publication’s European editor (1969–71). Zwerin was also the Paris-based jazz critic for the International Herald Tribune for 21 years, then later for Bloomberg News.
On December 9, 1967, Zwerin was arrested in New Haven, Connecticut along with fellow journalists Tim Page and Yvonne Chabrier at the infamous Doors concert where Jim Morrison was arrested onstage. Charges against all four were dropped due to lack of evidence.
